Leisure Arts Visit

If someone had told me two years ago that I would be blogging on the Internet, I wouldn’t have believed them. Somehow Leisure Arts found me at the Fall International Quilt Market in Houston last year. Susan Sullivan, the Editor-In-Chief of Leisure Arts, wasn't looking for a crocheter when she found me in my sister’s booth. When Susan contacted me before Christmas and told me that they had something that she would like to discuss with me after the first of the year, I was very excited and had a hard time waiting. When the time came, she called and told me what they had planned for Crochet Soiree, and I couldn’t believe my ears. She asked me to be their blogger or their voice of crochet. She said that she had been following the blog that I keep updated with our local chapter’s meetings. I was again surprised and excited that she liked what she saw. For someone else to like the things that I have been doing for all these years and to want me to join the group is a dream come true and truly a blessing. That’s all I can say about that.

When I agreed to be the blogger, I was also asked to do some videos. Well, I want to tell you that I am not an actor and have not been filmed except in home movies and that was just in the background. My husband was the one that was behind the camera for all of the family videos that have been taken here at my house, so he was the most likely one to videotape me.

Our try at home videotaping did not go so well. By the time we hung the backdrop, tried to get the lighting just right for no glare on my glasses, got the big shop lights out with smoke coming out of the top of them because they get so hot, wardrobe malfunctions after a nap while husband was getting the shop lights set up, me forgetting my lines, it just went on and on. We spent all day on videotaping and after cutting all of the bad parts out there might have been three minutes of video that would have worked.

That’s when Margaret (Leisure Arts Marketing Director) stepped in and said, “Just come to Little Rock, and we’ll videotape you.” After I picked myself up off of the ground, I thought, oh no, what am I going to wear? That was fairly easy. I had only four days to decide. The hardest part was what crocheted items would I bring and how was I going to fit them into my suitcase. Well, the logical thing was to take two suitcases and, believe me, I did.

When I left Wichita there was about three inches of snow on the ground, and the temperature was about 21 degrees. I arrived in Little Rock, and the temperature was about 50 degrees. My trip started off with a welcome from Susan Sullivan. I really want to thank her for taking time out of her Sunday to pick me up at the airport, take me to lunch, deliver me to the hotel, and then to spend time looking at all of my projects and listening to my ideas. She was amazed at my bottomless hot pink suitcase. Afterwards, she let me rest for a while, and then, she came back, and we went to dinner.

Margaret picked me up the next morning for a day of filming, and let Carrie (Leisure Arts Sales Manager) show me around the beautiful facility of Leisure Arts. We had a very long day of filming, between camera lighting issues, me forgetting my lines, and me not being able to stop laughing at one point, but it was a good day.