A Few Days with the Windsor Quilters Guild

This week I had the pleasure of spending a few days with the Windsor Quilters Guild in Windsor, Ontario. A very memorable trip all around! Good weather, smooth flight with Porter (that connected at the Toronto Island Airport, which is so much more peaceful than Pearson International). This guild has also done an excellent job of organizing meeting and workshop locations that do not have stairs. I was able to wheel my big roller bags in without having to figure out how to get them up or down a set of stairs. Even my bedroom in the lovely home I was billeted at with Libby and Lorenzo Valeriani was on the ground floor, making life pretty smooth. Oh and Lorenzo makes fantastic espresso.

Libby runs a long-arm business called "Log Cabin Custom Quilting", but she also has turned her home into a retreat centre for quilters and other crafters. I'm going to show you a few of the key features.

So after mentioning that there were no stairs, I am going to show you stairs! However, these are the stairs that go to her large, and finished basement, where students at the retreat sew and where Libby does her long-arming. I thought they were cool because she has decoupaged colourful quilt blocks all along the edges of the stairs.

Quilts decorate the house everywhere, along with antiques, other needlework, art, etc. A very electic and charming decor.

Eight people can "retreat" at the same time. Four bedrooms each house two single beds, and each of the four bedrooms is decorated in a particular theme. The one below is in the theme of "Memory Lane". My room was all about sheep.

At left at the Gammill is Libby, and at right is Lynn, the Past President of the guild, and my "chauffeur" during my visit.

Always nice to stay in a house with pets. Makes a house a home. This is the big dog of the home, Luna.

Sadie and Cleo hang out together most of the time. 

Now on to the guild!  This guild has a large day-time meeting

and a smaller group gathering for the evening meeting.

Lynn brought her finished "Liberated Radial Piecing" design from the class I taught at Erie Shores Quilt Guild last spring.

We all gathered the next day for my first ever class on hosta leaves! Everyone was so kind and patient about the challenges with the fusible web.

Lynn finished her piece in the class (she said she didn't have time for homework ;-) . The edges of the background still need to be trimmed.

Here is Grace's piece in production.

The class gathered for a group shot to show off what they accomplished during the day.