Mother Ship

The first EGA national seminar I was ever at was the one in 1983 in Philadelphia; hmmm, twenty-five years ago. I taught a Wednesday class in Hardanger and then the next day I went just to see the sights. I lived in Cherry Hill, NJ then and I had a toddler at my skirts. I really had no idea what the national seminar experience was about. It was at that seminar that I met Lisbeth Perrone. I still have her book of needlepoint patterns. She was sitting in a hallway outside the boutique unraveling a huge wad of metallic gold thread. We talked for a few minutes. She told me that she found the gold thread in a wastebasket and had been given permission to take it. She thought it a dreadful waste of materials.

Blackwork: Compleat and Unabridged

The sampler I taught at Louisville in 1998 for the 40th anniversary of EGA

The next national seminar I went to was in Parsippany, NJ when I received my rose for Teacher Certification. I took a class from Lynn Payette as I recall. It was there that I had Barbara Scott for my roommate. We have been good friends ever since. We had a third roommate who was from north Jersey. She was a kick. She had a car and took us away from the hotel for some of the meals. At that time I was living in Colorado again, I think. At any rate, I have taught at six EGA national seminars and I have been to nine with the one coming up being my tenth.

Going to seminar is like going up to the mother ship. It is one vast pleasure from the first to the last. It is a place where I belong. Where I am one of the group. It is a place where strangers are only good friends to whom I have not yet been introduced. We get as rowdy as a group of middle-aged ladies ever get. We stay up and talk; we stay up and stitch. We smile and learn. We become reacquainted with friends we see rarely.

I am going to the mother ship tomorrow, Friday the 29th. This blog will be in hiatus until I get back. So you will hear from me again on Sunday, September 7. Happy stitching until then.