Victorian Stitchery Retreat

This week I have sent out around 120 invitations to a Victorian Stitchery Retreat that I am hosting. I am very excited about this retreat. For the past two years I have hosted Carole Samples and both times everyone had a wonderful time. This year I am going to host a larger retreat. The teachers for the retreat will be Carole Samples, Judith Montano and Betty Pillsbury. The retreat will be here in Wichita, Kansas November 6, 7, and 8th. The classes are already 1/2 full but if you are interested, you may email me for more info. I can hardly wait for the retreat to come!

See you later,

Val

Return of Happiness

I don't usually post to many things that I am teaching currently, but I really like this project. It is a square that I am teaching this spring. It is a lily of the valley square. Lily of the valley meant a return of happiness to the victorian women. I was inspired to do this block, because of the lily of the valley trim and button that I had purchased from Susan Clarke.

See you later,

Val

MCC Quilt is Done and More to the Story!

Well, the journey with our MCC crazy quilt for 2008 is almost done. It has been quite a week for me and finally I have time to tell you about it. I decided we needed a calendar for this quilt since we are giving it away to charity and we probably won't ever see it again. The members of the group who have seen the quilt completed have been quite moved. It is just beautiful! Last week our group was contacted by some women on the MCC team in charge of the quilt sale. This year is the 40th anniversary of the MCC sale and they had already chosen a traditional quilt to commemorate it. When they saw the pictures of the crazy quilt that we are making on my blog, they decided that our crazy quilt would be chosen as a non-traditional quilt to commemorate the 40th anniversary. To say I was moved even to tears was an understatement. For me this quilt was just something I have wanted to do for several years. The 7 of us became closer through this experience since the quilt was done as a round robin. For me the quilt was done to help MCC and give God the glory. The quilt will be auctioned in April at the sale in Hutchinson, KS.

Back to my calendar story. I didn't know that getting nice pictures of a crazy quilt to publish was a task. I had a couple of friends try to take pictures and even with using Photoshop they were marginal at best. So...last Thursday, there was a bad storm in Wichita, and it occurred to me that the local professional photography place..would not be very busy! Sure enough, I had 4 photographers helping me for over an hour. The pictures are beautiful! The proceeds from the calendar are going to help us make another crazy quilt for 2009. You may purchase these calendars from my website at www.valeriebothell.com