Artistic Alchemy Retreat, and on to Snohomish

by Sandra Bruce

 

Christine and Heidi have written posts about our wonderful 2015 Artistic Alchemy Retreat from last month, my turn to share photos! I had a 2-day break after the retreat, and after unpacking and packing again I headed up to Snohomish, WA to visit the Busy Bees Quilt Guild to do my presentation and workshop. I have friends along the way so decided to make a road trip out of it, visiting friends and hitting quilt shops, of course.

Here are some of my favorite pictures….first from the Zephyr Retreat, then from my trip north. At the very end is a surprise photo!

I hope these pictures will inspire you to join us next year! We already have several signups and can’t wait to start planning the 2016 retreat.

Waking up with coffee and this view of Lake Tahoe is a great way to start any day!

 

Our assistant, Debbie, helped make things run smoothly.

 

Here’s Mary Boalt, our Artist-In-Residence, in Heidi’s class project, the “Off the Grid Vest”. So cute!!!

 

Heidi, in her Whisper Blouse, giving her trunk show!

 

Christine’s trunk show, including quilts and vests!

 

Jennifer, all the way from Ontario, Canada, working on her Matrix piece in my class, from a picture of her dog, Soda. I had 10 students and I enjoyed them all! Such a diversity of quilt subjects!

 

Joey working on her Matrix quilt, an industrious undertaking of the “world”, from a map.

 

Ellen, with a beautiful image of a succulent plant, working across the width of her piece.

 

Jan tackled the hardest parts of her image first, the eyes, in black and white.

 

Debi worked on an image from her past, a Volkswagen Bug.

 

Liz returned from last year to work on Jimmy, her dog. It was a pleasure to have her and Cheri back this year! Liz’s koi, coming along:

 

 

Gina also did a face for her Matrix project, her daughter.

 

Caryn’s kitty cat has 2 different colored eyes! Fun to piece!

 

Rosemary’s bear…he came to life before our eyes!

 

During my evening presentation Trish showed her Matrix Self-portrait, inspired by mine. This is a fun picture of her, and the quilt.

 

A big thanks to everyone who came and helped make the 2015 retreat such a success! THANK YOU!



Moving north….

A very quick stop at the Portland Art Museum…my favorite from all the exhibits was a collection of woodblock prints by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi from 1887. I loved them.

 

Breakfast in Portland, at the Milk Glass Market. Look at this array of bread….

 

Snohomish is a very sweet little town, northeast of Seattle. This quilt shop was a must see!

 

Darlene, my very gracious hostess there, took my workshop and made sure everything went smoothly. She took very good care of me, and I very much enjoyed being with her book group one evening!

 

Darlene and I took the ferry over to this charming town, Poulsbo, which boasted 2 quilt shops.

 

At the end of my visit in Washington I visited another friend near Seattle, and we dined one special night in this restaurant in downtown Seattle, “Purple”. Check out the tower of wine being displayed!

 

Nearby is Puyallup, WA, (which I can never pronounce correctly!) where this amazing quilt shop is. Thousands of bolts of batiks! Unbelievable!

Thanks to Kathy (both Kathys!), Darlene, and the ladies of Snohmish, WA for giving me a wonderful experience. Once home, I returned to the project that has consumed me all summer. Below is a photo of “Chuck Close One” which I have just completed. I will be showing more photos of it on this blog in the future, in addition to my Sandra Bruce Creative Facebook page, and my Flickr and Instagram accounts. But I wanted to show him here first, here he is! (60″ by 70″)

I have many customer quilts in the queue to do, better get busy! Happy Fall!

🙂 Sandra

 

Therese May

Christine, Heidi and I are busy bees getting ready for the Zephyr Point retreat which is only about 2 weeks away!  I am also feverishly working on my Chuck Close project, using any morsel of free time I can manage to work on it.

Going back a few weeks, I had the pleasure of visiting the Santa Clara Quilt Guild, in my old stomping ground of the Bay Area where I used to live. I did my lecture for approximately 250 enthusiastic ladies, and taught 2 full workshops in the following couple of days.

A trip to the Bay Area, especially one that involves quilting, is not complete without a visit with my good friend Therese May. She was at one time my next door neighbor, and I credit her for introducing me to the world of quilting, in particular, art quilting. She is, in case you don’t know, one of the foremothers of the modern American quilting movement, and developed her delightful style of quilting during the 60’s. She went on to become very well-known and on the cutting edge of what was happening in art quilts.

In the late 80’s, while we were neighbors, we started a quilting group of 16 people who met once a month and came from very diverse art disciplines and interests. We each got a turn and had the others make a square to our specifications. This is where my love of quilting truly began.

Here is Therese in front of her “Fantasy Animal” quilt, which was made of all the creatures we made for her, around 1989.

The square I made for her was a funny creature I named “Quiltbird”.

And here’s the whole group, at a pot luck we had, in front of a “Self-Portrait” quilt a group member made from our contributions. Therese even joined in a group more recently here in Grass Valley, CA at Sugar Pine Quilt Shop, similar to the group we had had so many years ago. She participated long-distance, and we all made blocks for her from fabric she designed and had printed by Spoonflower. Here she is with the finished quilt at PIQF a couple of years ago. I love this picture!

I also credit Therese for the seed planted that turned into my Material Matrix technique. During a visit here one Spring we had lengthy discussions about the painter Chuck Close’s work, and talked about   doing some sort of collaboration inspired by him. Spurred by a challenge in the group Mountain Art Quilters which I belong to, the idea of doing a self portrait proved irresistible and I was off and running. Perhaps some sort of collaboration is still a possibility, it would be fun to do!

Back to the present, and my visit to the Santa Clara Guild,  I spent time with Therese while in the Bay Area and visited her studio/home. Here are a few shots I took, showing the wonderful and whimsical style that so defines Therese’s work, and is her “joie de vivre”.

 

 

 

Of course we had to hit a couple of fabric stores.

Words really cannot express the appreciation I have for Therese, in terms of her friendship, inspiration, and generosity! Below is her blog and website address, I know you will want to visit.

http://www.theresemay.com

http://theresemay.blogspot.com
Bye for now, I hope you are enjoying the last bits of summer.

A Chuck Montage

by Sandra Bruce

My Chuck Close project is coming along, slow but sure. Today I am posting a photo montage of my progress….simply, a visual notebook from my studio. Happy July, everyone! This is the part of the year that goes too fast, isn’t it? Next week, a group post from Artistic Alchemy.

Interview with Shruti Dandekar

by Sandra Bruce

Greetings everyone! First, a little business before I get into the interview…I want to let you know that my workshop in Zephyr for this September is full. I do have a waiting list going, please contact me if you want to be added to the list.

Also, I am happy to announce that we have a new page on our blog, called “Publications”, that lists the different places that the 3 of us have been published….books, articles in magazines, etc. I hope you’ll check it out!

I am writing today about my friend, Shruti Dandekar. I have to tell you how we met, as it is a testament to the power of social media. Shruti found me on Facebook, she actually saw my self-portrait quilt online and contacted me since she was considering doing a quilt portrait herself and wanted my input. We started a conversation online, one in which she was always 12 hours ahead of me 🙂 She interviewed me for her blog, which resulted in my getting a contract to teach at the Desert Quilters of Nevada in Las Vegas earlier this year.

When she told me she was coming to the US to attend QuiltCon in Austin, Texas, I encouraged her to come visit and stay at my house for as long as she could, which turned out to be about 36 hours, which we filled every moment with! As it happened, the day she was here was a MAQ meeting day (Mountain Art Quilters), which of course I had to bring her to. She did a wonderful, spontaneous talk about her career and experiences as a quilter in India. She had such an interesting perspective and all MAQ members listened intently to every word. I would call her a Modern and Art Quilter. I love the photo below that she sent me.

I’ll jump into my interview now, and post more pictures at the end. Here goes:

Shruti, tell me a bit about your background.

“I studied to be an Architect and practiced for 8 years before I found quilting. My discovery of quilting was completely unplanned. I had no intention of making any changes to my flourishing career. In fact, I had big dreams of continuing my studies and getting a masters degree. I wanted to be a world renowned architect. I wanted people all over the world to know my name! Well, my dream did come true! I live in a VERY small town in India with my wonderful husband Rohit, who is a businessman, my super son Aadi, who is an 8 year old budding quilter and my awesome in laws who are my biggest cheer leaders. I am glad that I come from a family which gives equal opportunities to girls and boys, which is not very common in India – especially when it comes to starting their own business. And fortunately for me I also married into a similar family. My family has always been a huge support for me.”

 Living in India, how were you introduced to quilting?

“Quilting just happened accidentally for me. I was at the peak of my career in 2009 when a bout of Chikungunya left me out of job and in severe joint pain. I started getting stuff made from old clothes – mine to start with, and soon was flooded with requests from friends and family.  There was a point when 40 women from the slums from my town were working for me. Unfortunately (or maybe it was a blessing in disguise) the venture dwindled down and I was left with my grandmother’s sewing machine (which I did not know how to use) and boxes full of ‘stash’. My cook doubled up as my teacher and taught me how to use the machine. If anything went wrong after she had gone home for the day, I had to wait till the next day for her to arrive and help me with it.

I stumbled across Elizabeth Hartman’s site (www.ohfransson.com) when I was searching for a lighter sewing machine. Finding her blog was like finding a candy store! I was totally blown away. And the fact that it was all do-able was the deal breaker. I dived head long into the quilting world and haven’t even come up for air yet!!!”

 What hurdles do you have to jump over to get your hands on supplies, such as fabric, notions, and batting?

“Fortunately, fabric is available to me in plenty. And not just any fabric, some of the most wonderful, sought after fabrics that hare hand dyed or hand block printed!!! The problem was that my knowledge of fabric was very limited and I usually chose the cheapest option available. Over the years though, I have learned my lesson and am much better with fabric choices now! Other notions are hard to find. The nearest rotary cutter is 500 km away! We do get batting here, but it is not similar to what you get in the US. It has much more loft and is very similar to a medical cotton roll.”

 What is it about Modern quilts that attracts you to quilting, as opposed to more traditional quilts?

“I was first introduced to quilting by a lady who was one of the founders of the Modern Quilt Guild. It was natural to be influenced by her work. Even as an architect, I was  always more of a modernist. Clear lines, simple spaces and bold colours were always my favorite. But the main reason I was drawn towards them was actually a myth! I thought modern quilts were simple to construct. And me, with my limited sewing skills, would be able to make them easily!!! As I delved deeper into the different techniques and experimented with my limits, I realized its nowhere as easy as it looks!”

What do you think is the future of quilting, in India, and around the world?

“I have been a part of the online quilting community since 2010. Over the past 5 years I have seen trends change – Blogging was huge when I started out, but today, it has taken a backseat and ‘instant’ social media is much more popular. There have been trends in fabrics, even colours! Quilting is more widely being accepted as ‘art’ rather than a domestic skill. With people like Luke Haynes and Jean Wells breaking the barriers between quilting are art, more and more people are accepting it for what it is = an art form that involves tremendous creativity and efforts.

In India, sewing (thanks to the picture painted by Bollywood movies) still implies laborious hours spent by a woman so that she can feed her family and pay for the childrens’ education. So when an educated woman from an influential family (aka me) decided to take it up as a full time career there were many raised eyebrows! But I have managed to convince at least a bunch of people that it is something that is a ‘real thing’. (I cannot count how many times I have been told that I should stop playing around and do ‘something real’ with my life. I do see more and more educated women taking up this art form in the near future and pursuing it as a career.”

 What was it like to come to the US and attend QuiltCon? What struck you the most about the quilts you saw on display?

“My trip to the USA was a dream come true for me. I had been saving up for the trip since two years. Half of whatever I earned went into my ‘QuiltCon Savings Account’ irrespective of my expenses for the project. I have even put aside Rs 5 (less than 1 cent) at a time!

Not only was this trip my first trip to any ‘quilting’ event, but it was also my first solo trip abroad, my first trip to the other side of the world.

I loved the fact that wherever I went, I was greeted with a warm hug and a dazzling smile. People went out of their ways to help me, make me feel at home.

The quilts at Quiltcon were mind blowing. Up until this point, when I said my quilts were the best, nobody could challenge me. There was nothing I could compare my quilts with. This trip not only gave me a point of reference, but also gave me an opportunity to learn how to improve my work and take it up a notch. The quilt show at Austin was and eye opener for me. I spent hours looking at the quilts (sometimes even bunking the lectures I had signed up for), totally under their spell. I met the people who had made them, talked to them and loved how open and generous they were.

I came back with bag full of quilting stuff, an empty bank account and a head buzzing with ideas!!!”

Here’s Shruti in front of the quilt she had in the QuiltCon show, which was purchased! It is actually Braille.

 Shruti has quite a sense of humor. This is evidenced by the following quilt of hers, and also by a tattoo she had put on her wrist while she was in Texas.

I took this photo when Shruti came to my longarm studio, this is her piece of Steve Jobs that she gave her brother, a fan of his. Shruti was a natural on the longarm, as I suspected she’d be!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Shruti. I look forward to continuing our relationship and hearing about what she’s doing in the quilt world. I expect more great things from her!

Who knows, maybe one day I will travel to India and visit her and her beautiful country.

Her blog: http://www.13woodhouseroad.com

She is also on Facebook, of course!

https://www.facebook.com/13woodhouseroad?fref=nf

Las Vegas Girl Trip

by Sandra Bruce

For over a year I have been excited about going to Las Vegas to visit the Desert Quilters of Nevada. It came up in conversation when I was hanging with my friends Marlene, Robin and Michelle, and it was decided then and there that we would make it a girl trip. They volunteered to help me during my lecture/presentation and 2 days of workshops with the guild. We drove, as we wanted to enjoy the scenery which is beautiful and so different from what we have here at home in Northern California. (Yes, the snow was mostly absent, sadly!)

It has been over 15 years since my last visit to Vegas. The area is such an interesting juxtaposition of 150 million-year-old rock formations, expanses of land and sky, the “Strip” (old and new), and people on the street from every imaginable strata of humankind. This is in front of the Bellagio at night, where they have water shows set to music. Lovely!!! It was interesting to note that The Flamingo Hotel and Casino (seen in the photo, tiny, behind the water), for which I lettered/illustrated a logo “update” many years ago, is still using both the old and new logos on their building and everything else.

At the Bellagio Casino they have a conservatory decorated top to bottom in celebration of the Chinese New Year. Flowers everywhere!

We were fortunate to see an exhibit of Dale Chihuly’s work. Here are a few shots:

Lots of sights to see. Look at the display of chocolate below! I confess to picturing in my mind being inside that window and availing myself somehow of it ( face into it, mouth open and catching it, swimming in it…..whatever!) How could you not!

My presentation with the Desert Quilters went very well, and I was glad to have my friends with me, who were mentioned of course, in my lecture. Robin showed her video at the end, of the making of her 80-inch Matrix Self-Portrait. Fabulous! The Desert quilt ladies made me feel very welcome, and bought buttons, earrings, and my 2 latest patterns, “Hugs and Kisses”, and “Color Dance”.

The first workshop day was “Wake Up Cup”. Diana exclaimed right away, “Look!! I did it!” with her first Matrix square. It feels great to see that enthusiasm.

I had one student who worked at half size (1″ squares, instead of 2″)….

……and 2 ladies who tried their own color schemes. I’m happy to see the variations, and applaud all the hard work!

Next day, “Sew Ready” and a new group of ladies (including one who came back for more from the day before….kudos to you, Penny!)

A special thanks to Laurel who contacted me initially to come to Vegas. She saw my quilts online as a result of an interview that a blogger in India, Shruti Dandekar, did on my work (“13 Woodhouse Road”) some time ago. Love that social media at its serendipitous best!

That night, finished with teaching, Marlene, Robin, Michelle and I went to a fabulous show, Cirque de Soleil’s “Zarcana” at the Aria Casino. I have seen Cirque de Soleil twice before, but they never cease to amaze me. I spent some of the performance holding onto Marlene’s arm (tightly!) while these talented athletes twirled….and leapt…with such balance and beauty! Some of the acts left me truly speechless.

One more shot of decadent desserts. Works of art, aren’t they? On our final day we took a short trip outside of Vegas, past Lake Mead to the Valley of Fire State Park where we took a hike back into time, so to speak. Rock formations millions of years old marked with petroglyphs came around each turn on the rocks as we walked. The rock is red, mostly, set against a brilliant blue sky.

A great trip. Thanks to the Desert Quilters of Nevada (all 400 of you!) and to my friends: Michelle, Robin and Marlene, for all your help, sisterhood, and female energy! 

A quick note about the Zephyr workshop in September…we have been working on the registration form and all the details, coming to you next week! For now, have a good weekend and those of you here in California, do a little rain dance, will you?

A Year in Pictures

by Sandra Bruce

Happy New Year to you all! Here’s to a great 2015 coming up. Today, just for fun, I’m posting my 2014 via a series of pictures. Here we go!

First, just a few shots of customers’ quilts I enjoyed quilting over the year:

Robin’s Self-Portrait….she’s a writer, in addition to being a quilter. You can see more about her here: http://robinmartinezrice.com

Trish’s very fun Princess Fishy Jane’s hippo from the Zephyr workshop

There’s always something new to be learned. I took a thread class from Cindy Needham.

I enjoyed visiting many quilt guilds in 2014. I learned so much from them all, and hope I inspired a few! I was surprised at how many Featherweights there are out there. Here’s one painted a special purple! Marty belongs to EBHQG.

I made so many samples in 2014!

Here’s “Octavius”, a close-up of his eye.

His suckers were made with silk organza I dyed outside on a nice warm day.

Also in the summer I took a “one block wonder” class from Cathy Stone, along with my friend Ray who came up to visit. This is a great process if you’ve never made one. Mine has red cardinals on it (made into a Christmas hanging) and Ray used an Alexander Henry print that was just made for this technique. My blocks, before sewing the rows together:

Ray, organizing his blocks:

At the July Northern California Quilt Guild’s “Meet the Teachers” I was happy to see my friend Therese May. You can check out her web site here: http://www.theresemay.com         She and I used to be neighbors and I credit her for getting me on the path to quilting!

 

 

Ahhhh…………Fall, and our much-needed rain!!!

Road trip to Oregon and Washington.  I taught in Sisters and Bend, great guilds and enthusiastic quilters!!

I watched my friend Wendy Hill make these beautiful little pies. She has inspired me as a quilter and lover of fabric.

Here’s Heidi when we were getting ready for the Zephyr workshop. We’re gearing up for the 2015 workshop, news and sign-up info coming soon!

This is my son Matteo, up in the air on his bike. I put it in here to see if you were paying attention (just kidding!) Yes, he is responsible for my growing number of white hairs!

My “Christmas on Emerald Court” class was a monthly class in 2014, and I’ll be repeating it in 2015, coming up soon in January. Please let me know if you are interested in taking it! Here’s a couple of shots taken over the months.

Here you can see one of my students’ finished tops on my long-arm, with mine on the wall in the background.

We, Heidi and Christine and I, had a polymer day with a couple of other friends. Here’s Heidi capturing Christine’s lovely makume gane polymer.

December is the time of year for oranges in California. Some friends in Sacramento let me pick to my heart’s content from their tree! They were incredibly big, juicy and sweet!

Christmas at my house. We don’t let a lack of a mantle or chimney keep us from hanging our stockings. Dearly departed loved ones get theirs hung too, in their memory.

Before I end, I want to show you one of my favorite Christmas gifts this year. My son made me a “coupon” for a massage (after a long day at the long-arm my feet will be happy for this!). Using Photoshop, he made this very funny gift. Those of you who have read the “Outlander” series, or seen the TV version will laugh as hard as I did.

In closing, after a great 2014 I am looking forward to an even better 2015, filled with lots of quilting, teaching, traveling, and of course, the Zephyr Point Retreat with my fellow Artistic Alchemy ladies! Cheers!!p.s. Christine here, to congratulate Laurie P. for winning our first giveaway, an ombré and Lustrous Squares pattern kit. Have fun with those fabrics, Laurie! And to everyone who commented, a big thank you for your thoughts. Stay tuned for more giveaways in 2015!

Road Trip

by Sandra Bruce

Greetings, and Happy November!

I had a fabulous 12-day trek in Oregon and Washington, sparked by teaching dates in Bend and Sunriver, Oregon. I decided to make it a road trip on either end, visiting friends I haven’t seen in a long time and combining the visits with my dates with the quilt guilds. Here’s a few pictures and memories of my 1,600 miles driven in 12 days!

My first peek at a snow-covered mountain, which I had to pull over and take a picture of….Mount Lassen. After many months of heat and dry weather here in Grass Valley it was such a pleasure to see this. A sure sign of Fall!

My first stop was Portland, a long drive from Grass Valley (I was so glad to have books on CD to listen to on those long stretches). Portland is such a fun town, so much to look at, and so may cute shops and stores. And…the best salted caramel-ribbon ice cream I ever tasted!

Wouldn’t this make an interesting modern quilt design? Love the colors.

On to northern Washington, where I visited a friend in Auburn, outside Seattle. We had wild weather (had to almost stop on the freeway for the rain) and went to as many quilt shops as we could!

Onward (and south again) to Bend, Oregon where I did my lecture and class for the Mount Bachelor Quilt Guild. The terrain definitely changed!

What a great group of ladies I had in my class, they could not have been more of a pleasure! Bend has beautiful facilities, and the workshop was held in one of the nicest I’ve had the pleasure of teaching in. Here’s a couple of shots from the Bend workshop and guild meeting that night.

My stay in Bend was over too soon…..the next morning I drove to Sunriver to do my lecture for the Mountain Meadow Quilters’ 9:30am meeting. Again, a beautiful setting. I so enjoy being in guild meetings, to see the workings of other guilds and especially Show and Tell! One day I want to make a “Dear Jane” quilt like this one, wow!!

My afternoon was free, which of course means going to quilt shops in the area, and there are many! It is amazing how many quilters and quilt shops there are in the Sisters/Bend/Sunriver area.

Next day, the Sunriver workshop. Again, a nicer or more enthusiastic group of ladies could not be found.

I left Sunriver to head back to Portland to visit more friends before coming home. I stopped to take a picture of Mount Bachelor and the “Three Sisters”, which had had it’s first dusting of snow days before. Beautiful!

Back in Portland, I visited the Chinese Gardens for tea, and had a few fabulous meals, including one made with freshly picked chanterelles (picked by my hostess that morning). The best part was reconnecting with friends (and kitties).

All in all, a wonderful trip, in which I became rejuvenated by students, quilts, quilt stores, friends, scenery, and the delicious opportunity to be alone in my car for all those miles. Thanks to all the Bend and Sunriver ladies who welcomed and pampered me, and my friends whom I care about and was so happy to see, and took such good care of me.

Back in Grass Valley, we had a rainy Halloween yesterday, cold and windy too, but we cannot complain about one drop of that precipitation! I am back to my long arm work, and am also working on a greeting card design in my lettering business. Fremont, CA this week, and Modesto, CA next week for Matrix lecture/workshops. Christine, Heidi and I are still working on the Zephyr dates for 2015, stay tuned. The holidays are around the corner!

Bye for now……..

Sandra

Return from Zephyr, and Fall Begins

By Sandra Bruce

It’s been a few weeks since we had our retreat at Zephyr Cove and I’m still smiling. The fond memories and great satisfaction I got from my students is going to last me a while. The combination of such a magical and beautiful place, perfect weather, and the camaraderie that the 3 of us had (Christine, Heidi and myself)  plus our great students make me look forward to next year with much anticipation. Can’t wait!

The first evening after dinner I took the first of many sunset photos.

 

I really love teaching and when I do a workshop where ladies bring their own images to turn into Matrix quilts it’s an extra special treat. In my class we had a variety of subjects: an African hippo, koi fish, 2 kinds of dogs, a pair of flip-flops in the sand, and a son with a mischievous smile. Everyone brought enthusiasm and an eagerness to learn that made my work joyous.

How can you beat this view from the ironing board? The color of the water!!!!Everyone worked hard and the efforts paid off.

It was so satisfying for us to see results start to unfold! (bottom left corner…..see it?)Nothing says success and accomplishment like these smiles.

 

The most reoccurring comment we got was that everyone would have liked to have had one more day in class. Heidi, Christine and I are working hard with the Zephyr Point folks to make this happen for next year. I will teach Material Matrix again, and hope for as wonderful a class as this year’s was. Special thanks to Jane, Cheri, Liz, Lindsey, Nancy, and Pat.

As we proceed with our plans for next year, we welcome feedback and comments from our interested blog readers about what you’d like to see at the Artistic Alchemy Retreat in beautiful Zephyr Point.

Meanwhile, I feel like celebrating the first soaking rain of the season which came today. Fall is here, after the driest spring/summer season we’ve ever had here in the Sierra Foothills. May the fires go out quickly, and I hope for the safe return of all our firefighters. Here’s a couple of before and after pictures, taken about a day apart. The first, the beginning of my driveway with smoke illuminated by the sun, and the second, my new studio deck getting wet for the first time. What a difference a day can make!

 

Happy creating until my next blog post!

-Sandra

Snapshots of the Retreat

It’s official: The first ever Artistic Alchemy retreat is history! The three of us had a great time, and judging from our students’ comments, so did all of you who came. The creativity quotient was high, the laughter was contagious, and the projects—wow! Below are some class images, lunchtime show-and-tell pics, and shots of Lake Tahoe and the Zephyr grounds.

Watch for details about next year’s retreat. Heidi is working with Zephyr on the dates, and we are hopeful we can add an extra day, for a total of three full days in class.

Take a look at who was there and what we did. (We were missing a few when we took this group pic.)

This could be YOU, next year! Stay tuned. . . .

“You Could Be Here!”

by Heidi Emmett

YOU COULD BE HERE!!

At the Artistic Alchemy Retreat- September 2-5th. There are still a few rooms available. Take one of 4 workshops or come to Open Studio. Complete packages start at $495. including a workshop. Open Studio (you’re on your own)starts at $285. This picture was taken on a morning walk. Look at those colors in the water!! (This cabin does need a new flag though). Christine will have an ombre’ fabric for sale in these colors!

Picture yourself HERE! (that’s Cave Rock at the top right).  So much Creative Energy with four, fun, fabulous teachers! We ARE the Fab 4!  There is still time to sign up for Crisp mountain air, no dishes, no responsibilities, just great sewing times, new friends, and learn new things in the world of quilting.

 

 

There are so many shades of green in the foliage and the gorgeous blues of the water at Lake Tahoe. I had to create a technique that pays homage to all this loveliness. You will make a few of these. They would make great pockets, potholders, a bunch of these leaves would be a cool table runner. Oh, the things we will plan!

 

I am using linen, and cottons with this one. My thread is an ombre’ in greens.

 

 

Isn’t this fun? I like seeing the light filter through. The olive green linen background shows a wonderful weave in it.  Before I leave you this evening, I will show you a very interesting cloud formation at Zephyr taken from the swimming/dock area. And the same formation 5 minutes later.

 

I can’t wait to see you at Zephyr Point. Hugs, Heidi