Quilters of South Carolina Retreat 2011

 This weekend was the annual Quilters of South Carolina Retreat at White Oak Conference Center in Winnsboro.  There were over 300 of us there and the classes offerings were varied and well received.  I taught 2 classes--Introduction to Applique and Quilting Freemotion Feathers On your Home Machine. 
I had some of the most wonderful women in my classes.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the Applique class; however, many of the students signed up for both classes.  You can see from this first picture, that they dove right and started right to work.  This was a 1 1/2 day class and it was non-stop.

 And I'm very happy to say that they were so very successful and enthusiastic.  I started them off slowly with easy shapes but by the end of the weekend, each of them had acquired new skills and felt that they would now be more willing to use freemotion quilting in their work.  How about this first example.  She went beyond the scope of the class and added a background pattern similar to the one in my quilt that was hanging in the class.  How beautiful.

Gaynelle is showing the original pattern that I provided for the class and she accomplsihed quite a lot on her piece.

 Another example of a beautiful sample. (I think it was Robin's)

 Mary Sue spent a lot of time practicing on her motifs and did a great job rounding out the edges of her feathers.

 I found out that Emma hadn't been quilting for very long but you never would have known it because of the precision with which she quilted her design.

And look here!  You can even quilt feathers on a featherweight.

 Donna who is in the art group to which I belong proved that she is very "arty."  She decided to ignore the pattern and do her own thing, playing around with the motifs and injecting her own pizzaz into them.

 Mary provided a lot of good natured commentary throughout the day but also managed to complete a great part of her quilting design.

And Nancy, who was already quite an accomplished quilter, produced an exquistite piece.  Note the tiny stippling.

All in all, this was one of the most wonderful classes I have ever taught and I feel as if I made some really great new friends.  Each person in the room contributed to the success of the weekend and I certainly am looking forward to seeing more of their quilting in the future.