Saturday, April 27, 2013

Male Eggplant Make Better Eats - A Pattern Review Weekend Recap


Pattern Review Weekend, 2013, in San Francisco has concluded.

This was my first PR weekend and, since the event traveled to me, I decided to attend. I was mostly looking forward to meeting folks I know through blogs and sewing forums, and to seeing folks I'd not seen in awhile. I was quite eager to meet Claudine, of Rolling in Cloth. I have been reading her blog since I started blogging, almost 4 years ago, and I really admire her creativity. She was flying in early-ish on Thursday, so we arranged to meet beforehand.

About 30 minutes before she landed, our gloomy, overcast day turned sunny, so we decided to take a quick visit up to Twin Peaks. (Where I took the windblown picture with my cell phone.) Though it was quite windy (or maybe because of the wind), the views were good and we could see both bridges, the capitol building, Alcatraz, and other downtown landmarks.

Claudine wanted to visit Dharma Trading in person, a business she has mail ordered from many times, so we crossed the Golden Gate bridge and braved commuter traffic deep into Marin. On returning to the city, we had a nice dinner, then drove to the hotel to register for the weekend. It was nice meeting other people at registration and I ended up hanging awhile to chat, before heading home to my own bed.

The main event of the weekend is held on Friday. Sandra Betzina spoke in the morning and afternoon, ending around 5pm. She is a delightful speaker - very amusing - and she covered a lot of ground. We re-convened an hour later for a group dinner. The day was so jam-packed with activities, that it was difficult to meet and talk with people.

Saturday (today) was a shopping day but I slept in and then sequestered myself in the sewing room. Jillian did such a nice writeup of the weekend, that I refer you there for a more detailed description of the event. (I am feeling a bit lazy!) She called me this morning from Stone Mountain & Daughter, one of my favorite fabric stores, and it sounded like many of the 85 attendees of PR weekend headed right over to scoop up fabric treasures and exercise their 20% PR weekend discount.

It was all over so quickly, but it was so nice to meet and talk with everyone! To the rest of you attendees, I hope your Saturday shopping was successful and, based on Facebook updates I've been seeing, I should say so. :)

P.S. One of the topics discussed at my table last night, is the fact that male eggplant is better tasting and less bitter than female eggplant. I refer you to this article for more information. And, yes, I do check the gender of my eggplants in the grocery store and buy only males. Though I buy eggplant so rarely that I usually have to look up the "belly button" code. :)