Last day of convention

Phew - the convention is technically over. I feel like I've been away from home forever! Today I'll be heading home but much later in the afternoon meaning I'll be getting home close to midnight. Yeah!! And I have a Sit n Sew tomorrow. Let's hope the plane isn't late or those ladies will be sewing without me. There's so much cool stuff to play with at my studio, they might actually like that!

So I was the helper on the last day of class which suited me fine. Now, you might think that being the helper would be easy. NOT!!!!  Marsha had a cute cushion cover that was loaded with techniques. We used seven different feet in the class and therefore seven different techniques. That kept the students busy and it kept me busy as I hopped from person to person. I was handing out feet for those that forgot their feet at home or for one reason or another were not able to get them in time.

Then it was trying to remember who had used the feet and get them back. There were loads of pieces in the project so that required assistance as well as we wanted people to use the correct pieces. And let's face it, some of the attendees weren't familiar with the Husqvarna Viking EPIC 980Q which is the sewing machine that I used the previous day and Marsha used this day. If you're into a quilting/sewing only machine (no embroidery), this is a beautiful machine and has loads of space for quilting.

A good majority of the participants went home with the pillow top together which was a HUGE accomplishment.

I did get to chat a wee bit with some of the vendors, but mere minutes. It was crazy as we were either in the classroom, grabbing a quick bite or having a quick pee break. There wasn't a whole lot of time to do much else and once the classes were over you had to prep the room for the next class/day.

I can't complain. This is my first "working" convention and I LOVED every minute of it. I realized that I never got a chance to get out and get my picture taken with Sue Hausmann. I totally forgot about it until I saw someone else's photo with her. Oh well.

So when the final students left the classroom, it was all hands on deck as we started to pack up the sewing machines. Now it's one thing to pack up one sewing machine, it's another to have 24 of them to pack. Some of us got the accessories ready to put away. Then the power cords, remove all the thread and bobbins, and finally, it goes back in the box. Those machines are a tad heavy but with two people doing the lifting, it was very quick and easy work. We managed to get those 24 machines boxed up very quickly.

As we were doing that, the hotel staff were removing the walls that separated the three classrooms in our area. Then we moved to the next room and helped them put their machines away. A good team effort!!

I should mention that we had a team meeting at breakfast every morning. The winners of the challenge were announced yesterday morning at our breakfast meeting. By the way, I took closeup pictures of all the pieces so you could see them better. I'll post some of them when I get home. The first place was extremely innovative and out of the box, the second and third place winners were jackets. One that I would LOVE to own and the darn jacket fit me! Emily (my Canadian colleague) and I both won honorable mentions!!!!  To say that I was thrilled would be an understatement.

It's not that my piece was the most beautiful, the idea was to use the embroidery stitches creatively. The dealers (and I suppose anyone who wanted to) did the voting. Here's my project.

Side One - the beginning

Side two - growth

Side three - the flowers are coming

Side four - the final

 So what is it????  Read the label. Sorry, it's sideways.

The label

It's a grow bag made from landscape fabric. I was first introduced to grow bags when I visited Katheleen earlier this summer. I never thought anything further about them.

Then when this challenge came out, I thought a grow bag would be an innovative idea. The theme was organic and you can't get much more organic than a grow bag.

I have to laugh though about finding the appropriate fabric. I watched a couple of videos on how to make the bags to see what type of material they were using. OK - a heavier landscape fabric. When we were on our road trip to North Carolina last month, we searched high and low at Home Depot, Lowes, and Wal-Mart for the right stuff. Nothing. Oh darn - how am I going to make this work because I seriously thought I would have a much better shot at finding the right stuff in the US than I would in Canada.

I came home empty-handed, but not defeated. I went to my local Rona store and VOILA - they had exactly what I needed. I'm now the owner of 50 feet (less what I used) of heavy landscape fabric!

Now I most likely wouldn't use this grow bag outside, but I could. And I might except that it makes a great sample. I might make another one and this time, make it a wee bit smaller. This one is quite large as I used the designs at full size. All those designs are new builtin designs to the Husqvarna Viking Designer EPIC 2. NO - I do not have a Designer EPIC 2  - we were provided with the embroidery files.

I love challenges and I'm up for a challenge again!  Let me know if anyone wants to also do a challenge - this is how we learn and how we grow and how we keep our minds active. Let's just say that there was a LOT of stitching to get my bag completed. I didn't do the exact count, but well over 200,000 stitches. But it was fast. Oh and I should say that I used my SewMonitor app to babysit the embroidery one night when DH and I were watching a movie. This app is the BEST.

For dinner last night, we had a food truck event in the parking lot of the hotel. It was great fun. We got to meet Corona (the donkey who carried two cases of cold beer around). So sweet although I don't think she was very impressed with everything that was going on. To be honest, I wasn't very hungry, but I found something to eat. I really want to have something light and raw when I get home - like a salad! Not that we haven't had salads here, but I just want a LIGHT lunch. I'm not sure if I'm going to stand on the scale when I get home. But yesterday was another 15,000 + day of steps and there was no walk in my day.

We're back to the convention center this morning as there will still be stuff that needs to be packed up. Then we'll be free to go!  We need to hit the airport around 2 PM so there might even be some time to head back to the Outlet Mall as I know a couple of my colleagues would like to go there. I might just even sit down for a change! I don't know how that will ever work!

I was thinking that I should download the Air Canada app on my iPad so if I choose to watch something, I can watch on a large screen, not my piddly phone screen.

Got to meet some new Canadian dealers, revisited with some I've met before and all in all it was a super time. I know my calendar for next year is getting full and I'm excited about that as we have new projects to teach next year.

I'm so excited to get home and fire up the embroidery/sewing machines and sergers and dream up new samples. It's going to be insane. Now all I need is to focus and have a wee bit of time!

On that note, I see it's getting close to time to head downstairs and get on the bus that will take us back to the other hotel. Then I'll collect my sample suitcase before heading back here to get the rest of my luggage and then head to the airport. So much fun with all that luggage, but I'm pretty much packed and ready to go once we get the go-ahead.

Have a super day!!!!!

Ciao!!!!