Blastoff into the New Year!

My latest newsletter is all set to go to your inbox this evening. Things have gotten so busy, that the blog is languishing (again) and I haven't sent a newsletter in three months. So, after taking the Organize Your Art Business class from Alyson Stanfield over the past six weeks, I'm acting on all the tasks and resolutions the class and the season of the year have generated.
On the home front, we made a visit to Florida in August to help my sister-in-law try to get her mom's home cleaner and safer for her. Mom is now 95 1/2, and spent several weeks recently in the hospital and rehab. She fell and didn't break anything, but has finally realized she can't be living solo. She came home a week ago. We've thankfully been home in Pennsylvania over that time-frame, but have been doing as much to help my sister-in-law as we can do long distance.

In much happier home news, hubby and I have put a lot of hours into our kitchen remodel. This has been going on for years, and the end is in sight! The awesomely talented Lawrence built all the cabinets from scratch. (I helped some, mostly as the human out-feed guide, plus with painting.) The doors started life as the shutters from the first-floor windows. The two doors with glass on either side of the window came from an architectural salvage house. And the island was a treadle-powered table saw! It came home with us from an auction maybe 25 years ago. It didn't have an actual use at that time; we're so glad we hung on to it! If you see Lawrence at the quilt show, tell him you saw this picture!

Painterly class samples - NJ class

Now he's stuck working at it solo, as I work on the Organizing class and resulting projects. Among those projects is preparing for the upcoming shows in Virginia and New Jersey - I'm teaching on the Saturday of both weeks. Other recent work has included more custom dyeing of solid fabrics. The fact that I was late delivering one of those was the straw that broke the got-to-get-organized camel's back.
The rest of this month will be spent making more samples for the new class I'm teaching at the Quilt & Sewing Festival of New Jersey:  Painterly Effects with Various Thicknesses of MX dyes, plus, of course making more inventory!
More teaching news, and I don't believe I never posted about it here on the blog! I will be teaching a five-day introduction to MX dyes in July at Pro Chemical & Dye in Fall River, Massachusetts!!!!!! Thanks so much to Vicki Jensen at Pro Chem for selecting me as an emerging teacher. Now the following is not meant to be hiding my light under a bushel, but it seems likely that the class won't fill up completely. That means those who attend have a good shot at getting a worktable all to themselves! The class is called 'Super-Sized Super MX Sampler' and will include the basics, an intro to different manipulations plus a section just on pipe-wrapping. Then we'll experiment with thickened dyes and with discharge work. My goal is to let you try the Smörgåsbord before you decide on a week specializing in just one technique, er, cuisine.

Discharge samples on Kona bundle

Before I close, the date has been set for my portion of the Quilted Adventure Virtual Retreat. Fearless Dyeing for Beginners begins on Monday, March 21. Before that are two more classes, and there are 12 total classes plus a 12-step block of the month!
Well, that needs to be enough for now. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll see more here soon - I just have to stick with the resolutions!