Hi Everyone —

Despite the NJ weather last week, Sue C and I were able to get to Ontario, California in time to take Ann Strite-Kurz’s class “Wishful Thinking”.   Thankfully, we had scheduled to fly early and ended up arriving just in time!

The class is planned as a four-day class at seminar, but we were part of a three-day pilot class sponsored by SBCANG chapter of ANG.  We had a small amount of pre-work to set up the dog outline and the border, but Ann told us that we could do as much of the border as we wanted if we had time.

Ann’s design shows a stack of Christmas presents with a Scotty dog trying to reach a bone on the top of the stack!  Sue is doing the piece in this original Christmas colorway.  Another woman did her own Hanukah colorway and we saw her stitched model in class — it was lovely.  I had asked Ann for a girl’s birthday colorway, but she had trouble finding the right threads, so she did a boy’s birthday colorway for me instead.  I am stitching the sample for this colorway (which Ann plans to also offer) so I am under a self-imposed deadline to get this done!

The following picture shows our progress after the second day of class.

It’s hard to believe, but we did the bottom four packages on the first day and the “top” two on the second day.  Ann walked us through all of the intermediary packages which did not introduce any new techniques, but we still had a number of questions.  The top red package was an interesting pattern and Ann used it to discuss how she comes up with new pattern ideas!

SBCANG workshops meet in the community room of a bank in Ontario, CA.  It is large, well-lit and Pat Correz provides an awesome set up of coffee and pastries for our breaks.  There is a wonderful “Local Baker” about three miles away in Upland, CA that is a favorite lunch place for sandwiches and salads.  Sue and I ate there on two of the three days.  The middle day we walked to an individual fast-fired make-your-own pizza place about two blocks from the venue.   Sue and I ate wherever the teacher went — that way we were never late to class!

The  following picture shows our progress at the end of the workshop on Day 3.

We spent most of the third day on the dog and the dog’s shading.  Sadly, a number of our classmates missed the morning session while they attended a memorial service for a local chapter member.  Ann walked all of us through the rest of the design and we spent most of the afternoon stitching what we wanted while Ann walked through the dog again.  I actually learned quite a bit — while adding the “whiskers” to the dog.  Ann showed me (and a few others) how to do the stem stitch and the outline stitch which were required for the whiskers.  She also showed us a ruche technique for adding a few of the bows.

After the conclusion of the workshop, Sue and I had been invited to dinner with several of the local members at an Italian restaurant a few miles from the venue.  We had a wonderful time and I feel like I have more and more connections to this guild!  SBCANG often has a workshop teacher stay and do a chapter program on the evening of the last day of the workshop.  So, after dinner, we all went back to the community room.  After a brief business meeting, Ann provided a slide lecture with fifty (?) or more of her designs with close-ups of unusual stitch variations.

Luckily, Sue and I have a few days to continue stitching at my brother’s house before we head home.  My goal is to finish the piece, but that too is “Wishful Thinking!”

Cheers!  Rosie