Where has Catherine been?

A great question!

All I can tell you is… I’m here now. It’s been a wild six weeks or so 😀

Mostly in a good way.

Back when I last wrote I was actually in Iowa. The Chippewa Fall Redfords backed off the drive on the Monday morning,

and I packed up the car to drive to Davenport to visit the Mississippi Valley Quilters…

I didn’t have to rush, I just needed to get to town before nightfall to get myself situated for two lectures the next day.

Tuesday afternoon we enjoyed Lessons Learned while Quilting,

while the evening group was entertained with a Trip Around the World.

There was some overlap in attendance, definitely more people out and about during the day.

I was sitting in a bit of an awkward spot to get good show and tell pictures but you can get the general idea.

Two sampler quilts with very different settings…

We ended up with more than twenty five students in our Dimensional Embroidery workshop on the Wednesday. They kept me very busy.

Looking to my left…

and to the right…A few had left before we took a group shot, but they are mostly smiling?Great work everybody. My luggage was a lot lighter going back in to the car. I hope there will be lots of hand stitching happening in the quad cities area very soon.

Ever onwards.

I started a new three part Exploration of Folk Art Stitching on Zoom for STITCHES at the weekend so that kept me busy and out of mischief. Then I was back in the car for a quick trip to see the ladies at the Gazebo Quilters in Huntley.

We have had some fun times together in the past and this visit was no exception. I took little kits for everyone to make a Dorset button during a one hour lecture demo.

Some people caught on faster than others but there were plenty of reasons to be cheerful…You are going to have to believe me that there were finished buttons at the end of our time together. I thought it was a good way to spend a morning!

And the fun times just kept on coming. It was finally time for the Riverwalk Quilters Guild “Annual” party in the evening. I’ve been a member of RWQG since 1999 so these are my friends.

Here’s my view from where I was standing to call the blocks for a rousing game of Quilto. In the background you can see the tables of treasures for our shopping delight. (More than $1000 was raised to swell our guild coffers)

We had the final class in our Folk Art Explorations the next Sunday and this time I managed to get a picture of some of the class members.

Oh well! It was the 20th STITCHES at home event I taught at. I’m not going to be able to be quite so consistent a faculty member in the future, as my traveling schedule has picked up, but I will definitely be there as much as I can. If you are interested in taking a Zoom class from me do watch my calendar for updates.

Time for something different. I have had The Great British Adventure on my schedule for a long time and it was nearly time.

But first I made a quick trip to the h +h americas show, listed as an all-inclusive industry event uniting all types of handicrafts. It was being held at the Rosemont Convention Center, and with a free ticket by virtue of being a member of the Craft Industry Alliance, how could I miss it?

It had been a while since I was at a trade show. It’s a whole different feeling to a retail show. I liked it. Here I am in the CIA booth. I look happy to be there?