Hi, Everyone —

It feels like we never left Philadelphia!  I am starting my week with another one of Debbie Stiehler’s beautiful creations:  Imari Collage.  The maximum class size is supposed to be 24, but this class had so many sign-ups that Debbie agreed to take 30!  With so many in the room, it is quite warm — but I am sitting in the same relative spot as I did for Asian Collage in Philadelphia, so it feels like home!

The kit for this piece is very different from Asian Collage.  The threads are either hand-dyed threads on little plastic bobbins or Kreinik metals.  The hand-dyed threads are silk and have an amazing richness of color!  Debbie had all of the silk thread bobbins arranged into small plastic bags with a small bit of corner cut off of each one.  We used our needle to fish the top end of the thread through the cut off corner and then the bobbin rolls around in the bag as we spool off thread through the cut corner!  So cool!  (Debbie said she could only imagine all the many bobbins falling onto the floor and rolling all over the classroom!  Well, she sure solved that issue!)

So we worked two sections in the morning and two in the afternoon.  Here’s my progress so far.  I elected to forego the fourth section in order to clean up some of my threads from the other three.  Here is my end of day progress.  By the way, the red square is the same stitch that I used for Lombard Street!

Tomorrow, we will spend the entire morning doing a section of Or Nue — and Debbie has a different technique than anything I’ve seen before.  She says it is a traditional technique — so I am glad to be learning it before I teach the NJNA chapter about Or Nue!

Sue ran into our friend, Anne Carol, whom we met at the Philadelphia seminar — we plan to have lunch with her tomorrow!

Sue and I planned to take the shuttle to Garden Walk tonight for dinner, but as we were waiting the bellman came to tell us that it had just been taken out of service, so we will eat somewhere nearby instead.

We haven’t had any midnight fire alarms yet, but thankfully we have a refrigerator in our room and have it well-stocked for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.

That’s about all for today!

Cheers!  Rosie