A group of us that bonded at the Sewing Summit last year have been planning a meet-up since the Fall. Our motley crew includes
Angela,
Kelly,
Karen,
Cherie,
Ali,
Michelle,
Tracey,
Kristie and
Cara. When we were planning our little shindig, the priority was finding a central location that was wallet friendly. Being the awesome friend that she is, Ms. Kelly generously offered up the house she and her husband just bought outside of Nashville. They don't move in for another week or two, so we had to bring all the necessities like towels, air mattresses and toilet paper, which was actually pretty fun....like an indoor quilting camping trip! I'm kind of sad now we didn't attempt roasting marshmallows in her fireplace...although she probably isn't because the group of us are a fire hazard, lol
Only me, Cara, Kelly, Ali and Cherie were able to make it this time, but we're already planning one at the beginning of next year that will be bigger & better - woot woot! Most of us got in around 7:00 Friday night and we ate a late dinner at
55 South, so this is what the scene looked like when we got home. Online friends getting together, laying on air mattresses...and not talking...but
typing to each other and the friends that couldn't make it via Facebook, lol! Well...except for me, because I'm too cheap to pay for an iPhone + plan, so I just laid there and drifted in and out of consciousness.
(I was too lazy to take photos most of the trip, so all of these are stolen from various members of our five-woman posse)
The next morning we had grand plans of hitting up all the local quilt shops (Kelly even had a printed list of the addresses and hours), but we hit the motherload at our first store and nixed the others. It was like Hoarders: Fabric Edition. The store was HUGE and there were thousands of fat quarters stuffed into every last nook and cranny, and even stacked along the walls in plastic bags. We got lucky and found a pocket of out-of-print Anna Maria Horner prints in those cubbies, so we literally yanked every single fat quarter out to make sure we didn't miss anything. There might have been screaming and dancing involved each time we found another hard-to-find print...
And then we started tackling the dozens of bags along the walls. Cara and I were crawling around on our hands and knees, and I'm pretty sure anyone who had the misfortune of walking up behind me got a healthy view of my butt crack...but I mean c'mon...who has time for pulling up their pants when Good Folks & Garden Party are at stake?!
Also, I'm pretty sure they hadn't swept or vacuumed for about a decade, because I was covered in dust bunnies by the time all was said and done.
Some pre-checkout bartering...
Discovered this little gem on the inside of the front door as we were about to leave....which is pretty hilarious, because we were in there snapping photos and systematically taking apart their store for the better part of 3 hours...so they either didn't notice or didn't care.
And all that fabric hunting makes a gal pretty hungry, so we made a pit-stop at
Mellow Mushroom pizza on the way home. YUM.
And there's really no point to this photo, other than the fact that it's my favorite one by far from the weekend. A mom at peace, in her PJ's, quilting, scooping up Apple Jacks with her bare hand, and reading some good ol' fashioned celebrity gossip. Cara and I shared a table, and I couldn't help but glance up at her every now and then because she looked so darn content :)
And to cap things off, here's some good ol' fashioned fabric porn. Because what's a quilty weekend without a beefcake fabric shot?
