I am back from the Crazy Quilt conference in Omaha, NB. I arrived thurs. and met my friend Carol from Claremont, FL at the airport and we travelled via their shuttle to the Doubletree Inn & suites. We were roomates also. It is a very nice venue for a 3 day conference. We had both signed up for the same classes. The first on Fri. was with Lisa Caryl from Iowa and was a Victorian themed cq covered box. Lisa is always a great teacher and her kits are always very generous. You never run out of anything. We got about half way through our cq pieces and will finish it at home and then make the box. She demonstrated the covering of it and it looked fairly simple. Hopefully I can handle it.

Sat. we took a fun class from Mary Anne Griffin who I have met before and really like. She has to be the most talented gal I have ever met. She has won many awards for her various work including a first prize in cross stitch magazine for her christmas stocking plus she won a first prize trip to France to Sophie Gelfi's first European CQ retreat.

Our class was to introduce us to various new methods to make things we can add to cq. One of the great things she did for us was to put the lessons on a cd for us to take home so we could just replay it to refresh our memories and mine sure needs refreshing. I always find I do not do my best work in a class. when I come home and relax then I can do better.

Sunday was with Mary Anne again and it was a lesson on the Babylock new 12 needle Embellisher machine. I have the first model the 7 needle one. The 12 allows you to cover more fabric at a time and has a ribbon feed for adding ribbon or cording right to the fabric. We made a beautiful felted picture with a basket of flowers made from felted rods and various fabrics. I also need to finish this one at home and then will post it.

This was a fun course and the gals really seemed to like it. Mary Anne is also an excellent teacher. I would highly recommend both Lisa and MA if you ever get to take one of their classes. The Babylock gal was there and was giving a very good price on the 12 needle model if anyone was interested. I believe a few of the gals bought them. There was not enough difference between the 2 models to tempt me.

Every evening there is something going on and we were up at 7 and not into bed until 11 or 11.30. I admit I was exhausted by Sunday and am just recouping now after a few good nights sleep. We retired people are not used to running non stop but it sure was fun. If you get a chance to go some year you will enjoy it.

Nancy Kirk is stepping down from the board and being co-ordinator of the retreat along with help from many of our cq gals like Willa, Kate, Mona and many others whose names I can't remember. You did a great job again ladies. A new gal whose name I do not know is taking over and will have the help of many of our cq gals like in the past. They have some great ideas to make this even bigger and better so start saving your pennies now.

I took our old camera with me and had not used it for months. I was clicking away and not really checking them until I put them into the computer and found out I had only a few. I will post one each of Mona and Kate because they are the queens of our group. They are the ones that take the donated blocks from all over the world and make them into the quilts that are auctioned or won with the raffle. I was a lucky winner and won a pretty 4 square yellow one that will go nice in my yellow and blue guest/sewing room in Florida. Also there is a fun pic of Mary Anne and her great helper in classes - our own Karen South from Louisville.

I will take a pic of my winning wallhanging tomorrow with our good camera.

It is good to be back gals.

ps - I assume you all know these gals which is not true so the first pic is Kate, 2nd. Mona and third the 2 good friends Mary Anne & Karen.

I should have added Karen is on the left and Mary Anne joking around on the right.