Louisville 2008: a cruise, the closing banquet, and stash enhancement

Ok. I'm inexcusably late with my last post about Louisville, but to hide exactly how late (for future readers) and to help with the flow of the blog, I'm antedating this post. :-)

Wednesday of seminar week gave us a break from the longer classes. Some folks went on tours and some die-hards took a single-day class, but I slept in a bit and then went to the merchandise event. I spent most of the day there, helping with my chapter's sale table and figuring out where to spend some stash money. (More on the stash accumulation later!) The picture shows the beginning of the crowds at the event. There were many more people in the room as the day progressed.

Around mid-afternoon, MIL and I walked the half-block over to EGA headquarters. There, we spent quite a bit of time admiring the National Tapestry (which I had been fortunate enough to put a few stitches in when it was being worked). We viewed the National Exhibit, admiring some pieces and puzzling over others, wondering where a needle might actually have been used. Upstairs we enjoyed some of the permanent pieces of the collection, including a wonderful crewel bench embroidered by the master, Audrey Francini. The Tenessee Valley Region also had an exhibit upstairs which had some beautiful pieces.

Wednesday evening was spent on a riverboat cruise. We boarded the Belle of Louisville at 7PM. Dinner (including, of course, incredible fried chicken) was enjoyable despite the lack of air circulation on the second deck. After dinner, most of us escaped the heat by heading up to the upper deck to enjoy the breeze and to watch twilight descend on the Ohio River. Eventually, the boat turned around and headed back to the city. Louisville is beautiful from the river at night! Though my camera doesn't capture night scenes well, the overall impression comes through with a few pictures.






As classes drew to a close on Friday, we all prepared to say goodbye. The ballroom was decorated beautifully for the closing banquet. The banquet was opened with the "Call to the Post" (call to dinner?) performed by the official bugler of Churchill Downs, and then he (the bugler) shared some of his experiences in that post. He closed his speech by playing "My Old Kentucky Home". Though it had absolutely nothing to do with embroidery, it was wonderful to get a taste of Louisville culture through this enjoyable speech.

Now, on to the stash! I was very pleased with the favor from the closing banquet: a beautiful pair of stork scissors with a leather case. I've been stitching for over 15 years, yet never had stork scissors until now!





Between the bookstore, EGA headquarters, and the merchandise event, I picked up several books:

• Ruskin Lace & Linen Work by Elizabeth Prickett. This has been on my wish list for a long time.
• SuZy's Lite Stitches by Suzy Murphy. I'm hoping this will help with some of the painted canvases I struggle with.
• The Art of Teaching Embroidery by Sandy Rogers. I've enjoyed teaching a few projects to my guild chapters, so thought I'd read up on it to see how I can improve.
• Elegance from the Past, which contains instructions to reproduce a pulled-thread piece from EGA's collection.
• The Lady Elizabeth by Alison Weir. While this novel is not about stitching, this fit in well with the Tudor-Style purse class I was taking.

At the merchandise event, I purchased several small things: a few packs of needles, a collection of various sizes of gold spangles, a pair of extremely sharp scissors from Japan, some new hand lotion, a Brussels lace kit from somebody's stash, and a pair of burling irons (which are wonderful, very fine tweezers - perfect for removing dog hair from projects - believe me - I've tried them already!) I also made one larger purchase: the kit for Joan Thomasson's Czarist Treasures, including the design drawn on congress cloth.

I made a few trips to the seminar boutique over the course of the week. I think Stitcher's Workshop brought their entire shop to Louisville! I combined a search for "new to me" threads with gathering threads for a geometric canvas class scheduled for November.

I really enjoyed my first national seminar! Thanks to all of the EGA volunteers for pulling together a fabulous time.