My trip to South Carolina - part 2

One of my students of the doily class was Sherry Townsend. I had noticed her the first moment she arrived, because she wore a big purple, very beautiful tatted hat. She is a very communicative and eccentric lady, with long wild hair and eccentric clothes. Her enthusiasm is infecting. She made me a lot of compliments and wanted my permission to photograph my items, which I gave her. Unfortunately she had not brought her items for the exhibition room, but she showed me some of her three-dimensional tattings which are amazing, especially a dinosaur with his kid dinosaur. She has already finished the doily of my doily class, showing it on her site.
After my Sunday morning class, which was the design class, and before attending Nina Libbins class, I had the conference class. So I went to the place, which was near the vending room, with sofas and chairs near big windows, from where you could see the green surroundings with lots of trees, und from which the bright light came in. Here I found Ruth Perry, the celtic tatting master. I imagined her as a delicate lady, like her tiny, beautiful, intricate lace and her name Rozella Linden, instead I met a strong, big, a bit masculine but beautiful lady, which was sitting there teaching her wonderful art in the middle of a group of arthungry ladies gathered around her. I sat the nearest possible to her, looking, absorbing and admiring.
On the floor there was sitting Martha Ess, making something with beads, which she charged with a hook in a very fast way on the thread. With her red hair and the white tatted hat, her slim body and shy character she seems to me the tatting fairy. I saw her always tatting something and smiling gently. Her little items in block tatting were amazing.
While I was sitting there, waiting for someone to ask me something, which did not happen with Ruth Perry around there, a lady named Hegla came and hugged me and made me a lot of compliments, and then gave me as a gift an old, free tatting book from Therese Dillmont she had loaded down from the internet. I was so surprised and happy about this.
Unfortunately I missed the tatting speed competition, where I didn’t arrive in time. So I could not win against Mark Myers, who won again.
In the evening there was the banquet, where Georgia Seitz made such an interesting speech about the tatting history. I gained a lot of new information. Thank you Georgia for all your efforts in keeping tatting alive and lively. She is our tatting mother, I loved her the first moment I saw her. She asked me to teach one of my earrings in the online class, which is a great honour for me, and I’m now preparing the lesson.
I have to speak about Mary Donahue. She didn’t wore our Palmetto t-shirt, but had a special t-shirt with her flower garden stamped on it, and everybody admired that stamp. She had organized the food, so that we could eat healthy and simple food, and I appreciated that a lot and I liked the food very much. She is also a very communicative lady, speaking with everybody and making you immediately feel at home, and she is also a great teacher. We participated, together with Pam Essberg, another interesting tatting teacher, and another lady, I don’t remember well if it was Katie Verna, at the tatted card competition, sure to win. We didn’t win, the group of Geogia Seitz won and I must admit that their cards were better that ours.
In the evening, when everything was over, I sat together with Marie Smith. This was an important moment for me: she taught me how to teach tatting to children and how to make the split chain in a very easy way. She also gave me some tatting tools for gift and I will never forget this moments I passed with her. I didn’t yet have the time to teach my 6 year old granddaughter, because she has started school and is also very busy, but soon it will be winter and I will have plenty of time to teach her.
I have to say a big thank you to the organizers. All the ladies were constantly present, ready to help you for everything, smiling always and making you feeling at home and important. I saw them exhausted and sweating, but still smiling. They stayed hours and hours in the exposition room to judge the pieces, some of them sat the whole days in the vending room to sell our pieces, they organized plays for us in the evening, when they were much more tired than us, they tried to meet all our requests and make us comfortable. Everything was perfectly organized. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
After the Palmetto Tat days I stayed some other days with Jane Henson, and then I was hosted by Joanie Culverhouse. Joanie is a very special lady. She is one of the group of organizers. At her home all is organized for tatting, knitting, crocheting, beading. She does not look television, at least she looks at her birds in front of her kitchen window. We were so united in our love for crafts, that we did nothing else than tatting and looking at her tools and materials. And... we went to the crafts shops at the malls to purchase beads and other things for tatting. She let me enter her craft sanctuary in the FROG (I learned that this means free room over garage), where she had all her craft materials. She gave me a lot of things as gift: findings for jewellery, beads, and a lot of special tools for tatting, I never could think of. She is constantly collecting all sort of things and containers, imagining a use for craft purposes. As they had organized another class for me for their Palmetto meeting, where I had to teach my butterfly, Joanie and I worked together at that butterfly and made some spare bodies for those who would not have been able to make the body at home or to finish it in class, so that they could try to make the wings. Also in Joanie’s house there was a cat, a very nasty cat, which would have killed me, if she could. I always tried to remember to close my room, because I was not sure if the cat would try to destroy some of my things. On the Saturday morning of the butterfly class, we stood up early to be there in time: distances are always great in America, we cannot imagine that in Europe. We arrived at the library, where there was the class room and prepared everything. A lot of woman attended the class, also Riet Surtel, and at the end nearly all of them had made part of the butterfly to be able to finish it at home. The spare bodies I had prepared with Joanie’s help, had been distributed and had been very useful. This class was a great experience.
On Sunday morning I prepared my luggage, trying to put in all my gifts and purchases in a safe position, and then, in the early afternoon we went to the mall, where some ladies meet every Sunday for tatting. So I had the opportunity to see them for the last time before my departure and greet them. Then Joanie and Jane Henson accompanied me to the airport to return to Canada, to my sister. They waited with me a lot of time, because we were early, and then we greeted us with a lot of hugs and I went behind the passport and luggage control to the gate.