The Weekend Report

 On Friday ....

 I attended a workshop taught by Melody Randol, a local quilter who has won several national awards for her innovative landscapes. 

She makes extensive use of a thin translucent fabric called silk organza in her pieces in two ways.  First, she dyes it and then overlays it on fabric to change the colorization and, especially, to add dapples of light.  You can see that fairly well in this detail of a tree she has built with several layers of organza over cotton.

Second, she prints images of trees, ferns, and grasses right onto the organza, cuts out the image, and applies them to her landscapes.    You can see that in this image.

When I had taken Jette Clover's workshop in October we had learned how to print portraits and other images onto silk organza, but I hadn't thought of using it to reproduce images of nature to add to a landscape.   I've been wanting to try a landscape that has some grasses around a pond and mountains in the background, and will use this technique. 

Melody was an excellent teacher and I enjoyed spending the day with her and about 15 fellow art quilters.   We each worked on a small piece, about 6x9," to explore some of the techniques Melody taught us.

 On Saturday....  

I worked on my little piece, adding some blue organza to the sky and stitching down the greenery.  

In the evening we went to John and Dawn's for a tasty dinner of slow-cooked ribs.  Dawn has been in her new home for just about two weeks and it's amazing what she has got done.  The living room is all unpacked and organized so you can sit down and relax and the dining room is clear of boxes.  The china cabinets are full of china and crystal and the gas fireplace is actually usable since the boxes in front of it are gone.  Their new house is turning into a home. 

Paul had a gig with his ska band up in the nearby mountain town of Nederland starting at 10:00 Saturday, and I got up there about 11:00 to join in the fun.  Although I was tired when I arrived --okay, I admit that I don't usually stay up that late nowadays-- the lively music energized me and I stayed until the band packed up at 1:00 a.m.   The Pioneer Inn where they played can get a bit crazy as the night progresses; I thought this photo captured a bit of that. 

You may remember that Paul dyed his hair red recently  It's now fading out to a lovely pink, or, I should say, many lovely shades of pink.  Isn't it awesome?

 On Sunday...

I slept in late; no surprise there!  We took a hike up to Chautauqua, started a new jig saw puzzle, and I did some reading and sewing.  A nice laid back day.

By evening Ben and I were getting restless.  We'd been home enough and snow was expected overnight so we decided to walk downtown for a drink at the Bitter Bar before going home to make dinner.   Well, you guessed it, we ended up eating downtown at Oak, one of my favorite places.  We sat at the "Chef's bar" and watched the action in the kitchen and had a good time.

The promised snow did start to fall overnight and we awoke this morning to a cold but pretty winter snowfall which is supposed to continue throughout the day and into the evening, leaving us with about 2-5 inches by tomorrow.    We'll soon leave to do our Monday Meals on Wheels run and later will cook the dinner we didn't make last night, a chicken and white bean dish that should be perfect for a snow day.