Iowa Dreaming

This past week I had my first ever trip to Iowa. I flew into Des Moines with high hopes and all of them were most excessively, exceeded. I was greeted by Pat,

from the Des Moines Area Quilt Guild and from that moment until the time when I was dropped off at the airport by giddy-as-school-girls Cinda & Joyce the laughter and conversation never seemed to stop.

One of my favorite things to do when I travel is find and experience 'local' stuff and there was no disappointment in this part of my trip either. The first night - after visiting the lovely Creekside quilt store, Pat & I were joined by the members of her small group (in CA we call them friendship groups) at a local favorite Living Farm for great food and lots of quilt talk.

Tuesday I presented two lectures to the guild members -- 1st was my trunk show -- which is always fun, for there is nothing like sharing quilt stories & the quilts themselves. Then, during the evening lecture that things got a little 'different' for me.

This is when I got to experience a 'new' first -- the first time I have heard the tornado warning sirens go off and headed for shelter at the place we were meeting. It took a bit of time, but the meeting started in the sheltering room and I did get to present my 'Organized Quilter' upstairs with the sounds of heavy rain making us all feel glad we were inside, rather than outside.

On Wed & Thur I presented two workshops, BUT just after everyone got settled into sewing on Wed and I started to take a few pictures the camera ran out of juice. You can get the jist of it from the few photos I do get to share with you.

All in all -- I can not wait to go back to Iowa and get more time to explore.