Road to California 2022

Well that was fun!

I left Steve with the phone number for the heating and cooling company… apparently the furnace had stopped working Sunday night and I was off to the airport… 😊

After a great on time flight ,with sweet and savory snacks, and two cups of coffee, I arrived in Ontario (California) to rain! The locals were very happy and it was definitely warmer than at home.

Setting up the booth went according to plan and we were ready on  time. We are both getting into the swing of things and Richard’s new set up works great for all the goodies we have in store.

Here’s the hand dyed Vinni’s Colors yarns, complete with samples and kits…

I had a table and chair ready to sit and stitch… and chat! There wasn’t room in the truck for the big chair but I was very comfy in the new blue seat.The show opened for preview night on Tuesday and we were all set! Wednesday I was teaching Fun with Hand Embroidery. Everyone had a choice of mini panel from Turtle Hand Batik to stitch on.

In the evening I moved upstairs for Dorset Buttons.

I slept late on Thursday morning!

I spent the day on the show floor. Sheila came down the mountain and we had lunch outside, in the sunshine. Six o’clock found me back in the class room for Introduction to Folk Art Embroidery.

It was great to be together in person. California regulations means everyone had to show proof of vaccination or a negative test and also wear a mask at all times in the Convention Center. That made me feel a bit better about the lack of social distancing in the full classes…

Friday was another day at the show and then another evening class. I forgot to take a picture as we all worked hard on our Dimensional Embroidery Stitches. That just left Saturday, back at the show and then tear down… Time flies when you are enjoying yourself!!

I finished a little embroidery design while I was sitting at the table.

This one was Summer V by Henna Davies of House of Embroidery. I colored the printed design with Crayola crayons before I added the stitching. You can find it, and lots more, in the last call section on the Global Artisans website.

Time to fly home. One last look at the sunshine?

You might be glad to know Steve called the heating engineers and had the furnace fixed by 11 am on Monday? That was good because this was my view out of the kitchen on Monday…

It was -11F this morning! I have unpacked my bags, done a few loads of laundry, attended to my emails and sewn the binding on my class sample for STITCHES in February…

Sometimes the binding really makes a difference to a quilt and I think this is one of those projects. It really pulled everything together and framed it nicely. I’ve still got some front row seats in the three part Happy Scrappy Improv Zoom class. Details are on the STITCHES website!

On Saturday I will be at BERNINA of Naperville with some English Paper Piecing. You can drop in between 10 and 2 and say hello. You can preregister and we will have a kit and a mug of hot chocolate waiting for you!

And then it’s all go until July when we are hoping to get to visit our families in England… I’ll be taking it one day at a time.🦋