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Great Escape Has Launched

It happened!  The day that Gary and I have been working towards for nearly 4 years happened on Friday!!  Our very first Great Escape Quilt Camp event began on Friday morning at 9:00 a.m. sharp, and concluded on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. ….’ish.   All the hard work, the worry—the excitement—the stress—the planning—the culmination and success of the event, has been accomplished. 

Here we are, cutting up before the “serious” group photo. Amazing women, one and all!

Let me tell you a bit about our weekend.  To say it was a good time, just doesn’t paint a large enough picture.  We had 7 wonderful women attend our camp to christen Great Escape, each of them bringing their own specialness to the blending of humor, insightfulness, camaraderie and caring.  Their backgrounds and occupations varied from farming to nursing and everything in between…and I mean EVERYTHING in between.  Their ages ranged from 30-something to 70-something.  But the one thing that was a constant between them all was their love and passion for quilting.  From novice beginner to quilting professional, we had them all at camp.   Patterns worked on ranged from Judy Niemeyer and Jenny Doan, to Jacqueline de Jonge and various patterns from magazines. The blending of their personalities, their talents and their humor brought only one outcome… an experience so good, they all stayed until the very end of the event.   

Now, I’ve held several retreats in the past 7 years, and at all of them, there were always ladies that would begin leaving as soon as breakfast was over and the rest would trickle away as the day progressed.  But Sunday…they lingered, and stayed longer, and left within minutes of each other.  

When do you know that you’ve finally found the work you’re meant to do?  I believe, it’s when your goals are completed and your dreams are brought to life.  How do you really know it’s the right one?  For me…it happened the first night of the retreat, when I was in the kitchen working on dinner and I listened to the sounds coming from the classroom.   There were the usual sounds of sewing…the machines, the rotary cutting and sounds from the irons.  But what laid over all those sounds were not the quiet voices of women hard at work, but the sounds of laughter, sharing of personal stories, praise and encouragement for projects being brought out, and life stories shared.  That humming of beautiful noise made my heart swell, and that’s when I knew…”we had arrived”.

A quick photo of the classroom with everyone hard at work. Projects were coming together in a beautiful way. But what the picture can’t show is all the conversation that was buzzing amongst them all.

So, without further ado, let me share with you some of the wonderful work that was being accomplished over the weekend.  You will be amazed and impressed.  I know I was.

Sharon A. working through her Wedding Ring Table Topper by Judy Niemeyer. Such beautiful rich colors!
Sharon A and Sharon W visiting after taking a look at my Vintage Compass, another Judy Niemeyer pattern.
Here’s Ivy showing us her cute little top that she completed during the retreat. As a novice quilter, she did a wonderful job with all her corners and color placements. You go girl!!
Another vantage point of the classroom with everyone busy as bees. Sharon W has a charity quilt on the design wall as she studies her block placement.
A quick shot over the shoulder of Sharon E, of Betty’s project. A beautiful project by Jacqueline de Jonge, called BeColourful. Sharon E worked steadily over the weekend on a stunning version of Judy Niemeyer’s Vintage Rose. You can see Kim’s sweet project in the foreground. Her cutting and piecing were spot on, and the hombre fabrics used were so, so fun!

And now, the rest of the adventure begins.  I’m hanging onto my hat and dipping into the wind, much like Sister Bertrille of the long ago TV series, “The Flying Nun”.

See—even she’s hanging on to her “hat”. Lift off is about to begin!!

Hang on Vera!  The merry-go-round is about to get going real fast!

Here we are, as serious as we can be, lol! Dianna, Ivy, Kim, Sharon A, Sharon E, Sharon W, Betty and me. Now, with 3 women named Sharon and their last name initials spelling AWE, how could we have had any other time, than an AWEsome time!!! Simply the best!

Until next time, may your bobbin never be empty.

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The Flip Side of Sewing

Ever wonder what it looks like around people that wear more than one hat?  Here’s my desk today.  It’s a paperwork kind of day.

Paperwork and writing…writing letters and making lists and menus and blog content and…. you get my drift.

I don’t mind it so much.  In fact, I like it.  And I’m liking it more and more the longer I blog.  You see, I’ve always wanted to write a blog.  And even more than that…I’ve always wanted to write a book.  Crazy, huh?  Maybe so, but why not?!  Lol…as if I didn’t already have more hats to wear than the average bear.  This crazy idea of writing a book started when I was in high-school and the theme always stemmed around my love of the old west.  Now, quilts are a big part of that theme…and mining…Colorado’s old west has a huge amount of mining history and I basically live in the middle of this amazing history that was lived by real, everyday people.

Let’s talk about my hats, cause I’ve got several, and not everyone knows about them all. 

I wear the hat of: A Judy Niemeyer Certified Instruction in-training.  This has been an on-going endeavor and truly what has inspired me to sit down and begin my blog in a serious manner.  I’m enjoying this aspect of growing my social media presence very much as I also begin to fulfill a dream that I’ve had for more than 45 years.

I wear the hat of: A quilting instructor.  This goes hand in hand with the previous hat.  But I enjoy teaching at many, many different levels.  I studied to be a music teacher and much to my parents’ chagrin, did not quite finish. But! My love of teaching has stayed with me through home-schooling our children; teaching 4-H students about quilting; holding an adult quilting class for 3+ years which met once a week; and now I’m teaching Quiltworx patterns as I work towards my certification.  It’s also a long standing and well established hat on my head.

I wear the hat of: A professional long arm quilter.  A skill that I have been honing for the past 8 years and will continue to do.

I wear the hat of:  Quilt restoration and repair professional.  This is a skill that I’ve been growing since I was a little girl and owe a debt of gratitude to my great-grandmother who first introduce me to needle and thread. It was a crochet hook and yarn, but from there I progressed over the last 50+ years to the skills I have today.   I spoke at length with another restoration professional several years back about how to find a way to gain some sort of certification for this skill set, and she graciously giggled and said there is none.  The best who do this have spent their lifetime acquiring their skills and there aren’t any programs to equal their knowledge.  We’re all self-taught.  Now that’s food for thought!

I wear the hat of: Director of the Great Escape Quilt Camp, which today looked like a big messy desk as I wrote letters, compared notes from my last off-site retreat, made lists and began to plan menus.  This hat is relatively new…maybe 6-7 years old or so.  But it is something I absolutely and completely love to do.  You see…I firmly believe that everyone has several gifts—or skills—they are innately good at without a lot of effort.  It’s something they just do naturally.  And without trying to toot my own horn too loudly…I’m pretty good at organizing events and being the hostess with the most-ess.  And when I combine quilting and teaching and hosting all under the same hat…or rather all on the same head…well, life just sings away and I’m a pretty happy camper.

Other hats that I wear are the hats of: Being a wife…Being a mother…Being a daughter and sister…Being a home-maker…Being a farmer’s wife….and the list continues on and on.

But suffice it to say, I like my hats.  I’m going to keep wearing them. I think I’ve finally found the right combination and don’t really need to add too many more.  There will be some that come naturally from others, but they’ll get here when the time is right.

Now…where was that Director’s hat again…. it’s here somewhere!

Until next time, may your bobbin never be empty.