Friday at the Expo started bright and early, and then went pretty much non-stop all day. This was the agenda:

• 7:30 AM: Up at the hotel, barely moving. I had gotten up at 4:30 AM and had a wicked time getting back to sleep. Wishing I could blow off my morning class…
• 8:30 AM: Quick shower and quicker breakfast later, I’m taking “Crocheted Flowers” from Megan at Stitch Cleveland. Except it’s not Megan, it’s Erica from River Colors Yarns. No matter. We got a great class kit with 3 skeins of yarn, a needle, instructions for 3 flowers, and a little plastic purse to keep it all in. Now, I have to start by mentioning that long ago in my life as a Music Therapist in a medical facility, I’ve had a number of patients try to teach me to crochet. What I figured out is that there are often multiple terms for the same stitch, and nothing was too consistent. So my big challenge was matching up what I knew how to do and what it was called. Oh, and how to do it correctly and consistently. Two hours later, I had a flower and a half that looked pretty darn cute. Yea for me!
• 11:30 AM: Time for coffee and Barb Callahan’s fashion show. She also does jackets (I’m sensing a theme, here!) and sells her patterns. She picks me out of the audience and makes me model the bracelet that we made in class last night. (OK, I was in the front row and I’m no shrinking violet. Still, it’s funny….)
• 12:30 PM: Back on the vending floor to pick up supplies and ideas. I even sat through a demo for an felt embellishing machine (Husqvarna’s version) and oh, yeah, I want one of those! If only $350.00 would fall out of the sky!
• 1:30 PM: Quick lunch of baked potatoes. And there’s that sweatshirt-into-a-jacket lecture again….
• 2:00 PM: Nicole is off to her felted clog class, and I’m wandering. I run across Susan Schremph’s demo of silk ribbon embroidery by machine, only to discover she’s doing a class at 2:30. Quick! Where’s Nicole??? She has my free class ticket!!! I call her cell, I find her class… well, hijinks ensue and I get to the class in the nick of time. Susan spends the hour showing us how you can use tacking by machine to create ribbon flowers. My mind starts to whirl. ATC’s! Postcards! Fabric cuffs! Literally, I get so wound up I get a headache. Consequently….
• 3:30 PM: I’m spending my kid’s lunch money on “Simple Silk Ribbon Embroidery by Machine” and enough silk ribbons to weave my own blankie.
• 4:30 PM: Get to the rest of my wandering. I decide to skip the trims, beads, and quilters’ cottons. I do pick up some silk fat quarters and a new pattern. (Editor’s Note: I bought 3 patterns last year from the same vendor. I haven’t made a-one. Hmmm.)
• 5:30 PM: I try to get out to find Nicole, but I get swamped in the end-of-day-giveaway melee. No choice but to wait….
• 6:15 PM: The day’s done. I’m exhausted. We both agree that we’re done. Fini. We won’t come back for Saturday. Dear daughter is still running that fever, so we go pick up some Chinese and head back to the ranch for some family time. And to gloat over our classes and purchases.

To read about Day One at the Expo, read here.

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About Jenny

Chief Craft Test Dummy, Craft Evangelist, Founder, Editor, bottle-washer, trouble-maker, and creative whirlwind.

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