Stevie left town last Sunday because GE needed his considerable brain power for a week in Wilmington North Carolina. He is such a wonderful soul mate. He has always shared the household stuff with me, even when I was a stay at home mom with 3 kids. When he worked for GE, he travelled a lot and I got into a routine of taking care of stuff when he was gone. Since he retired, we have had a sort of role reversal. I take off for a week at a time going to quilting seminars and retreats, leaving him to take care of things. So this week I have had to pick up the slack – walking the dog, getting the car serviced, doing the trash and recycling, etc. I also have been quite busy getting the church newsletter done and sending off the eight quilts to Paducah. You wouldn’t believe the paper work! I stayed up late last night so that I could get bills paid. I also had work to do for SDA. I have fallen down on the housework though and he is coming home tomorrow night so I have to get things ship shape. But it will have to wait until I get home from the SDA office tomorrow. On my way to work, I have to take Maggie to the kennel. She is not a good car dog and I am not looking forward to the drive!! I’ve secretly thought about putting her in the trunk!!

I am really excited because I am finally going to the Grand Canyon. We leave early Saturday morning and will spend that night with my sister-in-law in the desert, near Joshua Tree National Park. She is the architect for a new observatory they are building in the park. Then on to the Grand Canyon for two days and Zion for two days. We will meander back through Las Vegas, I think, getting home next week-end.

Tonight, I had some down time and made this post card for Emily’s birthday. (She is our Youth Minister at the Church. She is from Minnesota and loves living here!!)

This is Wine Country Sunrise:

DebR has this little quiz on her blog. I’m a sucker for these too!

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything – at least, *you* think so.

The Pointless Sisters have finally come to the end of last year’s challlenge. Eighteen of us participated. We each chose a shape and two colors. The others were to make a 10 inch block with those perameters. We decided to have a 56″ square finished size. We selected eight of the finished pieces to go to The Ultimate Guild Challenge – an AQS contest. The winning quilts will be in the Nashville show in August. So here they are:

The eight being shipped to Paducah are:

Moi – any number 0-9, turquoise and lime green

Janet (the 81 year old!) 2 to 5 intersecting lines, orange and turquoise (This is my fave!)

Patsy – vase, purple and kiwi green

Sandi – fish, burgundy and gold

Ruth- curves, turquoise and magenta

Joyce – house, black and red

Cathy – arch, maroon and blue

Carolyn – hat, teal and terra cotta

Last week Cathy posted photos from her critique group. The Pointless Sisters met today and I thought I would show you some of their work:

Here is Diane, our list mom with that gorgeous butterfly wing. You can see the wonderful size.

Linda is a newbie. She fell in love with this group of fabrics and wondered why it was not more vibrant. We explained that color gets all the credit and value does all the work! The fabrics wre luscious!

Selma is very prolific. For some reason she does not like this piece. I think it is great (even though it has points)

My friend Pat did these two pieces as gifts.

Marjorie is a true artist. This piece is fused. It was an exercise to take a traditional block and do something innovative.

Daniele is an accomplished artist. She made much of the fabric in this piece using an etching plate. She does very precise, realistic collage pieces.

Cathy has been fusing!

Ann did this piece in a class with Sylvia Einstein at Asilomar.

We also had the unveiling of the quilts where we did blocks for each other using a specific shape and two colors. We selected 8 to go to Paducah for The Ultimate Guild Quilt Challenge. I’ll share those tomorrow.

Here’s what’s hanging in the downstairs hallway:

An abstract landscape started in a class with Sandi Cummings called Sonoma Landscape

A stilllife:

A Matisse print;

A self-portrait of my daughter Lisa, painted from a photo:

Kyoto Moonshadows – from a class with Judy Mathieson using Japanese Textiles

Fractured Stained Glass ( Won an honorable mention at the Marin Quilt Show)

Chocolate Log Cabin

A primitive watercolor of the Airlie Gardens Chapel in Wilmington, NC where my daughter Steph was married. This was painted by an 82 year old friend.