Fantastic Class!!

Susan Shie, one of my art quilting heroes, was in California this past weekend and taught a class at my guild, East Bay Heritage Quilters. It's been almost ten years since I was lucky enough to take a class with Susan, so I was ecstatic when I found out I'd jumped off the waiting list and into the class! It was two days of solid fantasmagory! We journaled, painted, sewed, let our inner child run riot, and just generally celebrated. Each day the class chose a theme and did our painting based on the theme.
On day one, the theme was "Tomatoes". My piece features my tomato-killer cat, Sarah and our three new kittens, LaVerne, Maxene and Patty. Whenever I buy tomatoes, or pick them from the garden, I can't leave them unprotected on the kitchen counter for a second, or else Sarah will chomp into every tomato in sight. She isn't satisfied to attack just one - she has to massacre the lot of them. My fear is she will teach the little ones her "skills".

The theme for the second day was "Dreams." My painting depicts my "dream" garden - a garden of peace where there's enough food for everyone, enough flowers to decorate the world, and everyone gets along, including the cats and birds. On day one, I experienced the paints running and the color going outside the lines... sometimes waaaay outside the lines. I know this is no big deal, and is perfectly okay, but I wanted to experiment with using thicker paint and applying it to dry fabric, instead of sloshing water all over the place. Because it took so long for the paint to dry, I didn't get the picture finished, but I'm going to heat set what I have, and then forge ahead.

Both of these pieces are in the earliest stages, with lots more work to be done - journaling, quilting, embellishing, and other stuff I haven't even thought of yet. I'm so grateful for this opportunity to work with Susan - I learned so much! I'm already looking forward to the next time I can take one of her classes. I just hope I don't have to wait another ten years!
NOW...HERE'S THE BEST PART...
I was able to buy a Susan Shie Original!!!
It's just the painting and I get to finish it - sew it, bead it, embellish it, quilt it, add a border, whatever I want!! How cool is that? Here it is... Saint Quilta and her Studio Blessing.