I had a fantastic time in Louisville this weekend!

Holly and I drove down to Celebration of Needlework on Friday – we met near my new apartment (that’s another post for sometime later in the week), and headed south to Louisville. We stopped for lunch in Indianapolis at Shapiro’s – my favorite place to eat in Indiana, before arriving in Louisville around 3pm.

We immediately met up with some online friends in the stitcher’s lounge, before heading down to the Merchandise Mall for a quick visit.

Then, we met up again for an early dinner at a Mexican restaurant/bar. We thought we might have made a bad decision as to our dinner venue when we noticed the stripper poles on the platform (bar?). We were worried even further when despite it being a bar in a popular part of town, we were the only ones in the place. Our worries were unfounded – dinner was good, and the company was great! There were 7 of us; Holly and I had met Melissa before, but although we had “known” the others for several years online, this was our first chance to meet in person. Based on how much fun we had over the weekend, I’m sure it’s not going to be the last!

Annette, Melissa (Missy), Cheryl, Melissa, Holly, Pat (Annette’s mom)

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, and then met up again for the Friday night charity event – it was a dessert buffet (yummy!), a charity auction, bingo, and a lot of fun wrapped up in 2 hours. Susan Greening-Davis was our hostess, and she gave a nice talk on her visits to Italy, where she learned about the different types of embroidery dating back to the time of the Medici family.

After the reception, we headed to the stitchers’ lounge. I almost passed on attending – before heading to Louisville that morning, I’d actually gone to work for a couple of hours, and I was exhausted, but I decided that I could sleep another night, so I grabbed my stitching and headed to the stitcher’s lounge. I think Holly and I were the first to leave the lounge (at close to 12:30am).

Here’s the gang looking bright eyed and bushy tailed on Saturday morning (some of us didn’t get to bed until after 3am!) - we met in the lobby of the hotel and had breakfast together. Cheryl had to drive home right after breakfast, and Melissa was leaving shortly thereafter.

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll talk more about the merchandise mall, and the class I took, so stay tuned!