Crazy Quilt Retreat Part I - Thurs & Fri

Hello! Welcome back! Wait a minute.... it's ME that's been gone.... off to Omaha for the 12th (or was it the 13th?) annual Crazy Quilt Society Retreat. What a blast we had! I've got a lot of pictures and stories and things to share. So, let me just dig in...

I arrived in Omaha on Thursday the 9th. Donna Johnson, my friend and roomie, picked me up at the airport. We've roomed together many times before at the Retreat, the John Campbell School, and even at a "slumber party" we had once when she visited Salt Lake City. We were given a room on the 6th floor of the Doubletree Hotel, which is where all the Retreat classrooms were and where the vendors were assigned. We both were selling goodies (out of our rooms, which is how it's done there). Donna had lovely dyed lace, painted (inked) buttons and charms (which sold out quickly), beads and embossed velvets. I had vintage lace, golden laces (dyed with potassium permanganate), fabric packs and specialty fabric/trim themed packs. We did quite well, and were grateful to Dominic, the hotel's event coordinator, for setting us up with quite a table to sell from in our room! It was a bar set-up table with two levels, and the tall level was PERFECT for measuring laces & ribbons, as well as writing up sales slips.

On Thursday night was Show & Tell, and we got to see so many amazing works of art by the attendees, as well as many of the items that were going to be auctioned off on Saturday. Here are a few of the pieces.
The above quiltlet/wallhanging was made by Lisa DuCoing, and was very lovely (and popular!) And the Omaha Crazy Quilters group, who joined us en masse at the retreat, provided the chocolate for the evening (and the next evening, and the one after that........). OMG, it was Chocolate Heaven. They served fresh fruit, too. For many of us that was our dinner, and we pronounced it a perfectly balanced meal! LOL

On Friday, my class was a "silk texturing" class, which I thought, as a crazy quilter, was fabric manipulation. Wrong! Maybe next time I'll read the description and between the lines too. It meant hand sewing and "scouring" and rinsing and dyeing. Rather like tye-die, only upscale, with silk. Definitely NOT my cup of tea.... The well-renowned and talented instructor tantalized us with some samples of his work:


And this was my result (pathetic, but not unlike the others' results):

There's definitely no future for me with this.......

Now, you members of the Crazy Quilt International Yahoo group know that I valiantly vowed to keep an eye on our resident troublemaker, Connie. <*wink*> So, here she is, "stirring up the pot" in class. She's showing her lovely purse (from our CQI Purse Contest) to a group of admiring ladies. See what I mean? She's "trouble" with a capital T.

On Friday after class (and a nap), Donna & I went to Mangelson's to get dinner (salads) and to shop. We both picked up some ribbons. The red polka dot ribbon is for my ddil (it matches some cotton fabric I gave her) and the checkered is for us to split. The white with pink baby feet is for the baby shower we're planning, and the rest is for......... CQ, of course!

That night (Friday) we also had the Fiber Exchange and the Prom Dress cut-up. This picture (below) is Lisa Caryl. She and I caught each other taking pictures of each other, LOL, so we both hammed it up!

And my parting picture for this post (more tomorrow) is yet another picture of Connie making mischief. Here she is (right), talking to Marsha (left). I'm POSITIVE she's plotting something. Don't let that innocent face fool you! :-)

Tomorrow - Saturday and Sunday at the retreat, plus more stash purchases, gifts, and other talk....

Hugs,