Back from California...

I've been home for a week and am just about caught up! It's a good thing since I'm leaving again next Sunday! This time I'm going to Shipshewana for a quilting retreat with my mom - we go every year but missed last year because we were in Santa Fe. We're so looking forward to seeing our friends, quilting, relaxing, and of course, shopping and eating! This is one of my favorite weeks of the year and is total ME time - no work although I will check emails sporadically.

I had the most fabulous time in California - I taught two classes at Needle in a Haystack in Alameda. My students were wonderful and came from all over - east coast, Phoenix, Canada, and even England! Here's Annie from England - I had a special connection with her as we share the same birthday!

 

Here are a couple of fairly new canvas stitchers - they caught on quickly and were a teacher's dream!

 

 

 

Here's some of the class on the 2nd day - such fun ladies!



 

 

Several people brought things to show me and I wanted to share them with you! Here is my Galaxy design done in colors she picked out herself - we put it up in the middle of the trunk show and it goes great with Autumn Logs! She will be making it into a pillow and did a fab job picking out the colors. She shared her thread choices with me so if you'd like them, just let me know.

 

 

Here it is by itself right side up (I put it up upside down on the wall and we just left it that way!)

 

She also stitched Rainforest Revisited but stitched half on one canvas and the other half on a separate canvas to have two square pillows. She'd also done Rainforest Crunch so will have a trio of square pillows along with the larger Galaxy pillow on her sofa. Here's one of the Rainforest Revisited pieces.

 

 

Another of Cathe's customers used one of my Double Delights patterns (Charbleu) for the center of a design for a tallit bag she'd worked out herself. She also changed the colors to suit her preference. I love seeing people take the small designs and use them in alternative ways!

 

Amy drove in from Phoenix with a load of canvases of my designs - she may have stitched everything I've designed! It was most impressive especially since she'd done all 12 of the Double Delights not only in the original colors, but also in the alternate colorways listed on the patterns! I'd not even seen all of them done! Here's my favorite alternate - I challenge you to figure out which design it is!

 

 There's lots more but I'll save it for another day...

 

Until then,

Kathy