Last Saturday's Indiana State Day, hosted by our chapter, Needle Artisans of Northwest Indiana was a big success. Sue and Mel Rock! I got the pleasure of basking in reflected glory--I had very little part in all of it. I did have great fun on the day. I got reacquainted with loads of friends!As part of the process, our chapter produced a really nice cookbook. I didn't think it was a great idea at first, but it seems to be turning out to be very good. Chapter members baked goodies from the book for breakfast and dessert and a lot of cookbooks sold based on the taste-testing done at the event. (Above, selling cookbooks.)
The displays were amazing. I took this shot of our display table before we had to condense it way down so that all of the things our visitors brought could be displayed, too. We began with, I think, four eight-foot tables and ended up with at least six plus a huge round. It was awesome! The variety was really great to see and everyone spent a lot of time browsing. It also instigated conversations as people discussed how this or that might have been done, what this or that was meant to be, and who did that? I want to do it, too.
Here's our designer/teacher taking a bit of a break (I think it was just after lunch). She designed the amulet bag, the box top and wrote the instructions. She also provided a lot of advice as we tested the project and instructions.
My gift was this cool spookly scissors fob (that's a cats head at the bottom)--everyone got one! (sorry, I don't remember who made them to thank them here.) The organizers thought of everything--from amazing, huge door-prize baskets for everyone (yep, each person who took the class got a lovely door prize!), a wonderful boutique by House of Stitches, lovely centerpieces (if you had a spider at the end of your scissors fob, you got to take one home--they were flowers and variety threads). Each stitcher got a large decorated bag with the supplies to make both the box top (what we worked on Saturday) and the amulet bag. The perle cotton balls were held in a charming card and ribbon holder so they wouldn't roll away and escape. There were M&Ms for energy, a cool round folded orts "box," and booklets, threads and loads of other fun goodies.
I'm on the left with the other class angels who went around to try and help stitchers who got stuck with some aspect of the project. All of us had stitched the amulet bag and box top (I think we're all wearing our amulets--each one is different). It also meant we got to go around and visit all our friends. I was very happy to see a good friend that I'd been missing lately.
If you had the chance and missed it, you missed a really good one. (Only about half of our chapter members participated--just think what we could have done if everyone had joined in!)
Okay, then, to top it all off, instead of going home I drove a bit and had dinner with more stitching friends! I met a group from Wisconsin, let by Terry, for a nice dinner and a bit of show-n-tell. They'd come down to Geneva/St.Charles shop and had visited needlework, knitting, bead and gift shops during the day on Saturday. It was nice to meet everyone, some I'd met before and some new friends. (my jaw ached on the way home--I talked waaayyyy too much and smiled an awful lot, too!)
Sunday we drove back up that way, this time with hubby, to do some shopping of our own and to visit my sister. It was a really fun weekend and I feel full up with happiness.
