Virginia Beach - Part Four of our USA Trip & the reason we came.......

We arrived into Virginia Beach a few days ago and settled in at The Founders Inn.
The hotel has a lake & lovely gardens which are illuminated in an evening.

We were there to attend Birds of a Feather Longarm Quilting Convention - three full days of back to back workshops with some of the best tutors around.

The atrium had a quilt display of old & damaged quilt tops which had been rescued by Mary Kerr and quilted by well known quilters.  I found one her done by Claudia Pfeil. (Claudia will be teaching at The Royal Bridlington in December).

The ground floor of the atrium was the show room for Innova and also provided space for Joanne Blade & Kim Diamond to demonstrate their longarm applique technique and recreate last years Birds Quilt.

Tim & I selected different classes to each other to try and learn as much as we could and the next three days we both had back to back classes.

Many people asked me to take lots of pics- so apologies now - there are alot!

I attended -

Divide & Design with Lisa Calle

Fantastic session with Lisa - I learnt so much.

Fill Harmonics with Sue Heinz

Mystical Shapes with Jamie Wallen

 Love this guy!  He talks sense and is genuinely funny.

Advanced Auto Pilot with Nancy Wick

A refresher into some of the other function in AP.

Dancing in the Shadows with Nancy McNally

A drawing & hands on class.  Lots of students who had other makes of longarm - all very impressed with the Innova.

Twisted by Dusty Farrell

Amazing session with this very talented quilter.

Tim attended -

I'm on the Edge - Border Pizazz with Nancy McNally

Nancy is so knowledgeable on her trade and passed on some wonderful ideas

Listen to your Quilt - with Barbara Persing

Thanks Barbara for your six steps . .

Filling in the Spaces with Barbara Persing

Barbara provided some magnificent tuition on fillings for quilts - awesome.

Fill as You Will with Karen Sievert

This was Karens first event and she was incredible, really lively and enthusiastic.  The love she has for her art really came through.

Mastering the Mini with Lisa Calle

Lisa's training was incredible.  She gave some magnificent training and all of the class mates left with a quilt ready to sew.

Sashing that Sizzles with Sue Heinz

Just some of Sue's great work.

Thanks also to Nancy Wick who provided some great insight into the special functions on the Innova and how she looks at designing quilting for patchwork tops.

Michael - one of the main men at ABM (The M in ABM) Innova providing an impromptu maintenance session on the wonderful ABM Immova Longarm.  Michael also invented the very first computerised quilting machine.

Lets talk Quilts - Aren't they magnificent!!

We had a fantastic time at Birds of a Feather and we learnt so much from such great tutors and made many new friends too.  Our Innova dealer was also present and ironically also attended two of the same classes as us, however instead of using this opportunity to start building bridges, she, as we expected she would, just blanked us. This is such a same as ABM are a great company.  Anyway we have now learnt that any customer may choose where they purchase their machine, so we now have many more contacts of reputable dealers. So who knows guys, I may be passing on some of the very many telephone enquiries about the machine we receive.

After a good nights rest we traveled all the next day, heading North to Atlantic City where we chose to spend our last couple of days before catching our flight back to the UK from Philadelphia.

I am really looking forward to getting back to Delboy & Rodney and making some time to 'play'.

www.quiltsandwich.co.uk

Fiona & Tim

On The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia - USA trip part three

After leaving Washington we headed south to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

We visited Waltons Mountain store & Museum where the house of Earl Hamner (John Boy Walton) is situated. The house has been fully restored.

Although the house was closed I spotted an old singer sewing machine and a beautiful double wedding ring quilt through the window.

As it was getting dark very quickly we stopped off in Lexington for a couple of nights.

The next day we headed up the Blue Ridge Mountains and the George Washington National Forrest.

Next stop was Roanoke and we headed up to the Star for a must have pic

So tomorrow we are heading across to the coast and Virginia Beach. We are checking in early so we can explore that area before Birds of a Feather commences.

USA Trip Part TWO -Washington DC

Well we made it to Washington! Glad we purchased a sat nav /gps  yesterday.  We found the hotel - the Holiday Inn Rosslyn straight away. On route we drove past The Pentagon & Arlington Cemetery.

Here is our view across the river towards the White House.  We are on the 14th floor.

After settling in we decided to brave the Metro, which is located just up the road. We chose this hotel due to it proximity to the station. Eventually we sussed the ticket machine & proceeded via the barriers for a very steep descent down to the station platform. Very much like the London Underground, only much cleaner and feels more relaxed.

Within 10 mins we were on and off the train and making our way in freezing conditions to see the White House.

After some dinner at The Hard Rock Cafe we headed back to our hotel for the night.

The next day we missed breakfast by 20 mins. We both thought it finished at 10.30 and in fact it was 9.30!  The hotel staff were less than accommodating.  This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day too.  We wrapped up and set off looking for somewhere to get breakfast. We walked miles in the freezing wind and didn't find anywhere!

We decided to get on the metro and head off to the Smithsonian.

We saw the Star Spangled Banner and the First Ladies Clothes then renovations!!!!  Unfortunately because of the renovations the Quilt exhibition was in storage!!

Ok, so this day was not our day - lol!

Tim wanted to see The Capitol Building - even that was covered in scaffolding!

We ended up in China Town and decided to have a chinese for breakfast/come lunch/come dinner. We visited The Big Wong and really enjoyed our meal until it came to the bill. We paid and left a reasonable tip only to be confronted by one of the staff telling us that our tip was not enough! We must leave at least 15%!!! What shameful behaviour.

So folks unless you are willing to pay over the odds and leave at lease 15% extra avoid this place!

Today we are heading out of Washington, south again.  Hoping to visit a quilting shop on route and heading towards The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Waltons Mountain and Dirty Dancing hotel here we come!