Looking back & back

It seems so corny to to this, but I'll do it anyway, starting with yesterday and then taking a look at the other good things about 2008. Here is my #1 grandson, Josh, concentrating on putting rubber bands on his t-shirt. His clever, creative 4th grade teacher gave the kids an assignment to do a book report on a t-shirt: favorite character on the front, favorite scene on the back. And clever,creative Josh asked me if he could come over and tie-dye his book report. I was excited to spend a one-on-one day with this sports-a-holic who is busy every weekend with football or baseball. This is vacation week and we were both around - yay! We were having so much fun that I forgot to take pictures of him dipping and applying dye with foam brushes, but here he is, removing the rubber bands. Instructions were to draw on the shirt with magic markers but you can guess what we did! Josh drew his illustrations on paper, I photocopied them and we made Thermofax screens. He screened them onto the shirt and voilà! I was thrilled to see that Josh has inherited my ability to draw. I sent the screens with him so he could show the teacher how he had done it. Maybe there is even a transparency maker lurking in one of the supply closets of that old building... Looking further back A book launch My book came out in June and is still selling like hotcakes! I just sent out another signed copy yesterday from a new carton of books I had to order because I was out. People have been wonderful about writing and saying how much they love the book and that makes me very happy. Media Quilting Arts - Deconstructed Screen Printing Cloth, Paper, Scissors Studio Issue - feature on my studio Fibre & Stitch, Sue Bleiweiss' on-line magazine - Soy Wax Batik QuiltWoW , Maggie Gray's British e-zine - Printing in Layers Quilting Arts TV - Transforming fabric with Screen Printing Exhibits Gaelen Gallery, West Orange, NJ - solo Carol G. Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ Mikhail Zakin Gallery, Demarest, NJ Bridging the Space Between, Montclair, NJ And while I missed every deadline for submissions except one - I got into Form not Function for the second year in a row. Happy Miscellany Sold some work, including one to a major collector. Taught at QSDS and other venues and had terrific people in my workshops. Saw Helene, Shelley, and Usha during the year. Made a wonderful new blogging friend who has enriched my life. Treated myself to a class with Jan Myers-Newbury and discovered shibori. Had a house guest who was a delight to spend time with. Took a collagraph class and got back on the press. Got a new kitchen!! Rejoined an Internet mailing list I used to belong to a decade ago and reconnected with old friends who are not on any of the other lists. There's probably more in every category but that's it for the moment. I need to go change my clothes and clean off my car so we can go spend New Year's Eve with our friends with whom we have spent every one for the past 27 years. Wishing all of you a healthy, happy, productive year and everything you wish for in 2009.