Surrounded by Inspiration

Today was the first full day of my four day class with Janice Vaine at The Applique Academy.  I opted to shorten my visit this year to avoid having to be away from work (or rather, to avoid having to work through another vacation!), so I am only taking the main conference class.  Our block is not my "thing" - it involves a person and I absolutely hate putting people on quilts - but the stitches and techniques we are learning are wonderful!  I don't have much to show for my time so far as we are mainly working to build a stitch reference book, but it has been lots of fun!

After class ended today we were treated to a presentation by Faye Labinaris, one of my favorite teachers.  She presented a trunk show of "Cover Girls", the quilts featured on the covers of her many books.  She is a very entertaining speaker!

 












Sorry about the blurry pictures - we weren't able to get a seat in the front and I only brought my little point-and-shoot camera along.  After Faye's presentation, we were treated to a bunch of wonderful quilts during show-and-tell.  There was a particularly wonderful group of quilts from a teacher in Massachusetts and her students. We are hoping to get those displayed again tomorrow so we can get a better look. Here's a partial picture of one of them:

My friend Pat shared a quilt that she made from blocks exchanged with other friends with whom she has attended the Academy for many years. We had a chance to get a picture of all of them with Elly after the session:

I will be up late tonight practicing the things I learned today - doing my "homework".  I have to have something to show for my time in class!