Omaha - Turkeys, Deer, and Great Classes

This week I taught for the Cottonwood Quilt Guild in Omaha, Nebraska. Wayne and I drove and along the way enjoyed seeing lots of wild turkeys (was hard to get a photo of them though at 70 miles an hour), deer playing in the fields (I did capture a photo of some of them), and hundreds of geese flying overhead. There was enough snow in the fields that it was pretty easy to spot them.

One of the many groups of deer we saw along I-29

By the time we arrived in Omaha on Saturday evening, there was a fine snow coming down. The problem was it snowed all night long that way. By noon on Sunday, the wind was blowing the snow so there were white-out conditions and we couldn't see the cars parked in the parking lot at the hotel where the class was held - lucky for us, it was the same hotel that we stayed in.

The classes were great - on Sunday, we did the Windmill Twisted Log Cabin - this is the quilt that I showed on Simply Quilts; that quilt received more mail than any other program on the show. Several of the ladies finished one complete Windmill. Here's a photo of them showing off their work at Show and Tell during the meeting on Monday night.

Show and Tell: It's always fun to see how different they look when different fabrics are chosen. I can't wait to see their quilts finished.

Sunday evening Wayne and I had dinner with Gary and Susie VonWeihe, who live in Council Bluffs. Gary and Wayne were stationed at Richard Gebaur Air Force Base in Kansas City. Can't believe that was 40 years ago, after Wayne returned from Viet Nam. We enjoyed getting to see how the Gerber baby has grown up with teenagers of her own. We always called Robin the Gerber baby because she looked like the baby on their labels. Gary and Susie have three other children...and a total of nine grandchildren. We had a fun evening together.

Then on Monday we did the Xquisite Scrap Quilt class. I always encourage people to bring what they have in lights, mediums, and darks. We went through my process for sorting the fabrics to get the values in the right piles. Then to just pick up a value and sew it to another square, using my formula. And they learned some tips for trimming and pressing too. About an hour before the end of class I take everyone's blocks and lay them out on the floor to show some of the variations you can make with these blocks. I did make believers out of them - value does the work and color gets the credit - if the value is correct, then it really doesn't make any difference what color the fabric is. See for yourself....

Quilt laid out using blocks from all of the students in class in the Sunshine & Shadow pattern

My Getting It Straight lectures on Monday evening and again Tuesday morning were well received. I hope everyone picked up a tip or two for making their quilts turn out flat and straight. And I even took a couple of photos of the snow piled in the parking lot of the church where the guild meeting was held. You definitely have to scoop and plow the snow they get.

Thanks, Cottonwood Quilt Guild, for inviting me to Omaha - snow and all!

Wayne and I enjoyed some nice sunshine for the drive home. Left Omaha with 14 degree temps and it was 35 degrees when we arrived back in Paducah on Wednesday.

Today (Sunday) we are enjoying 65 degrees here in Paducah and have the door open to get some fresh air into the house. Spring is on the way! Come on Spring!!