Vermont Quilt Festival 2014 meet Thelma and Loiuse

As I have learned over the past month or so, it doesn’t take much to upset your plans. One week into my “retirement”, as I rushed from one task to the next, I managed to injure my foot. We are big walkers, hikers and bikers in this house, so an injury, especially one that keeps your feet up and out of closed toed shoes, sure can upset the apple cart. I learned the hard way that a pretty minor injury can keep you from your favorite activities and can certainly curtail all others. Driving a car is tough, especially a manual. So all those trips to the beach..haven’t happened yet. My trips to PEI...nope. Even quilting has been difficult because after a few hours of standing, the foot swells. A nuisance? Darn tootin!

As the healing progresses, there was one trip I have been able to take. Thanks to the lovely driving skills of my partner in many quilt related crimes, the Louise to my Thelma, I was able to get to the Vermont Quilt Festival In Essex Junction, Vermont. As we drove that long and at times, very windy road, me with one foot hiked up on the dash, we did solve a lot of world problems (well, quilt world problems). We also managed to find possibly the best maple walnut ice cream on the planet. Oh, and the BEST crab cakes ever. Go to Pauline’s, you won’t be sorry! And on the way home, the house special pizza at Pat’s Pizza won high marks, especially since it could also be ordered gluten free. But, I think Pat’s was in Maine. It was a long drive. We crossed three states..

While at the show, Nancy and I took two classes together, both very informative and enjoyable. The first day long class was Beginning Bead Embroidery with Fibre artist and beader extraordinaire, Lisa Binkley.

This was the class sample Lisa prepared for our day

Lisa was very patient, very organized, had great class samples, and was such a kind, pleasant person. She was extremely encouraging and although I recall her standing on a chair at one point to get people’s attention (there are always one or two in every class that never know when to be quiet), she kept a huge smile on her face. I have beaded for a long time, but it was great to get a refresher and just sit and play for a few hours. Seeing all the beautiful, detailed work she brought along to share with her classes was very inspiring. 

Lisa very graciously posed with me

The second day we took a class called Paint and Stitch: Peacock Feather with Susan Brubaker Knapp. Susan calls her technique thread sketching and we spent the day re-creating her peacock feather piece that adorned the pages of an issue of Quilting Arts Magazine. Susan uses a brand of paint that was new to me, so I was intrigued to give it a try while having her as my resource for any questions I had. It was great fun sitting and painting fabric and chatting with Sharon, a very interesting table-mate, also recently retired.

This is the piece Susan included in the Teacher Show

Once our pieces were painted, we started the process of adding the stitching. Susan is a very knowledgeable and organized instructor with a very sharing nature and she graciously answered many questions we had about materials other than the ones we were using in this class. She also brought along a huge selection of her pieces for us to ogle and somehow I managed to not take one photo of any of them!! Susan has just completed her first year as the host of Quilting Arts TV and I suspect her down to earth demeanour makes her an excellent choice for the position.

Susan also graciously agreed to a photo