Joanne always told me about the rain in January but she is a little inclined to complain… I have been told there had been wonderful weather all week and my first day here in California was decent enough, especially compared to what I left behind in Illinois.
The palm trees were waving nicely outside the Ontario Convention Center for Road to California.
We were able to take our boxed lunches outside. Sheila was even warm enough to be wearing a sleeveless top!
The quilts were, as expected, stunning.
There were also, as expected, lots of vendors. I was able to order my new sewing machine table which will arrive almost as soon as I get back. There’s going to need to be some clearing and tidying done to fit it in! We managed to resist the fabric. Sheila’s most major purchase was a large cone of Superior thread and I bought some of the new McKenna Ryan chicken patterns and a flip-flop pattern that was just too much fun to leave behind.
Saturday we went out and about while the sun was still shining. We called in at Verona’s Yarns and Needlecraft in Anaheim. It’s one interesting store… I found several baby pattern books and some yarn I really needed.
It started raining on the way home from church on Sunday…
Monday morning found us headed to Ontario where we are attending the Stewart Gill Rainbow Accreditation Program… It was pouring down by the time we arrived and basically it has been raining ever since. However we are inside and working so hard that there really isn’t time to notice it…
Here is Sheila hard at work the first morning…
We started out with making test swatch after test swatch using the wonderful Stewart Gill products…
Here we mixed one basic color with a whole range of other paints, just to see what happened.
Every so often we have had the opportunity to combine techniques in a “project”. We have tried a variety of substrates (technical term for surfaces). That was PFD cotton in the sample above.
Here we used paper,
This one is on a canvas board. Lots of techniques here…
and a close-up…
Hardly time to get into trouble at all!!
Fortunately the hotel does have offer happy hour each evening which coincides with our dinner break. Here are our knowledgable and patient teacher and her helpers posing after a drink…
And then we go back to class… More to follow.
It’s still raining.
