GSQA Pursuit of Excellence class

Meet Paula (in the pink shirt)
POE teacher

On Saturday I spent my day in Lafayette with the members of Quilter's Guild Acadienne (QGA) and ladies from the Gulf States Quilt Association (GSQA) who had promised to come, learn and return with new techniques, information and associations to their home guilds. 

As a new circuit teacher, I've been wanting to meet some of the members of GSQA. I had planned to attend a meeting last month but there was that whole "spend 13 days in Cabrini hospital" episode and missed my opportunity. Since I'd also hedged my bets a little and signed up for the Pursuit of Excellence (POE) class, I decided to go for it. 

Meet Renee, great helper  and quick notes presenter

I saw and met several people, but there was little time for meet and greet, except during lunch. But I'd been foolish and brought that &^$#% new Singer (purchased for traveling to classes) and we fought I struggled all morning. I won but was quite far behind the crowd and that's never the way I roll. I decided had to catch up first, then wolfed down ate most of my salad so I could move on with the class.

In the end I came home with one finished project, this little trash bag, and some blocks. The other project is a Cathedral Window shortcut that is really cute. I hope to find time to make a large bag using this shortcut. The idea was not necessarily to finish anything but to learn the techniques and practice enough that we could demonstrate the process to our own guilds. 

Also, I won a door prize, which is always fun. It's these books and a pack of the cards, which will make great thank you notes. 

Sewing curved seams should have been no biggie as I've sewn lots of those. However, it's been a long while and I discovered that there's a way to sew Drunkard's Path block so that they lie down without clipping the curves. The trick (I hate to admit) is to SLOW DOWN. I scream those two words because it's what I had to do in my head the entire time. Oh yes, I dialed down the machine speed, but my hands and head were not in sync. Anyway that's another story. 

I have decided that I like this crew of quilters. (Who has met a quilty bunch and NOT liked them? Impossible, I say!) Someone please give them warning that they will see more of me. And they will be my friends. Honestly, Saturday was much too soon.

So what about you? When and where was your last quilt class? What did you learn? 

Lots of quilty love...