A weekend in Mineola Texas
My friend and I had looked forward to this weekend with great anticipation. Two days in class with Bonnie Hunter at Stitchin Heaven. She had been to a workshop with her in our local guild and I went to one in Las Vegas Nevada–where regretfully I missed that day due to food poisoning. We were pleased to see we could set our machines up the afternoon before.
When we arrived the next day, we discovered more tables and chairs had been added, crowding nearly 50 people into a space that comfortably fit about 25—space is needed to assemble fabrics, cutting tools, laying out of pieces and parts and so forth. Although the owner apologized for the space—we discovered that there were several people on the waiting list now in class with us. Perhaps an alternate venue had been planned and canceled at the last minute.This was touted as ‘make a new friend’. The two people sitting in front of us never stopped talking during the entire two days and were definitely not people I wanted as friends–I have a MP3 player with my choices of music. There were four more rows in front of them–we were all a captive audience.
Our teacher was exhausted and spent most of the two days sitting with her friends and chatting with them. Unlike other venues, she did not eat lunch with us, choosing instead to leave with her friends, perhaps a wise choice as the food was reminiscent of school cafeterias.
It was a disappointing two days of class.
However, we did go shopping in a wonderful group of antique stores. Lots of fun things to see. I bought an antique top for $35 to quilt; we went to see Godspell produced by the community theater group–not exactly talent rich but still enjoyable. The Best Western was shabby but clean and the manager-owner was an early bird and so she had coffee and breakfast ready at 5:30 instead of the 6 or 7 as advertised. She also was amenable to some of our group setting up their machines in the lobby and sewing in the evenings. She enjoyed people and chatted with us as though we were family.
Will we return?
Next year they have promised a full week of class and in a larger classroom. I’m not sure I want to repeat this experience. I did however, complete the first day’s project at home–I didn’t get much done there working from fabrics in my lap. The second day’s project is minimally started; perhaps I’ll throw those pieces into an orphan block and pieces box.
more antique quilts are here on smugmug plus a few other photos
Sylvia Weir Art 