July was so busy. My sis Allison and girlfriend Midge arrived, having driven from Florida with boxes of mangoes from their yard and a thermo fax machine! We were thrilled to see them and consumed bowls filled with mangoes as we caught up on life.
We had to get right on the first two day task of helping to setting up tables, chairs, dishes etc and making pizza dough for 100 folks that would be attending a fund raiser for the
Salt Ponds Coalition that was happening at George and Cathy's beautiful home and farm. All went well and then it was right onto Al's Birthday Celebration that went on for a couple of days with family, friends and a fancy brunch at the Ocean House.
Looming in the background was the list of preparations that needed to be done for our big creative weekend with the brave women heading this way from NY and NJ!!! Finishing name tags, food, supply piles, presents, cleaning, weeding....The day arrived, the girlz arrived with all of their goodies, and off we went...
The overall idea for the weekend was to create an 18 inch pillow. To that end, the first project was fabric painting outside. To survive the 100+ degrees, we quickly watered down fabric and each other, sprayed and splattered paint and retreated to the very cool basement to carve stamps! It is the space that saved the weekend!! So we over came fears of drawing, so so attitudes about carving and with a bit of urging, developed amazing stamps!
Somewhere in there we ate, snacked, drank large volumes to liquid to help with the survival of the 100+ degrees and who knows about the humidity!!! We then moved all of the screen printing materials from the garage down to the cool basement. After a brief demo and discussion we went to work on our painted fabric with silk and thermo fax screens. My sis was developing her new themo fax screen empire as we worked. "Do not let the screens dry out" was the mantra of the afternoon.
Saturday was printing with rubber stamps and sewing day. The afternoon was broken up a bit for some by shopping at a Folk Art Quilts, Wakefield and chowing the
best ice cream on the planet!
By the end of Sunday everyone had survived the heat and each other, had a great project done or almost done, a hand made "friendship" book constructed from painted and stamped papers that were worked on over the weekend and shared with everyone, presents from everyone, a fat quarter trade stash, hand made rubber stamps, and a pile of painted, stamped and screened fabric.
And of course the whole thing was made possible because Miss Linda Willis keeps coming to my house and bringing things to eat and projects to make. Thanks Linder (rhodeislandeese)
And thanks to the creative women keep driving here to use my dried up paints and glues...They keep showing up and have advised that they will continue to do so as long as possible!
Thanks also to Midge, Allison and Sue for all of their work in the very very hot kitchen!!! Very much appreciated by all I'm sure!
Details for the next Rhody event coming soon. Save the end of January!!!
Then there is the garden and the chickens and bees...
and
try to get there and please tell your friends!!
and
See you soon somewhere!
