Adventures in Salt Lake City

I recently had the opportunity to fly to Salt Lake City to meet up with my friend, Suzanne Earley. Suzanne is an award-winning longarm quilter, author and teacher, who has written two quilting books, Meandering Magic and More Meandering Magic.  She also owns the hottest online quilting website, MQResource.  Suzanne was in Salt Lake City to film for QNN TV’s show, Quilt It! She invited me to join her there, so that we could spend a little girlfriend time together.  That was her excuse, anyway. In truth, the poor girl needed a handler (said completely tongue in cheek!) Suzanne and I hadn’t seen each other in more than 2 years, so I was very excited to get to join her and share in this experience with her!

Filming takes place in a studio at Handi Quilter Headquarters in Salt Lake City.  I can’t say enough, just how wonderful it was to watch such a nice group of professionals in action. Brenda Groelz and Vicki Hoth were lovely! Both ladies are educators for Handi-Quilter.  It was very cool for me to get to sit back like a fly on the wall, and listen to the wonderful comments being made about Suzanne, what she was teaching, and how well she handled it all. Jodie Davis is the host of the show. She did a fabulous job of “chatting Suzanne up” a bit, helping her to relax. Everyone was so warm and friendly, it was easy to enjoy the process. Then again, I wasn’t in front of the camera! Suzanne did a great job!

I also got to meet, and have dinner with, Deloa Jones.  I’ve always heard about her, but I’d never had the opportunity to meet her. Deloa is a wonderfully talented longarm quilter, teacher, author,  APQS representative, and she has some awesome products to use in your longarm quilting. We sat together at dinner one evening, and I was sorry the evening had to end. Deloa is such a lovely person, and we had each other laughing until our sides hurt! I hope to see her again one day.

After shooting, Handi-Quilter CEO, Mark Hyland, took us on a tour of the factory. Suzanne and I were both amazed at the professionalism with which the company is run!  I’ve always heard good things about the Handi-Quilter machines, as well as the company. As we saw first hand, every detail of the HQ operation is top-notch! They really do care, not only about the product, but about how customers are taken care of.  Very impressive, and very refreshing!

The last day that Suzanne and I had together, we shop hopped all over the SLC area. There are several shops within easy driving distance, and we liked every one of them! Since we both have rather large fabric stashes, we managed to remain disciplined about our spending. It was fun, though, to see how each shop was different from the other. One of our stops was at the studio/shop of Renae Haddadin, Quilts on the Corner. Renae quilts on show quilts while her sister runs the business of t-shirt quilt making. She also uses a computerized longarm quilting machine to quilt edge to edge designs on customer quilts. Renae is an award winning longarm quilter, author, and teacher.  She has a new product coming out that will make it much easier for longarmers to load their quilts.  The product is called Red Snappers, and Renae has had her hand in every aspect of development. They should be available in just a couple of weeks.  I can’t wait to try out Renae’s Red Snappers! Kind of catchy, don’tcha think?

We couldn’t go to Salt Lake City and not see The Great Salt Lake.  It’s huge, and also rather smelly. Apparently, there used to be a very popular resort there. Most of the resort burned down many years ago, and what’s left is used as a social hall, concert hall, and gift shop. The place is rather run down, as are the surrounding grounds. Kind of sad. It was interesting, though, to read about the history of a resort that used to exist there.

It was a wonderful few days away and a much-needed break. I’m so glad that Suzanne invited me to share in this adventure with her!