Hi, Everyone —

Greetings from another fun-filled day at seminar!  My class continued to make progress on Imari Collage.  Today I regretted that I didn’t stitch the fourth section from yesterday, because it would have helped to provide an area to tie off the gold underlay in the green area.

Imari Collage — End of Day Two!

The area that looks like a tied up sheath of wheat is Or Nue, done differently than I have read about.  All of the gold ends will eventually be sunk to the underside of the canvas — but not until the rest of the canvas and the rest of the Or Nue section is stitched.

For the Stitch of the Month group — I am proud to tell you that Debbie brought in the finished SOTM to show our class and it is gorgeous!  You won’t believe the beautiful stitches that are coming up in the last few months of the year!  Before Sue and I met Anne Carol for lunch, I took Sue into my classroom to show her — how exciting!

In our classroom today, we discussed such topical subjects as whether we thought Wilma Flintstone and Jane Jetson settled when they married Fred and George.  When I told Marisa this on the phone, I was greeted with dead air — apparently she didn’t know who any of these characters were!  However — we also discussed the song that the most people in the US know the words to and I know that Marisa could support this theory.  The song is:  The Theme Song to Gilligan’s Island!

I forgot to mention yesterday that Debbie Stiehler is retiring.  So I feel doubly lucky to be in her Imari Collage Class and to be doing her SOTM piece both this year.

Tonight we had our opening banquet which was pretty good for a banquet meal serving about 400.  The speaker was a woman from UC Riverside, Dr. Margaret Nash.  She spoke about misconceptions about women’s education in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s.  Quite informative.

So, it’s all good!

Cheers!  Rosie

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

Last night when I was showing Rosie the threads that I had purchased this week for my Holiday Patches which is not going to be holiday related, I realized that I had missed the four colors of Silk &Ivory! So today I went to the seminar shop, Needlepoints, Ltd., and asked if I could bring in the threads I already had and have help in selecting the appropriate colors from Silk & Ivory. Since it was not busy, there was a saleswoman who spent time with me selecting the right colors.

Threads with Fabric Patches

What do you think of the colors with the fabric?

Sue

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Hi, Everyone —

I’m leaving for the Anaheim seminar on Tuesday morning and I’ve been working on the prework for Irresistible Iridescent.  I finished it this morning just in the nick of time.

Rosie’s Prework for Seminar

I know it doesn’t look like much at this point.  This is the sage colorway — it was also available in light blue and grey.  Unfortunately, they all looked grey to me!  I was hoping for salmon or peach or, well, something more colorful!

I also had my Stella Polaris installed into a Sudberry Tray.   I plan to give it to my nephew and his wife as part of their wedding present, so I won’t be able to bring it into a meeting to show you.  I posted a picture on the NJNA website gallery and I thought I would include it here to add a little bit of color to this post!

Stella Polaris in Umbria Colorway with Sudberry Tray!

I’ll be meeting up with Sue C on Friday in Anaheim and we can’t wait to share all the seminar excitement with you this year!  I have four days in Debbie Stiehler’s Imari Collage (which is a companion piece to last year’s Asian Collage).   Then I will tour the mission at San Juan Capistrano.  I’ll end the week with a two-day class by Nancy Cucci — lots of iridescent beading on the prework shown above!

Hope everyone has a great week —

Cheers, Rosie