Monday, August 30, 2010

TatDays 2010 - Fall Into Tatting into the books

These never seem long enough. It was so much fun to see everyone again this year and to meet new tatting friends. Took Nina Libin's Garnets & Grapes class. She is such a wonderful teacher and I had a good time although I wasn't the best student. My pinched nerve prevented me from being able to fully pay attention. I'll need to remake the earrings and the pendant is under "construction." It too will be added to my UFOs but I hope to finish more of them as the year goes forward.

So enjoyed working with The Lacemaker again this year. They are so much fun and personable. I wasn't going to buy any thread this year but that Tracy (the "evilly" smart businesswoman) knows my weaknesses. She had some Anchor thread and I picked up several hand fulls. The Lizbeth 80 was in and of course I had to have some of that. Adding that to my thread inventory will also take several hours to complete and put away. Karey Solomon had also brought some size 15 Rocaille beads in the colors she knows I love so I just had to give them a home. 

The quilt drawing took place and DonnaT (the newly installed Guild president) called the lucky winner. He was very surprised and said that his wife had told him he had to purchase a chance. She, like all of us, is also a fiber/craft junky. There were also several wall hangings that were created from the extra blocks that were sent into Georgia. These were auctioned off in a very-lively and fun time. Several other items were also auctioned including Ruth Scharf's "Neue Blätter" (which I won!! yeah, a prized and often hunted addition for my personal library) and some nifty items from the 3rd Season of the History Channel's Ice Road Truckers. 

The 3rd Season of Ice Road Truckers moved out of Canada and to Alaska's Dalton Highway. The trucker who retired at the end of the season, George Spears, is the "little" brother of our own Georgia Seitz. A short bio can be found at http://www.history.com/shows/ice-road-truckers/bios/season-3-truckers#slide-5

This year, it was announced that the generosity of the tatting community enabled us to fund seven full scholarships for tatters to attend TatDays 2010 and two partial scholarships. The funds raised this year between the beautiful large quilt, the live auction on Friday night and the silent auction which completed it's run on Saturday afternoon probably raised more than $4,000. This will go a long way in allowing the Guild to help more tatters attend our next event who otherwise would be unable to do so.

The banquet entertainment brought Connor O'Doul to see us. He is a magical creature captured by Veronica Moore. He is a really nice and funny guy and sings in a falsetto contralto voice. The facilities were really quite nice at the new site. This year found us in the Georgia mountains just outside Toccoa. The Georgia Baptist Conference Center is really a nice place and treated us well. Registration, vending and classrooms were all on the same floor. All the "sleeping" rooms were in the same building and there were two elevators to take all of us and our 'stuff' up and down. Everyone seemed to like the facilities. There were lots of areas, inside and outside, where small groups of us would gather to chat and tat. 

Hope and Lori did a wonderful job scheduling the entire event. There was scheduled free time so that everyone could take a breather and just have time to finish a class project, ask a teacher about a specific technique, shop or just clear their mind for the next class. It was good to see Wally and Sue as we hadn't seem either in a couple of years. It was good to meet new faces and put names to faces for those who we knew from online, whether in the online classes or some of the various online forums/news groups. That's all for now ... pictures of UFO's and other stuff later although I didn't take my own camera out of the case all weekend.

2 comments:

Jane Eborall said...

Ooooh, what a lovely report. Thanks from an old git who would've loved to have been there again this year.

tattrldy said...

Thanks for your report on Tat days. I've never been to one of these so have to live them vicariously through wonderful people like you who share their experiences with us poor souls who couldn't go.