I recently taught locally for the Lemoyne Star Quilters located in Lemoyne, PA. It is always good to be invited back to a guild. Here are some of the ladies working hard in the machine applique workshop.
I am not sure why but it always makes me happy when a mother and daughter take classes together. Mother, Kathy, and daughter, Maureen, are on opposite sides of this photo. Eileen and Karen are in the middle.
It’s great to teach so close to home. I’ve known many of the ladies from this guild for many years and I love going back to work with them.
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After the big trip to Lemoyne, 20 minutes from my house, I got on a plane to California. I taught at the Road to California Show. You can find out more about the show at http://www.road2ca.com When I arrived at the hotel the show organizers had a goodie bag for each of the teachers. Inside our bags there was this large piece of chocolate with quilting designs. The candy was made locally by Logan’s Candies. You can find out more about Logan’s at http://www.loganscandies.com
Guess what? I did not have any to bring home!
They also had a can of olives in our goodie bag. Now, those I did bring home!
I flew in a couple of days early and Joe came along. We drove up to Mount Baldy, located just a couple of miles outside of Ontario where the show is located. One of the nice things about this area…you can be at sea level while in town and within a short drive you can be in the snow covered mountains.
The drive up to Mount Baldy was really beautiful.
I am fascinated with the bark on the eucalyptus trees. We do not have eucalyptus trees where I live.
Now, for the exciting part of the pre- quilt show trip. Joe got us tickets to see a taping of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Joe corresponded with one of the nicest guys ever, Don Reed, who is the warm-up comedian for the Tonight Show. Here is a photo of Don with Joe. If you ever meet Don or get a chance to go to a taping of the show you will know how Don got hired. He’s a funny guy. We laughed a lot. He hooked us up with great seats and….
Got us backstage after the show to meet Jay. Awesome.
Before we left for this trip I knew we were going for a taping of the Tonight Show. What I did not know….we were also going to a taping of the Ellen show. Joe decided this would be a nice surprise.
The show we went to was the day before Ellen’s birthday show. After getting home and watching the birthday show we were really bummed. The people who attended the birthday show got $250 gift cards, a three day stay at a resort in California and more. What did we get? That would be nothing! Bummer. But, we still had a great day.
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On the plane ride to California I finished reading Jennifer Chiaverini’s new book “The Giving Quilt”. I’ve read several of her other books in this series called the Elm Creek series. I really liked this book. The story line starts with several quilters coming to a retreat to make charity quilts. The author introduces us to these ladies by telling some of their back story and why they came to the retreat. As all of us who quilt know, getting together for a retreat teaches us more about ourselves, our friends and quilting.
Next week I’ll share some of my favorite quilts from the Road to California Show.