Alacrity Art

Last Thursday and Friday, I had FUN! Thursday afternoon after work I drove down to San Jose and met a friend from my high school days. We had a lot of laughs recounting our infamous trip across Europe in 1972 with the California Girls Choir. Let me just say that I think we took about 20 years off the choir director’s life. Ah, youth!

Anyway, my friend put me up for the night, and early Friday morning (there are not too many things I will happily do “early” for – they call it the Crap of Dawn for a good reason, you know) I drove over to the Santa Clara Convention Center for the Pacific International Quilt Festival.

This is a BIG show held once a year. Not as big as Houston, but big enough. It was truly amazing to see so much incredible color, texture, and creativity in one place. The show never fails to both inspire and humble me. I also attended a great workshop taught by Laura Wasilowski called “Tiny Homes and Gardens.” We made wacky little quilts using her hand-dyed fabrics and fusible web. There were no real rules and observing the laws of physics was completely optional.

I had seen Laura on an episode of The Quilt Show, the web show that Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson do together. It costs to view the episodes, but let me tell you, it is money very well spent! Anyway, Laura was such a delight on the show, that I knew I wanted to take a workshop from her.

Now I’m back to the salt mines, but refreshed! More pictures soon, I hope.

Claire

Here is the whole set of fabric postcards I will be putting in the mail tomorrow!

This past weekend – a lovely FOUR DAYS – I finished the fabric postcards for one of the Yahoo Groups I belong to. Participants picked a word from a long list of possibilities – I chose “dragon” – and made four fabric postcards for that word. Yes, they can be mailed with a stamp, just like a “regular” postcard. I will send one each to four other people in the group and will receive four different postcards from the other participants – each expressing his/her word of choice. My cards are going to England, Australia, and South Carolina! Here is a close-up of one of them!