Off on an adventure....

Three black wooly cats went to town today and can be found at "Imagine".  I am mostly packed and ready for our trip to France. We leave Thursday morning and will be gone for two weeks. So looking forward to our workshop with Julie Arkell. Made a couple of hooked hearts for little gifts....

Hoping to meet Nathalie Lete in Paris and see her wonderful studio. Love her colorful folksy style and all the different mediums she works in.  Dear friend Pepa gifted me with a Nathalie blue bird plate this week- a belated birthday present. Perfect timing! Thank you, Pepa!

Last week we had a "trip" meeting and took some time to visit the Art Hus in Solvang.Here are a few of the very cool hand made items in the shop.  Scissor maidens by Sue...

Cindy Knight's sparkly figures and jewelry...

Sukey's colorful crochet...

Syd's paintings and Colleen's house pin cushions...

  

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and  little fabric wall hanging I made a bit ago.

Back in a couple of weeks! Hope you have a great beginning of summer and 4th of July!

Some Journal Pages...

A few of the journal pages I'm working on for the Paris/France trip coming up in about a week!

I wanted to make some "stones" for Jude's project so I stitched these up late last night.  Will send them off today...

And I finished up Mr. Owl finally. Had to do some un-hooking on the face before I was happy with him.

During my thrift store visit I came across this green knitted sweater. I immediately thought "Frog"!

And yesterday I got to work on him. Still need to sew eyes, mouth and some dots for a nose but it was fun to make something besides cats and owls! Not sure if he needs some summer shorts or not....

Art Journal Cover and Sew Somerset Article

Here's the cover I made for my journal for our trip to France. May do some more stitching.

Having fun with the pages inside...painting, glueing, stitching...

And I used one of the fabric flowers like the ones in this article I wrote for Sew Somerset for the closure on my journal. 

Here's the cover...lots of fun stuff inside including an article by Viv Sliwka of Hen's Teeth blog and the one below by another English fiber artist Priscilla Jones. Fellow Artfiberfest teacher Roxanne Padgett has a colorful article on Stenciled Fabric Journals as well.

Ethnic Arts in Berkeley

Thought you might enjoy seeing these interesting quilts that were on display at the Ethnic Arts store in Berkeley, CA. It's fun to see the different fabric and techniques used from different parts of the world. I see mostly applique and some patchwork. These are pre-cultural revolution marriage quilts for the bride's dowry. All are for sale...I just enjoyed looking!

A few more sights around this colorful store with lovely saleswomen.

We came to pick up our David Marsh table top for our nook and had fun seeing all the other wonderful things inside.

Beautiful handwoven cloth from Africa....

brightly colored bird cage...

D. Marsh chairs...I have one for my sewing chair and I love it.

More David Marsh furniture...trying not to "want"....

One last close up of one of the quilts..

Nice to be home again, even though we are having foggy weather.

Trying to figure out what to take on our trip to Paris...leaving in less than 2 weeks!

Another graduation

Justin graduated this week from San Marcos High School and we are so happy with his achievements. He will be off to UCSB in the fall in electrical engineering with several scholarships. He is already planning on getting a summer job which will help too as they keep raising tuition every year.

Here he is on the left with some of his friends.

And guess who was an election inspector? Yes, that would be me! I spent Tuesday at our Fire Station here in the mountains helping people vote in the primary election. It was nice to see all the neighbors who stopped by, but a long day- 6am to 8pm and it got cold and windy in the big open station.

Borrowed this from Colleen because soon we will be heading off to France for an Art Workshop with Julie Arkell. First some time in Paris then down near Bordeaux for a 5 day workshop at "Les Soeurs Anglaises". Syd, Colleen, Susan and myself (all girls in our 60's) decided it's now or never, so off we go on another art adventure.

We all decided to create an art journal to take with us and record our trip so we met this week to work on some pages.

Part of the fun is anticipating our adventure..,,,

I did manage to get some work done....finished up these two little owls with pouches and got a pile of wool sweaters deconstructed. 

Once again we are off to celebrate the boys with a trip up to Calistoga for a few days. Back home on Wednesday, but right now I am off to work at the store!

Have a lovely weekend...see you soon!

A visit to the Sierras

Last weekend we enjoyed the beautiful mountains and countryside of the Eastern Sierras in Northern California. Our first night we spent at Benton Hot Springs with a view of the snow capped mountains.

In the morning we explored a sweet old cemetery from the 1800's. 

There are also ruins of old miners shacks, leftover implements and wonderful old wood.

An old barbed wire heart....

After we cooked breakfast we headed on up to the Lundy Lake area so Dennis could fish.

I brought my trusty craft bag and attempted some knitting....it didn't go well so I moved on to some little sewing projects instead and just soaked in the trees, birds and rushing stream water.

Dennis had one of his best fishing days ever. He always does "catch and release" so no fish were harmed,

Nice to see him relax without all the store duties that he deals with every day.

In the evening we cooked our dinner over a campfire and had 3 deer visitors. This one kept coming up closer and closer and stayed around for most of the evening. Fun to have these deer for company as we ate our dinner and toasted marshmallows for our s'mores. 

A busy week followed with more award ceremonies, election meetings and now I am off to work at the store.

Have a great weekend!