Catchin' up

Whew!  It's been a busy few days!  Fran and I had signed up a few months ago to take a class at a local Quilt retreat called Quilt Camp in the Desert... there's also Quilt Camp in the Pines in the summer.  Anyway, most of the classes are traditional quilting methods but we found one that looked interesting so we signed up.  Martha Nordstrand was our instructor who taught us a super easy way to create landscape quilts.  When she said to throw all quilting rules out the door before coming in, Fran and I looked at each other a grinned saying,"we're in the right place!"  We so enjoyed our class and really felt we got our money's worth.  Martha is a wonderful teacher and oh my, you should see her quilts!  She does EVERYTHING by hand and they are extremely detailed and exquisite.  Mind-boggling is another word that comes to mind!  She has won many awards for her work even at an international level.  I highly recommend classes with her and at the very least, visit her website!  Here's her link:  http://www.morequiltsplease.com/index.html

I am not nearly finished with my quilt yet so I can't show anything yet.

I went over to Fran's yesterday and watched her TiVo recordings of Project Runway and the new Quilting Arts show.  Project Runway is so much more fun to watch with a friend!  Instead of working on my quilt as Fran did, I created two small canvas pieces to add to my baby gift for the shower I attended today.  These are done in tissue paper collage.  The bees and lady bug, however, are paint.

The canvas and kitty were well received as well as the other items in my gift bag.    Gosh, this is frustrating.  Any time I try to type after I posted a picture, it messes up my font size and spacing.  I manage to fix the font size but don't know how to change the spacing.  Ok, I got it fixed... now to figure out how to keep it from happening.

So, today was the baby shower.  It was very nice.  I realized that it's been a really long time since I've been to one or held a newborn.  I really don't remember my boys being so small!  Lila is now 9 lbs. and my boys were only 6 lb. 7 oz. and 6 lb. 13 oz. when they were born!  And holy smoke, Lila was so tiny!

I watched a really good movie last night.  I rented Freedom Writers.  It is based on a true story and highly recommend it.  My latest book read was "90 minutes in heaven" and wow, what a book!  That's a great one and a quick read.  It was a fascinating true story!

Classes for Art Unraveled are up on the website and I have already chosen my classes and filled out my form.  They can't be postmarked earlier than Feb. 15th so I'm hanging on it it with anticipation!  I'm planning to take:

"2 art quilts" with Jane La Fazio

"watercolor journaling with ink" with Jane La Fazio

"so you want to sell your art" with Judy Wise

"Poetry in Motion" with Katie Kendrick

They are spread out over the week with two of the classes being in the evening.  And of course, saturday is vendor day and so much fun to attend to see what everyone is selling... and if I save some money, then I can buy something wonderful!