Thursday was a fun day; Friday was recovery, tea-time and art

Posted on | April 21, 2007 |

On Thursday, after I posted, I left to meet Angie for a day of fun. We started off our morning at Starbucks (as usual) and then went to Hancock Fabrics, which was going out of business. Bad news for them. Good news for us! We cleaned out the Sulky threads and found some cool fabric to share. (We’re fairly dangerous together!)

From there, we went to our favorite fabric and trim spot, SAS. Angie has lived in Phoenix much longer than I. So, when she showed me how she makes her way around SAS, I followed. It was even more fun to shop together here. Their fabrics by the pound were a huge deal for us. We shared just about everything we bought. It was fun. The conversations throughout the morning of shopping went something like this:

Angie: OOH! That’s interesting.
Me: Hmm. 80% off, but must take the whole thing. Hmmm. How much fabric do you think is there?
Angie: Looks like a lot. I wish they had them cut into 5 yard increments.
Me: Gosh, I love the fabric, but there is way too much of it here. Is there someone we can share this with?
Angie: Not enough to make it worth it.
We look at each other shake our heads; Angie puts down the fabric in question. We move on.

This scene repeated itself; we switched roles throughout the day. Despite that, we ended up with a lot of fabric. To the left is my stash of fabric from the day and to the right are the trims I bought!

While we were in SAS, DJ called to tell us that she was going to break for lunch at 12:30. So, we headed to The Paper Studio in Tempe. It should have taken us 20 minutes to get there, meaning we’d arrive aroudn 12:20 and we would get to browse the store a bit. This would have been fine. However, my lovely GPS didn’t really know how to get us to The Paper Studio in anything but a roundabout way. We figured it out, got there at 12:30. They took their break at 12:45 and we had one hour.

I had the pleasure of FINALLY meeting Maija Lipore and Kelly Snelling. They were taking the workshops that DJ and Traci Bautista were team teaching. And Linda Young, the director and coordinator of Art Unraveled took the classes, too. We were an interesting group at lunch. There were 6 of us: Maija, Kelly, Angie, DJ, Traci, Linda and myself. We went to a Mediterranean restaurant that was not far from The Paper Studio. It looked promising. Smelled good and clean, and was fairly empty - ok, completely empty. The sad part - It took 50 minutes to get our food. No one else was in the restaurant. And, sadly, the things that did not require cooking - Angie’s Greek salad, Traci’s and Maijas Vegetarian Delight Platters, the Pita Bread, Linda’s baba ganoush and hummus - all were the last things out. We don’t understand it.
Now, don’t for one second think we were sitting there drumming our fingers on the table. NOPE! Put six artists at a table and there’s talking! Kelly wanted to dance, and Traci agreed to, but I am sad to report that they did not. We talked straight through. I wished we’d had more time. We could have talked for an entire day and not run out of things to say and to find in common! It was a lovely time.

We went back to The Paper Studio, shopped a bit, and then we started the long road home. It was a much more direct route, and my GPS actually got that right! We got to Angie’s and we split up our fabric and got to meet her older son, Sam (I had met Max when Angie and Max picked me up from my treatment a few months ago). I also had the pleasure of meeting Angie’s mom and step-dad, and saw Chuck, Angie’s husband, if only for a few moments.

It was a lovely event-filled day. Much more activity than I’m used to. I tend to sit in my studio all day and paint. Maybe I take a walk or I go to the thrift store or an art store; however, I don’t tend to drive as far or as long as I did. And Angie and I talked so much, my throat was sore! I fell into bed and slept really deeply. I was completely out of spoons - in fact, I think I used up most of next week’s spoons! I made plans to stay in the house all day Friday, relaxing!

I slept so hard on Thursday evening that I woke on Friday feeling somewhat hung over - and I didn’t and don’t drink. It was a migraine, which was easily fixed with my migraine medication and some strong coffee!

Friday was spent painting abstracts on fabric for my March journal quilt. Yes, I am well aware that April is almost over, and that my journal quilt is late, but hey, at least I’ve done it! The theme for this month was myth. Having just visited Hawaii, I decided that I needed to focus on the goddess Pele. She is the Hawaiian goddess of fire and claims what is now Volcanoes National Park as her sacred ground. What struck me about the volcano is that with all the destruction there is also a lot of beauty that was created. To the right is a photo I took near one of the craters. The black, orange, brown, and blue in the photo is what I tried to recreate in my quilt to the left. It doesn’t look like the photo, but it does give me a sense of the rugged terrain and the colors I saw. I used FME to create the texture.

Now to start working on April and some more painting!

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