Hi, Everyone —

I tried writing this in California, but just couldn’t get it done.

As expected, seminar was great fun and I learned a lot from two great teachers!  My lovely brother picked Sue and me up in Anaheim on Saturday morning and after stopping to get my Mom, we drove to his newly-renovated “cabin” at Lake Arrowhead.  The renovation was extensive, but the result is a comfortable, relaxing retreat.

Bill’s Cabin

Lake Arrowhead was once a vacation destination for the Hollywood crowd, so Bill took Sue and I on a grand tour of the celebrity houses by boat!  He said that hearing me scream when he hit waves at high speed was “priceless”, but he shared all sorts of tidbits about various points of interest around the lake with Sue.

Sue is ready for her boat tour!

The lake is deep and clear (and cold), but I managed about 20 minutes of my swimming exercise routine!

We drove back to Riverside in time to attend the SBANG meeting which Sue has told you all about!  I picked up my pre-work for Ro Pace’s “Atlantis Rising” workshop which is being held by SBANG in late October.  The pre-work is extensive and I’m in a panic about getting it done in time.  So my seminar pieces will have to wait!

On Tuesday, Sue and I toured Riverside’s most famous landmark, The Mission Inn.  This is a hotel, that has the feel of a mission even though it was never used as such.  It has an interesting history that ties in with early California, the railroads, and orange trees!

The Mission Inn Bell Tower!

I picked this picture for the blog so that you can compare it to the bell tower at San Juan Capistrano!

Mission Inn Court Yard with rotating Clock Tower!

This court yard has seating for lunch, but it was over 100 degrees, so we sat inside!  The rooms on the top floor are all named after well-known authors who came to the Mission Inn to write!  What a nice way to round out our Anaheim experience!  Thanks, Mom!

Cheers, Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

I’m sitting here with the Arizona football game on ESPN Gamecast on my PC, so I am writing this blog post on my I-pad mini.  Six minutes left in the fourth quarter and NAU just blew a fabulous drive — so the score remains 28-0 U of A!  I hope Marisa is in the stands for this great game!  Oops — U of A’s new quarterback just ran 64 yards for another touchdown so it’s now 35-0!

So today we continued on I-squared and did some additional beading.  I find it hard to lay stitches next to beads that are already in place, so I only added beads when there was something unique about the particular application.

Last Day of I-Squared!

Nancy Cucci was a wonderful teacher — serious, helpful, and I learned a lot from her.  I would highly recommend her classes to any of our NJNA members!  Today we received a wonderful participation “gift” — a wooden seashell shaped thread holder!

I thought you might enjoy seeing this needlework tote that Nancy received as a gift from one of her friends.

Nancy’s Custom Tote

This wonderful tote starts out as a tool carrier in plain canvas from Harbor Freight.  Her friend then used acrylic paint to paint the background rectangles and a paint pen to decorate the background.  This has so many compartments, handles, etc.  I think this would make a wonderful chapter project.  BTW, I also learned how to make a foam board carrier for in-process needlepoint.  Another potential chapter project!

I understand that it made the national news, but yesterday there was a freak storm in Riverside where my Mom lives.  There were high winds and rain (100 year storm levels) for about twenty minutes.  Mom was without power or phone for a long while afterwards.  The weird thing is that NONE of the towns around Riverside got any rain at all.    My brother says that “WE” have chores to do before we can go to the mountains tomorrow!

Hopefully Sue wrote about our banquet tonight — there was a terrific presentation to get us all psyched about Chicago in 2014!

Cheers!

Rosie

Hi, Everyone!

Today Sue and I went on one of the sponsored ANG tours to Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Ready to Board the Minibus!

First off, let me say that of the eight tours offered at this seminar (four on Saturday and four on Wednesday) — only two had enough participants to go ahead.  On Saturday, One Thousand Flowers: Clay Millefiori Sculpting was offered here at the hotel.  Today, Home of the Swallows was the only tour that ran.   And out of over 400 attendees at seminar — only 14 people took this tour.  It makes me wonder about tours for future seminars if participation rates are so poor.

So, the good thing about our tour — there were only 14 people!  :-)!   We boarded a luxury minibus at the hotel and about 45 minutes later, we arrived at the Mission San Juan Capistrano.  You can see that we had a beautiful day for this!

Mission Entrance

We were quickly escorted inside and assigned a private docent for our group.  She took us through three separate areas of the mission — one for the Spanish soldiers, one for the Native Americans, and one for the Priests.

Garden and Grounds at the Mission

Here’s a lovely picture of Father Junipero Serra — the founder of the mission.

Father Junipero Serra

We heard the wonderful story of the Swallows at the Mission.  Swallows are rather messy birds and the merchants in town were irritated about the debris, so one of the priests invited the birds to make all the mess that they desired at the mission — and the next day the birds came and took up residence!  And legend has it that the birds return every year from Argentina — on March 19!

Our docent showed us through an old mission church (where I did some more needlepoint research!) and then we walked around to the old stone church.

Ceiling in the Mission Church — and Great Needlepoint Border Ideas!

The old stone church took nine years to construct, but was destroyed after six years by an earthquake.  Many people perished inside the church and only a few walls remain now.  We were asked if we felt any ghosts!

Old Stone Church and Statue of Father Junipero Serra.

This next picture is my favorite from the mission.  It is interesting to note that one of the needlepoint projects on display in the seminar exhibit area was exactly this scene from Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Mission Bells!

After our tour, we walked down the main street of Capistrano to an old building that houses the restaurant El Adobe.  This was a favorite place of the Nixons.  Anyway, we had a private room and were served the Mexican Fiesta — family style!

The window in our banquet room at El Adobe!

We had Guacamole prepared tableside, followed by a Cilantro-Pepita Salad, then Taco Fiesta Platters (three kinds of meat), Cheese Enchiladas, and the most wonderful Sopapillas for dessert!

Are you hungry yet?

I was so stuffed that I fell asleep on the bus ride home!  What a wonderful day!

I feel refreshed to begin my new class “Irresistible Iridescents” tomorrow morning.  I think I’ll call it “I-squared”!

Cheers!

Rosie

Hi, Everyone —

Today was the last day for my class, Imari Collage.  We have had such a good time stitching this and have also gotten quite a lot of stitching done.  I think it would be good if classes were at least one day longer than necessary so that students could get “significant” stitching done before they leave.  In my humble opinion, that would lead to more stitching finishes!

Final Day of Imari Collage

You will see that I have some stitching done in “almost” every section of this design.  I purposely did not stitch a few sections because I wanted to fill in enough that long, gold, layed stitches did not “snag” on things in my backpack or luggage.  I can’t wait to “show and tell” this piece to you in person!  In addition, I have a Japanese 5 Yen coin to attach to the red square and five bamboo beads to attach in the red rectangles.

In other interesting news today:  Susan Rossi won a door prize!  I consulted my participant list and unfortunately this was not our NJNA Sue Rossi, but someone who lives in Malibu, California!    What a coincidence!

The seminar newspaper today credited Linda Mosch for her donations to the Opportunity Baskets — Linda will have to let us know what she sent in.  Total value of ALL the Opportunity Baskets is in excess of $15,000.

Tonight, Sue and I had dinner with Anne Carol at a Chinese restaurant across the street from the hotel.  I think they cooled the dishes down for our western palates!  But I convinced them to make Salt and Pepper Shrimp for me and they had sake, my beverage of choice!

Tomorrow, Sue and I will be going on a sponsored tour to San Juan Capistrano followed by an authentic Mexican lunch!  Hopefully, the pictures will be a little more interesting!

Cheers!  Rosie

Hi, NJNA —

First of all — Carol sent me the summary of the show and tell from last Wednesday’s meeting!  I can’t wait to see Diane’s pictures that go with them!

Sue and I are having a great time at seminar!  We decided to try the ANG special lunch at Tusca (hotel restaurant) today — a cup of soup and a half sandwich for just under $10.  The soup was vegetable and the sandwich was a tuna melt.  There are no choices because normally the hotel restaurant is NOT open for lunch.  The problem was that we ordered hot tea at $4 each.  So all of a sudden the affordable lunch became a bit much.  Tomorrow we will nosh in our room for lunch!

Debbie’s Imari Collage class continued to be great fun today.  The stitches are beautiful — more so in person — and we continue to enjoy Debbie’s humor and stories as the class rolls on!  It hardly seems possible that three of the four days are over!  You can see from my end of day progress that we only have a few more sections to go.  So sad to see it end — I could stitch with this group for a long time!

Imari Collage — End of Day Three

You will see that I have the pesky ends of the Or Nue taped back so that they don’t interfere with the adjacent panel.  Debbie says that Ideally, these would be sunk to the back and pulled to the side on the back of the canvas.  But, since we don’t have enough time to finish the panel, we have to push them aside on the front.  All in all, I feel much further ahead than I felt at this stage on Asian Collage last year.

After class today, I went out to the pool.  I exercised for about fifteen minutes, but the pool was 3.5 feet at its deepest and besides was full of kids.  Crouching down to do the routine was tough on the knees — as was skinning my knee on the bottom when I tried to do a lap.  So — I’ll try the pool in the North tower tomorrow.  I expected the better one to be this one which is part of the fitness center — bad assumption!

Sue and I had a nice dinner at an Italian Family Style restaurant which is about a block from our hotel.  We had linguini with shrimp, fresh tomatoes, spinach, and garlic.  It was one of our better meals since we came to seminar!  Both Sue and I were appalled by the treatment our waitress was receiving from a businessman sitting at the bar.  So obnoxious!  She handled it wonderfully and she told us that it used to bother her but she has gotten better at dealing with it.  God bless her!

That’s about all for today!  I hope that we have a few readers out there!

Cheers!

Rosie

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