Wonderful Williamsburg

Last week, we enjoyed a fantastic time in Williamsburg, Virginia. We spent the first half of the day on Sunday visiting the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival in Hampton before we headed back to Kingsmill Resort to set up our classroom for the Academy of Appliqué. More will follow from the Quilt Festival in the near future. Please enjoy some of the highlights of the classes we taught last week.

Academy of Appliqué

Our classroom for the Woodland Reverie class, all set up and ready for the next day

  

Ribbons, patterns, and other necessary notions were displayed on the sale tables.

Patterns are marked and appliqué begins.

Demo time

Back-basting appliqué of leaves or mushroom stems: several people around the room expressed that "Ah-hah" at having found a new method of appliqué they enjoyed.

Nest building around the room—what a perfect set-up!

Mushroom stems are appliquéd, caps are basted, and wreath-weaving has begun.

Rosemarie N stopped by to show us the Lovely Vase she finished from last year's class.
Such stunning work!!

Some add eggs to nests, while others begin making dogwood flowers.

"Wow, what a great nest!" The encouragement around the room is infectious.

"This is my very first flower!" That smile lit up the room.

Making pussy willows

Wreath-weaving and split leaves

More nests

Great progress!

Everyone was thrilled with all we accomplished in our session. This class was filled with happy stitchers who cheered for each other and shared tips and tricks. We all learned a lot—including the teachers. We even started a Woodland Reverie group. Thank you, ladies, for such a fabulous class!

On Wednesday, we gave a short talk during lunch.
Photo credit here goes to Nancy Nehez.

Colonial Piecemakers Quilt Guild

The last two days of our week were spent with the stitchers of Colonial Piecemakers Quilt Guild, also in Williamsburg. On Friday, we taught our Marcia's Flowers workshop, wool appliqué with embroidery embellishment. We had a big class, filled with ladies who were eager to try a new skill; for many of them, appliqué—especially with wool—was a new tool to add to their collection of techniques. Some found a new love, and some weren't yet so sure, but all gave it a fair shot. This was the first pattern we wrote, and one thing that we learned was that we needed to update a few things and reprint it, which is a job almost finished already. 😊

 

We spent the morning cutting out templates and wool pieces, and then we enjoyed a delicious lunch of soups, salad, sandwiches, and chocolate. Quilters sure do eat well!

We arranged the wool pieces on the background and then fused them in place with an iron. Then we appliquéd the pieces in place so that we could learn the embroidery stitches the next day.

On Saturday, we gave a lecture for the guild. This is one active organization; we were most impressed with the programs, community involvement, and friendliness of these quilters. During Show & Tell, some of the ladies from our class shared their blocks. After the meeting and a quick lunch, we got to work on embellishing our flowers. We learned a lot of stitches and made a good dent in our embellishing. It was so much fun that we both forgot all about taking pictures. After our class ended, everyone helped us to pack up and carry things to our car. What a lovely bunch they are!

On Sunday, we traveled back to Maryland. The day was beautiful, but the traffic on I-95 was pretty much a parking lot, so we jumped off and took back roads. We ended up driving through the Manassas Battlefield and seeing some much prettier scenery than highway driving would have afforded us. And then there was inventory...

To all of those new friends that we met last week, and to those who we have known for years, thank you for another wonderful week in Williamsburg. Our stitching friends are the best! We look forward to our paths crossing again someday.