wrapping up

Today was my last day of teaching in Grand Junction and it was a lovely way to end the week. There was ample time to work/play with fabric and design, do critique, and even some sewing for those who wanted to stitch up their pieces. I asked Lynn Mattingly if I could post her three pieces based on the photo she brought with her yesterday. She was happy to give permission, but I had to promise to post a picture of her wonderful skirt, which communicates the prevailing mood in the classroom. Well, a bargain is a bargain, so here are her pieces. The idea was to use a photo as a jumping-off point but not to reproduce the picture. The black is the design wall, not a border.Terry Lee looks serious here but she was having a great time experimenting with a series she is working on: today, in earth tones. And Sandra Hoefner, who looked down just as I snapped the photo, is actually working on a piece that is on the wall behind her.One of the things we did today was to "work from the fabric." translation: use a piece of fabric as a starting point and go from there. Since nobody could make a decision about which of their fabrics to start with, I tore a piece of mine into 8 pieces and gave them a starting point. Using someone else's choice of fabric, especially in a color you would normally never work in, is a great stretching exercise...and they all rose to the occasion. Everybody was very generous with their fabrics, auditioning with each other and sharing a piece that seemed just right for someone else's piece. No pictures for another 3 weeks: they are all doing something different with the piece of cloth I gave them and they have promised to send me jpgs when they are done. I can't wait to see -- and I'll share the end results with you when I have them. In the meantime, I have my own challenge. Jeanette and I traded pieces of fabric and I need to do something with her piece, below. Tomorrow morning Sandra is picking me up and we are stopping for a while at the AQuA meeting before she takes me to the GJ airport. Keep your fingers x'd that I won't get stranded in the Denver airport. There is supposedly a snowstorm there: in NJ it is 70 degrees and sunny. Grand Junction was 40 degrees and windy. Brrrrrrrrr.