Tails From Tennessee: Springfield, IL Here We Come

Several months ago I registered to attend the MQX Longarm Quilt Meeting in Springfield, Il. The program was really appealing to me as there were 4, 3 and 2 hour classes offered which meant I could get a lot more information in a short time for a reasonable price. The classes I registered for were lecture, demo instead of hands on. Hands on classes cost twice as much and give you play time on a machine. Usually it's not your brand of machine and not set up to your height and specs and you usually have to share with one or several people. Often the machine breaks or has issues and it takes a while to get the feel of a new machine. You usually waste a lot of time in class when you could be learning.You just don't get the bang for the buck in my opinion so I much prefer lecture, demo. I registered for 9 classes over 4 days.

In getting ready for the trip, I had lots of quilts to finish. In the middle of this was the AQS meeting in Chattanooga, the first time AQS has been held there. One of the quilts I needed to finish prior to the meeting was a Judy Niemeyer quilt pieced by Judy Wurm. Judy is teaching a class on this and wanted me to quilt it so she could display the sample for the class. Here's David hold this without the binding on.

The AQS show also accepted a quilt that Judy Pitts made a year ago that I quilted. She taught a class on this one also. Here we are at the show standing in front of her quilt.

We should have taken closer pictures of the quilt. I know I have some somewhere.Oh well.

I took a couple of classes with Barbara Burnham who made this quilt. It was spectacular. A beautiful Baltimore Album.

After AQS I had a weeks worth of quilting time and getting ready for our trip.

We decided not to bring the MH home to pack up, but to take items over to the MH in the storage facility. Since we were leaving early Sunday we decided to pack everything by Sat night, load up the kitties and spend the night in the storage facility heading out early Sunday for Paducah. This actually worked pretty well. Finnegan usually gets car sick so he has to have his ACE before we travel. We had plenty of time to give it to him before we left Sat night. He was pretty relaxed by the time we left and didn't barf at all. All the kitties were pretty content checking out the MH and spent a nice quiet night. Then in the morning we left early. This is the first time Finnegan hasn't barfed on the beginning of a trip. YEAH!

We spent Sunday night in Paducah at Duck Creek Campground. Nothing fancy, but a nice overnight stop. Monday morning we headed out and stopped by Hancock's of Paducah to check out their massive array off fabric. They flat have some fabric for sale. Unffortunately there was nothing I needed. I did buy a hera marker and a spool of Mettler thread and a little green fabric for my applique project I brought with me. Oh well, it was nice to fondle the fabric anyway.

On the road, even Finnegan enjoyed riding in David's lap.

We arrived in Springfield and stopped to pick up the rental car before heading to the campground. What a nice CG. It's way our of town in a very nice quiet area in the corn fields. Couldn't be quieter and pitch black at night. Good sleeping. No trains, plans or traffic.

Tuesday I had no classes so we spent the day in Springfield. It is THE LAND OF LINCOLN. Everything is Lincoln related. He was not born here, but lived here and practiced law here. We took a tour of his family home which is run by the NPS. Very interesting.