Faces

Today, after the Fibervision business meeting, member Rene Jennings led a fantasy faces workshop. She wanted to make this last workshop of 2008 easy and fun and she certainly succeeded. Rene brought all the supplies and gave us basic instructions, encouraging us to relax and just play with the prepared fabrics. Thanks, Rene, we had a great time. I think mine is going to need a neck and some shoulders though, right now it kind of looks like a skeletal floating pirate head (perhaps I am still under the influence of my earlier Halloween post).

Mary Norton gave me permission to post a photo of her face, too. Love those eyelashes!

The Tea Fire

A week ago tonight a horrific wildfire broke out in the hills of Montecito, right above Santa Barbara. It was a night of wild winds that drove the fire from ridge to ridge and the reports of new areas breaking out in flames kept getting worse all night. When the winds died down on Friday morning, 239 homes had been lost, thirteen people had been injured and one elderly man in fragile health died while being evacuated. Jim and I were lucky to have only been in the evacuation warning area with plenty of time to pack and prepare even though we never actually had to leave, but I know four families who have lost their homes and several who's homes were spared but are surrounded by devastation.

Tonight this area of California is under high wind warning and fire alert again. Very unsettling.

I did go to the last watercolor class of the quarter on Tuesday because substitute teacher #1, Peggy Oki, called and asked me to come. She brought supplies for collage and this collage entitled "Tea Fire" practically made itself. Guess I had something to work out. Don't know yet if this will have another version in fabric or if paper is sufficient.

Knew We Could!

Woohoo! Looks like we, the people, get our country back! What an exciting opportunity after the last eight years of destruction of our civil liberties, our economy, and our place in the world. This is truely an historic event and a time to be optomistic about the future.

Sunflower Postcard

While going through some photos stored on my computer, I found this photo of the first fabric postcard I made for the first fundraising event that Virginia Spiegel held for FFAC. I remember both she and I were amazed that it sold within fifteen minutes of being posted on the sale website because it was at 2:00 a.m.! I also remember checking the website frequently during that sale since new things were coming in all the time and you had to act fast if you found something you wanted to buy.

Halloween - No Art, All Chat

I was lucky enough to spend Halloween at Disneyland with my daughter and grandkidlets. My sister was there, too, but she didn't choose to pose with Pooh. I love Disneyland and love these people, so I was very happy yesterday. The boys were in costume earlier in the day:

Grandgirl couldn't decide if she wanted to dress up and what she wanted to wear if she did, so settled for a Nightmare Before Christmas tee-shirt.

Speaking of Nightmare, I loved the way the Haunted Mansion was decorated for the holiday:

Took the train home from Anaheim and was so glad I spent the extra money for a reserved business class seat. The rest of the cars were full (some folks were even standing), primarily with kids headed for UCSB/Isla Vista and the insanity of that Halloween celebration. It sounded like the party was in full swing before we even got out of Los Angeles - hope all those kids are safe and sound today.