Getting Ready to Meet Ricky!

Okay, I know that most of you are probably saying Ricky Who? Is she going to meet Ricky Martin, Ricky Gervais, Ricky Fowler? Well all of those guesses would be wrong. If you know anything about the world of quilting you may have already guessed the correct answer as, to the best of my knowledge, there is only one Ricky in the quilt world and that would be Ricky Tims!

The Genesee Valley Quilt Club has worked very hard to bring the Ricky Tims Super Quilt Seminar to Rochester, NY. This amazing event (since I haven’t attended yet I don’t know for sure, but that is what “they” say) also includes, Alex Anderson and Libby Lehman for three days of seminars, fun and even a concert.

I am very excited to attend this event since it is really a once in a lifetime thing.  According to the club committee this is going to be the biggest Super Quilt seminar ever for Ricky and his gang.  I think Ricky is a bit excited too (and hopefully not just for the payoff) and on one of his recent posts to Facebook he said, “Farewell DC – Flying to Rochester NY in a few min – Hang on everyone – biggest Ricky Tims Super Quilt Seminar EVER!!! 750 – WHOO_HOO!!!” That’s right, there will be over 750 attendees to this event.

My mom (I guess dad too) gave me the registration for this event as a Christmas and birthday present for this year. Three days of seminars by three world known quilters is not cheap so I am very glad to have this as a gift. Mom is going too so we should have a fun time together and will probably be exhausted by the end.

So you might be asking what do I have to do to get ready for this three-day seminar? There are only lectures and you get a notebook with lots of information and places to take notes so there really isn’t much to prepare except maybe snacks and lunches.  The seminar is being held at the RIT Field House and we’ve been told that the seating will be metal bleachers!

The bleachers we will be sitting on are similar to the ones pictured above so they at least have backs on them, but can you imagine sitting on those metal seats for 3 days?! Well I couldn’t either so I set out to make myself comfortable.

Cindy’s Seat – portable seat cushion

Here is my version of a portable seat cushion complete with embroideries and verbage to indicate who this belongs to.  I figure that if someone wanted to steal it at least it would limit the thieves to those whose names were Cindy or knew someone named Cindy 😉

I chose sewing themed embroidery from a set that I have.  I love how these look against the purple fabric. All of the fabric I used is from the Dragonfly Summer collection by Holly Taylor that came out last year that I just love. I still have quite a bit so you can expect to see it pop up from time to time.

I found a pattern in one of my books for a basic seat cushion with a zipper in it and worked from there. To pad the back of the seat  I used three layers of extra loft polyester batting I had left over from the dog beds I made for Nina.  It was tough to stitch in the ditch on, but it will feel nice against the bleacher. It took me a while to figure out how to attach the back to the cushion, but that is where it is great to be an engineer as it came together very easily. I also added some ties to keep it compact for carrying and also to be able to tie it to the back of the bleacher or a chair.

Cindy’s Seat – tied to chair

I figure this seat cushion won’t go to waste either as it will come in handy when I go to quilting classes too.  Often the chairs are not only hard and uncomfortable, but not high enough for my vertically challenged self. The two-inch high cushion will give me a bit of a lift.

Cindy’s Seat – secured to chair

I’m really pleased with how it turned out and for those of you who were wondering, I did line up my stripes perfectly in the front and the back.  Yes, I am that fussy! I will be taking pictures during the seminar and will let you all know how it went, but probably not until Sunday!

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