MAQ Report 2019 Part One


Sometime back in March, someone from the Guild posted something about attending a retreat in July sponsored by Mid-Appalachian Quilt Guild. Not having any major summer plans, I decided to find out what this was all about, and it turned out that it was all about wonderful.  I sent a link to Judy and within hours heard back from her that she would go with me.

So off we went on Thursday afternoon, heading to Gettysburg College, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Our drive out was punctuated by the worst rainstorms -- a whole line of them -- that either of us had ever experienced. But we arrive safely to the beautiful campus and before long were settled into our "motel-style" dorm. There was an option for "apartment-style" but we thought that this first time out we'd prefer our own space. The accommodations were spartan, no two ways about it. We each had a bed with a mattress and a pillow, a desk, and a dresser. We had a bookcase to share. We had our own bathroom. We brought our own linens. 

The first official event after check-in was dinner at Servo, the college chow hall. My daughter had graduated from Gettysburg many years ago and I remember her always saying that the food was good. That has not changed. We had a delicious dinner and then crossed the street to the college union building for a welcome meeting and a spectacular show-and-tell of projects that people had begun in classes last year and had completed. The projects were dazzling.

This was the 32nd annual event held by MAQ. How odd that I'd never heard of it before!

There were more than 350 quilters and teachers in attendance!

Classes were, for the most part, full- day classes, from 9:00 until 4:30. The first class for Judy and me was paper pieced dragonflies, taught by Sheri Cifaldi-Morrill.  Sheri is a lovely woman, a patient teacher, and a fine designer.

The pattern for Dragonfly Dance called for six different paper-pieced dragonflies arranged in a circle. Most of the students made one complete dragonfly. A few made two.

Here are the segments of my block before being sewn together.






And here we are with our finished blocks.

After dinner on Friday, there was a speaker. Judy and I were both very tired but didn't dare skip the speaker because we were going to be seeing a lot more of her in the next two days.

Back to our room, exhausted. We turned off our light before nine o'clock!

Comments

Cathy said…
I had a wonderful time with both of you! Now we just need to finish our projects!
Robby said…
That sounds like a good form of exhaustion. These look fun and I look forward to seeing what you do with them.
Quiltdivajulie said…
Happy that you had such a great first day of class. Looking forward to future posts on the retreat.
Barbara Anne said…
I suspected you were off somewhere having fun and you were!

This retreat is new to me, too, and am glad to have heard a bit about the delights. I'm staying tuned for more, pretty please, nudge, nudge, and such hopeful words. :)

Welcome home!
Janet O. said…
Wow--those are some pretty dragonflies.
I could use a retreat about now--this sounds wonderful, and very large. I am interested to hear about more of your quilty adventures.