can you hear me exhale?

This was the pattern on the catwalk outside my mother's apartment in West Palm Beach, where I arrived yesterday afternoon after driving across central Fla. from the west coast to the east. I have, by some miracle, found an Internet signal. It is iffy, but I'll take what I can get and hold my breath that I can post something before it goes out again. I cried when I got onto the Fla. turnpike...a mixture of emotions coupled with relief. I will skip the details of my arrival and a couple of unexpected big annoyances that greeted me. But all is well. Bought cleaning supplies this morning and spent most of the afternoon scrubbing the freezer & fridge after emptying them of food has been here for 2-1/2 years. Bleh. I don't do that much hard labor in my own house. My mother's dear friend Pauline kept me company most of the afternoon, till I took her home because I needed some time alone. The weather warmed up and the sun was delicious, but I unwound by dyeing fabric. I had spent time dyeing at Pam Morris' house and decided to bring my dyes and soda ash left over from teaching, along with some fabrics. Plastic containers sat on the counter and in the kitchen sink while I ate dinner at Pauline's. It did me a world of good. And as soon as I iron my fabric, which I just took out of the dryer, I will feel even better. My Ft. Myers class, Art Quilters Unlimited, loved using the fabrics they had printed (earlier post) along with others, in the creative exercises we did in Jump-Starting and wished they had another day to keep working. Here, some of the inventive small pieces they did in response to the phrases they had picked at random. They went home with lots of ideas to work with and several things that will be made into journal-sized quilts. Then it was off to Venice, to spend 4 days with the Sarasota Guild, where there were some experienced art quilters and others who were ready to move in that direction. They LOVED screenprinting and stamping and were thrilled with their fabrics; some of them printing for the first time. Sheri Cooper, who is a snowbird from MA, has taken classes from me at Friends Fabric Art in Lowell and I was so happy to see her again. She is a wonderful artist who discovered the syringe in my class and went to town with it. Because we had more than a day for Jump-Starting, we were able to spend more time on critique. This experience made a huge difference in Lori's piece. She asked the class for feedback on this work and we looked at it with "what if?"

Here is the piece after she went back to the drawing board, so to speak.

Most of the people in the class hurried to finish their small pieces for show & tell that night at the meeting and had quite a few terrific pieces to show off to the crowd. My last night in Sarasota, Pam and Geoff and I went to dinner and I ate Hogfish which has a terrible name but is a delicious local fish. When they brought a martini with an umbrella in it, we simply had to have a picture. So, here I am, alone in West Palm. Tomorrow, errands - FedEx (I am still dealing with UPS over the mess), the locksmith for some extra keys to the apartment, the gas station (argh - I have grief every time I try to put gas in my own tank) and who knows what else. I will post ASAP if my connection holds. I have missed you all.