Exciting and creative weekend

In my last posting I was worrying about Jessica arriving safely.  Yes she did.  She said the drive on the highway wasn't bad and the off highway roads were just a little slippery.  Anyway, I was happy when she knocked on the door and announced her arrival.  Friday evening we went out to dinner at one of our favorite places here in TC.  The old State Hospital has a great restaurant in the lower level and the food is terrific. 

 Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast because the class didn't start until 10:00.  Here we are all ready to go.  We had lots of things to take along because the class materials list was quite long.  The artist and teacher is Ann Loveless.  She lives in Frankfort which is only an hour away.  He technique is to make landscape art quilts with small pieces of fabric fused to a backing and then quilted to secure the pieces of work.  If you are interested in checking out her work more you can go to http://www.quiltsbyann.com/ and see her work.  She was a terrific teacher and if you are a quilter and can ever go to one of her classes you should take the opportunity.  Both Jessica and I hadn't ever done any 'free motion' quilting which is the technique that you use to secure the pieces on the backing.  We picked it up quite quickly and our work isn't as good as the artist but I do think we did a pretty good job. 

 You can see all the pieces of fabric that Jessica has scattered around her work area.  Here she is cutting and placing her small pieces of fabric on the 'sticky surface' of her backing to create her picture. 

 We shared our fabric and had quite a mess between our two tables but it was fun and exciting to see the work unfold. 

 Jessica has finished the sky and sunset and is working on the water here.  She is a much more 'maticulus' worker than me.  I tend to cut, place and just go on.  She was working harder to make hers look more realistic.  She was working from a sunset picture as a guide.  She has also put hers in the 'landscape' position.  I did my in the 'portrait' position.  I loved that each person in the class was able to express their own style and creativity with this technique.  It was not a 'cookie cutter' class where everyone ended with the same piece. 

 This is our teacher working on her piece. She did one while we were working, stopping every now and then to give us more directions.  She almost completed her piece that day but she is the expert.

 This is the example that we were working off.  The sky and sunset, the water and then the beach/shore.  She put a lot of different colors in the sky and sunset.  I liked that look.  Jessica was doing the same thing but she was looking at a different sunset picture and was making hers more realistic. 

 This is another example of the artists work.  She sure is a great artist. 

 This is Jessica's piece at the end of the day.  I think it is fantastic.  She did some of her free motion quilting to secure the little pieces but had some trouble with her thread breaking and didn't finish it.  She will finish it at home.  She did a great job with the sunset and if you make the picture bigger on your computer, you can see the reflection of the sun in the water on the right side.  It is subtle but a very good touch.  The artist in her emerged with this work. 

 This is my piece at the end of the day.  I was able to get all my free motion quilting done and start to put my trees on.  I still have a lot of work to do to put on the finishing touches of leaves and grass but it is looking good so far.  You can see that my sunset is more abstract.  I liked that look too.  I put a lot more little pieces in the sky and then I used some bigger pieces to finish it up with the water and the ground.  The leaves and grasses will improve the overall look so I will post a complete picture when I finish.  I will make sure that Jessica sends me one so I can post hers too when she finishes. 

 We came home from our class exhausted from the mental challenge of working on something new.  We relaxed for a short time, Jessica enjoyed a beer and then we were off again.  Jessica and I made a brief stop at the Gap Outlet store to look for some new jeans.  She successfully found a new pair of jeans and a dress.  The day was complete and now on to the evening activities. 

The next set of pictures is in reverse order.  I didn't realize it until I had uploaded a couple of pictures and am unable to know how to fix it so this is a backwards story of pictures.
Jessica and I drove down to Big Rapids together. Bud drove down on his own.  Eva drove up from Grand Rapids and Leo drove over from Clare. I am so glad that after all these years we have figured how to meet somewhere in between for everyone and have a dinner together now and then.  It is about an hour drive for everyone.

Eva had a picture made for Leo.  This is like the one that she had made for me at Christmas, a painting on canvas.  This is a picture of Garrick on a motorcycle. It is so cute.  Josh sent her the picture and she had it put on the canvas.  I think this is such a creative and lasting gift.  Leo loved it. 

This is a little better picture of the picture.  Cute little guy and he looks a lot like Josh when he was young.  

My gifts were all food.  That's what happens when you get old and we can't think of anything to buy for you.  I'm not as creative as Eva in thinking up gifts so I gave him some famous TC beef jerky, a loaf of his favorite bread from our bakery, some pasties from a shop up here and some homemade soup.

Jessica gave him some of her jam.  He returned the jars at Christmas so she figured that he might want more.  I hope he had toast and jam for breakfast today. 

This is a great shot of Eva and Leo.  I just had to include it.  Aren't they cute.

Here we have the whole gang. It was a great way to end a great day.  I LOVE spending time with my family. It was SO,  SO,  SO , much fun to take the class with Jessica.  I loved sharing that experience with her.  It was also great to see Eva and Leo and help him celebrate his birthday.  I am blessed to have such a wonderful family and to be able to spend time with them. 
For those of you in my family that weren't able to join us, I hope you enjoyed a walk through my weekend and sharing the family time with me.