2022, Forward into a New Year!

My bags are packed! I’m ready to fly west for Road to California in the morning 🙂

Time for a quick update?

Christmas seems for ever ago. We had had big plans but you know what happens to those! We ended up with just Jonathan and Julia’s families in Rockford. The Wisconsin branches were both sick.

We managed a masked exchange of presents with Joanne in a bleak Walmart parking lot just over the Wisconsin border…

The four cousins that did get to spend Christmas together posed for a picture by the tree before they opened presents.Benjamin seemed to like his new bean bag chair.We enjoyed a walk through the lights down by the river.The old people wrapped up warm for the outing.
What is Christmas without a musical interlude? Benjamin has been learning the French Horn for four months.Ruby had practiced her carols.We had a lovely three days in Rockford. Perhaps we will all get together in 2022?

Holidays over and back to work.

I taught for Craft Napa – Uncorked at Home. People did well with their Under the Surface little quilts.It was swiftly followed by January’s edition of STITCHES Expo at Home.

There were Dimensional Embroidery Stitches…Shirtlace Buttons,

and Modern English Paper Piecing mug rugs

So many things!!

No time to sit around. The very next day we introduced our February classes to the STITCHES community. Remember those improv blocks I was stitching? I finished them up into some fun small projects.

A placemat with a trip of off-kilter flying geese,A table topper, finished with some bold hand stitched quilting lines,AND a baby sized quilt! (quilted but still in need of a binding)Happy Scrappy Improv Quilts is shaping up to be an action packed six hours in three classes over two weekends. If you think it sounds like something you’d like to do you can find out more by clicking on the STITCHES button! STITCHES do such a good job of their Zoom events. When you sign up for any class you become part of the community with access to all sorts of social events and presentations, all included with the price of the workshop. This will be the sixteenth At Home event I’ve taught at. I’m definitely a fan!

But tomorrow I’m leaving Naperville for the week. It’s finally time for Road to California again. I’ve got four classes on my schedule, starting with Fun with Hand Embroidery. I decided I needed a new class sample.
Each student will be stitching on a unique mini panel from Turtle Hand Batik with hand dyed threads from Global Artisans (of course!) I’m sure we will have fun. 

Then there will be Dorset buttons and two, three hour embroidery stitch classes and in between I’ll be in the Global Artisans booth with Richard. He’s in Ontario already. Unfortunately there was no room in the truck for the comfy chair. I guess I’ll manage! I’m excited to meet up everyone again… and to see the palm trees.

I’ve got lots of adventures planned for the year. I have updated my calendar. There are a few outings that are secret right now so they haven’t made it onto the page. I’m booking 2023 if you belong to a guild that is booking teachers.

My word for the year is “forward”… one foot in front of the other… next stop Ontario…