Welcome to California!

So as I'm writing this, I'm in Ontario, but NOT Ontario, Canada.  Nope, that would be Ontario, California in the good old USA.

Let me backtrack for a second. After a marathon of sewing, the last quilt was ready for quilting and it was quilted and trimmed before I went to bed on Tuesday night. I absolutely love the quilt.  Then up early so I could get the binding on by machine. As much as I hate doing the binding by machine, you have to admit that it's practical!!!





Yesterday was a day of SNAFUs as this picture was posted on Facebook but only to FAMILY.  DUH!!!  Anyway - here it is and I'm pinning the sleeve on this morning.

We flew to LA and while our flight was a bit late in leaving, we arrived early. Not sure why that was, but we were on the fabulous Boeing 787-8 or whatever that plane is.  We had great seats, I love the moving map and we kept ourselves entertained for the four-hour flight. I thought I might catch some sleep, but we were too busy talking.

Rented a car and we're off. Oh yes - it's fun driving in LA. Fortunately, we were on freeways and off to the San Bernadino valley and Ontario, California which is the home of the Road to California quilt show.

By the time we arrived at the booth it was 2:30 (we all agreed that lunch was of the utmost importance since by now it's about 3 PM our time.

I won't go into the details but let's just say that if things could go wrong - they did. Now not that bad, but well we had to make a few executive decisions along the way and let's just say that by being nice to people, they will be nice back and they will bend a few rules.  I could have cried, but I thought better of that and just asked nicely instead!  In the past, I might have cried - I've done it before and I got what I wanted!  But that was for personal! Not for business.

The biggest issue was the preview night. We were all looking forward to a quiet evening to rest up. But then we heard that where our booth was located was the ONE aisle that was open last night for the preview. ACK!  So that meant that we had to be back from 7 to 9.  The two hours flew by and I literally came back to the hotel (which is across the street from the convention center) and went to bed.

All the people we talked to last night and there were lots were friendly and super excited about the show. We had people from Sweden, the UK, Canada, the US of course and Australia.  I'm sure we'll see a lot more countries represented today. I did see Eleanor Burns as well.

The weather is a tad cold. I was trying to figure out what to bring for a jacket. I ended up throwing in a quilted fleece jacket which I find quite heavy. BEST decision of the day. It's cold here - well by California terms and it's wet. But I do hope it clears up at some point because we are in the mountains and they look beautiful. Just not sure how surrounded we are by the mountains because of clouds and smog?

Thank goodness we are a resilient crew and we're going to have fun for the next four days!  We will have time to walk the show and get ideas and I do have a small shopping list.

I better go and get myself organized for the day.

Have a good day!!!

Ciao!!!