Life is Good

Blogger really is a puzzle that one must master over time. I am now convinced of that. It's kind of like living with a persnickety spouse (notice I'm not naming names here!). Perhaps it's just a lesson in learning to get along. Anyway, I've attempted to post for the past two days but could never get my pictures to load. Wanting things to be just so, I held off until I had a bit more time. But now here we are to Tuesday night and I have things to tell you about from last FRIDAY for crying out loud! So, I persisted. FINALLY after loading one picture at a time, I was able to get them all up and running here on my blog. Drum roll and applause PLEASE!!!

LAST FRIDAY the Silk Artists of Atlanta met at the Chastain Art Center. We had a great group of folks there, some terrific show and tell, and then Martha Andreatos did a very informative demo of Sandra Kay Johnson's technique of applying silk to canvas (more on that below).

This is Gail Racy showing one of her beautiful hand painted silk scarves. Gail teaches Chinese Brush Painting at Chastain and is an incredible artist. She has adapted Susan Moyer's silk painting techniques to her Chinese Brush painting, and produces the most exquisite pieces.

This is a quilted piece done by Katy Fenton. I believe that she hand-dyed the background fabric. Katy and I share a great love of birds, so I was tickled to see this piece done of a loon and her egg. Katy is a great artist, quilter, and needleworker.

OK, so I tried to post those pics on Sunday before I left to teach my Radiant Suns Quilt class at Intown Quilters, but alas blogger would not allow it. I had another great class with some awesome students. Each class is totally different from the others. The students really make the class, I am convinced of that. Here are a few of the blocks that got completed during our class time. Aren't they great? This group of ladies really caught on quickly!
Sunday night C and I returned to one of our new and favorite restaurants: One Midtown Kitchen. We celebrated our anniversary there in November, and could hardly wait to return and try new dishes. Trouble was, we wanted to recreate the last most wonderful time when we were there! I managed to take a few pics, but with blogger's persnickety-ness, I'm only showing you one photo of the interior....it's all about the lights at One Midtown Kitchen (well, after the fabulous food and wine, that is).OK, so here we are fast-forwarding to today, Monday January 30th 2007. I had earmarked this day as MINE!! I just love those days and believe me, they don't happen often enough for me. I wanted to try applying some of my hand-dyed silks and painted cottons to canvas a la Sandra Kay Johnson and my friend Martha Andriatos. So, I tackled them bright and early this morning. By mid afternoon I had finished two (I was doing other things too....I'm not really that slow!):

This is a hand painted piece that I completed in Sue Beever's class at John C. Campbell Folk School the other week. I love the colors...which really don't show up too well here, but I wanted you to get the feel of the cotton wrapped around the sides of the canvas. I really like the way it came out.

Here is a hand-dyed silk piece that I completed a while back. I was playing around with a new technique and when it was done, I knew that it needed to either be quilted or mounted on canvas. Voila:

I've spent a few hours updating my website, writing proposals for classes, and doing a bit more painting and piecing. Like I said...life is good! Hope yours is too!!!