Victorian Stitchery Retreat...Wow What Fun!

Well the retreat ended about a week ago and I was so tired after the retreat that I didn't feel human again until about yesterday! Yes, the rumors were true, I was so tired on Saturday that when I went to the bathroom I fell asleep for a moment. Here is a picture of the three teachers, myself and my friends Lori and Dixie. I think Lori is about to fall asleep in the picture! I couldn't have done the retreat without all of the people pictured. Thanks to the teachers for coming, thank you to the students that came and a BIG thank you to Lori and Dixie for all of your help! We are already planning next years retreat and I will keep you posted.

Val

Victorian Stitchery Retreat...Here at last!

Well, the event I have been working on for the last 9 months will finally start tomorrow! Around 60 ladies from all over the United States are coming to take classes from Judith Baker Montano, Carole Samples and Betty Pillsbury. I haven't posted all month because I have been getting ready for the retreat as well as still teaching at my "shop". Tomorrow I will move my shop into the hotel we holding the retreat in as well as picking Judith and Betty up from the airport. Miss Carole will be driving in from Omaha. Check in will begin in the evening and I can finally put faces to all the names that I have seen during registration.

I will try to post pictures after the retreat is over. We will be having a show and share time, a crazy quilt name tag contest and the great UFO exchange. Now for the surprise that none of them know about. I have arranged with Piecemaker's to send me the quilt featured on their calendar this year. Not only that but they are also sending a beautiful crazy quilt they did about 10 years ago that features different kinds of birds.

I am sure I will be exhausted will it is all done, but it will be worth it because it is going to be so much fun! I will probably host another retreat next year and maybe those of you who couldn't come this year and come next year!

Talk to you next week,

Val

Victorian Fancyworks Sampler Done!

I have finally finished my Victorian Fancyworks Sampler! Well except for any additional embellishing that I want to do to my monogram in the middle. Whew..that pattern was challenging and it really helped me to practice more difficult stitch combinations. I did enjoy doing it though.

See you later,

Val

Campbell House-St. Louis, MO

As promised, here are the pictures I took of the inside of the Campbell House in St. Louis. I was fascinated with the story behind this house. The people that lived in this house, had thirteen children. They were very wealthy and had running water in their house. The water came from the river(is it the Missouri ?) and as a result, 10 of their 13 children died from either lead poisoning from the pipes or from the river. At the time, none of this would have been know...so they never really knew why their children were dyeing. The three remaining boys lived in the house after the death of their parents and NEVER changed anything. They loved their mother so much that they didn't want anything changed. This house is one of the few houses that has all of it's original furniture. One of the boys died 2 years after his parents and of the remaining 2, one of them had a bipolar disorder of some kind. Apparently they now know that it was due to the lead in the water that their mother drank while pregnant. Of course, he lived the longest and the house was willed to I think Harvard when he died. There was a lawsuit, because people in St. Louis wanted to preserve this house and when the furniture was auctioned off they all came...bought the furniture and put it back in the house. The house is restored to perfection! The museum has a website if you google it and want to read more about.

See you later,

Val

Victorian Fancyworks Sampler Update

Many of you know that last year when Miss Carole came to Wichita to teach, she designed a brand new sampler just for us. If you look at one of my older posts, you will see the earlier stages of my sampler. It is now about 90 per cent done and I am for the most part happy with it. It is certainly not without errors but that's okay...very hard for a perfectionist like me to say! I don't know...I might redo the snowflakes, they are much bigger than Miss Carole designed them to be..I just don't know what happened there.

Now to explain many of the reasons that I have not posted for awhile. Early August I went to St. Louis on vacation. I will post later some pictures of a FANTASTIC Victorian house I went through. It always seems that crazy quilters also like to visit Victorian houses. They allowed pictures, so I will post at a later time.

Now for something that was more exciting than my vacation, was an unexpected trip to Colorado this last weekend. Okay, for one thing, it was more exciting than vacation because being the mother of 4 boys the trip was essentially a BOY TRIP and I had one little meltdown about it and that is why I insisted on the above mentioned Victorian House. This last weekend I found out that Christine Dabbs was teaching in Loveland Colorado and I was not going to go but with the generous urging of two of my friends and a very generous offer of one friend to babysit, off I went. It was absolutely wonderful and I felt that God guided me through the whole trip and I knew that he wanted me there. Here is a picture of her holding one of her UFO's, she says will never be finished. Her work is fantastic, awesome...whatelse can I say.

Okay, now for the unexpected bonus of the trip. The entire Hoffman Challenge entries were displayed and as I turned a corner...there was Betty Pillsbury's Peacock Wallhanging right there is front of me! So only did I get to see all of Christine's Dabbs many crazy quilts.. there is Betty's Wallhanging. It was wonderful. The reason I got so much done on my fancywork sampler is because I had alot of downtime and NO CHILDREN. I missed them but boy did I get alot done.

Well that's all for now,

Val

Prom Dress Swap Purse

I had one comment recently that asked me to tell you more about the Omaha Crazy Quilt Convention. Soo...every year they have what is called the Prom Dress Swap. Everyone who wants to participate brings a prom dress (like from a garage sale or Goodwill). The dresses are all laid out on tables and at the count of three, everyone proceeds to cut the dresses up. Of course you must be polite and no matter how well you like a dress you should save some for the next person...Well that night after the swap we were all admiring our fabrics and an idea came to us. Why don't we make something for the Scholarship auction with the prom dress fabrics. So, I went through my fabrics the other day and came up with these two squares. I figure if I do one seam or open spot a week it will be ready for the convention next year. Oh.... and I have decided it will be a purse. Oh if it is too pretty well...I don't know what I will do!

See you later,

Val

Back From Omaha!

I am so sorry that I haven't posted anything for awhile...I guess I became a little discouraged with what happened in the spring...but I am back! I just got back from the Crazy Quilt Convention in Omaha and everyone I was with had a wonderful time! I worked on my Victorian Fancyworks Sampler while I was there. That is the class that Miss Carole Samples came to Wichita last fall and taught us. I have only 3 more full seams to go and a few embellishers on two of the seams. The sampler has definitely been a challenge! We are busy working on our new MCC Quilt for next year and it is being done in pastels! Here is a picture of the beautiful stitching that has been done on a fan so far. The beautiful work in the corner has been done by Miss Lori of our group. Also here is a picture of my sampler in it's final stages!

See you later!

Val