Longarm Retreat

 Earlier this month I had a wonderful weekend.  It started with a visit with my niece who is attending Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia.  She gave me a tour of the campus and I met one of her roommates.  Her dorm room is way cool (can I use that term?) and includes a fireplace on which they had hung their Christmas stockings.  Their dorm has dark wood paneling in the hallways and rooms - no built in closets so that tells you the age of the dorm.  But it was a spacious room and they had the beds, wardrobes and desks arranged so there was plenty of room for everyone.

Marian in front of her dorm room's fireplace.  Santa found them!
What you can't really see is that the mantel has the inscription
"Sans Souci" carved into it.  Not sure how that pertains to
college life that I equate to alot of worries about classes and
other stuff - but it's there nevertheless.

We then went to the Philadelphia Art Museum and saw the Van Gogh exhibit there.  For me it was eye opening as several of the works on display were ones I wouldn't have associated with his style.  In particular some of his early still life paintings were ones I'd never seen before.  I loved them - the colors and composition.

We followed that with a visit to Reading Station for dinner.  It's the old train station converted into a Farmer's Market atmosphere.  It was an enormous space with a wide variety of vendors selling everything you could possibly want.  Too bad we didn't have more time to explore.

We drove back to her dorm so she had time to get ready for the party scheduled for that evening and I headed over to Lancaster, PA for the longarm retreat sponsored by Virginia Longarm.  As I was checking in, I could hear the humming of sewing machines.  The Saturday evening activity was making pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer, an organization dedicated to making cheerful pillowcases for seriously ill children.  Cindy Kerr, founder of ConKerr Cancer, spoke to the group that evening - about her son who was the inspiration for the pillowcase project and about the progress made towards the goal of giving each of the 44,000 children diagnosed with cancer each year a cheerful pillowcase.  They also introduced "The Bird" - a Gammill Premier with a Peacock-like paint job.  They are running a contest that will support the ConKerr Cancer project with participants being entered in a drawing for "The Bird."  Want a new longarm?  Check out Virginia Longarm's site (www.virginialongarm.com) for the details.

Just one sample of Jamie's "fancy schmancy" quilting  (his term, not mine).
Metallic thread adds quite a bit of contrast.

Here's one of his dragonflies.  He uses  Marabout yarns for the bodies.

Sunday, I took some classes from Jamie Wallen.  I had taken classes from him a few years ago and was intrigued with his quilting.  His Threadfusion technique results in beautiful quilting motifs.  It helps that he uses beautiful threads.  He covered a variety of topics before getting to the discussion of actual quilting - things that will help make the quilting smoother and more effortless.  Topics like bobbin & top tension (always of interest to longarm quilters), ergonomic quilting positions (different than most people are currently set up - his way makes alot of sense), thread types and needle sizes, and, of course, cleaning (with Expo Dry Erase cleaner!) and waxing your rails to make the machine glide as it quilts.  I picked up quite a few tips that will make a big difference in how I prepare to quilt and how I execute some of the designs.  Thanks, Jamie!

Thanks to Virginia Longarm for sponsoring the retreat - on a weekend during which I was in the area!

Cheers!
Margaret