Ricky Tims Seminar

  A group of us from Charleston went to the Ricky Tims Seminar in Jacksonville, Florida a couple a of weekends ago.  What a blast it was!  I went with zero expectations and came home full to overflowing (of course, my time at the Cheescake Factory helped with the "fullness.")
When we first walked into the Seminar Room, we were greeted with the rainbow of Ricky's hand dyed fabrics.  Now who could resist that?  Certainly not I.  And if you look carefully at the upper left edge of this picture you can see that they worked out a pretty savvy system.  When you stood at the counter, the people working the "store" looked at your name tag, wrote your name on a shopping bag and handed it to you to fill up with things you wanted to buy.  Then you handed it back to them to pay for later OR to put more things in.  It was all alphabetized so they could quickly find your bag when the next buying break occured.  What a system--very buyer friendly.

 And you can see that I was not the only one taking advantage of the buying opportunities.
One thing that was so great about the entire Seminar was that EVERYTHING ran on time.  If a break was supposed to start at 10:30, that's when it began. 

 As  you walked into the main door, Libby Lehman and Ricky Tims had a table where you could get a photo opportunity or get autographs or just smooze.  Alex Anderson and her husband had a both on the other side of the room doing the same thing.

 And the volunteers from the Guild that sponsored the Seminar had aprons made from Ricky Tims fabric.

A close up of the quilting on one of Ricky's quilts.

 Ricky getting ready for a presentation.  Almost everything was projected onto a large screen so everyone could see.

 And there were beautiful quilts everywhere.  For those who never have the opportunity to go to Houston or Paducah, it was a rare opportunity to see these quilts up close and personal--and to hear the stories behind them.

My best purchase of the weekend!  This stabilizer is phenomenal.  I've been using it since I got home and am converted.

Did I learn anything at the Seminar? Well, yes, I did.  Nothing huge--but MANY little things that added up to one HUGE thing.  To be immersed in an atmosphere of humor, knowledge, artistic genius and an uplifting spirit--well, that was well worth the price of admission--and more.