Smart Day 2014

Last weekend we had a wonderful time in Fairfax even if the hotel was still undergoing renovations.

There were two meetings on Friday - the 2016 Seminar committee and the MAR board meeting.

Saturday was our large (over 50 participants) biscornu class with Sharlotte. She handled the large number of students quite well. Great class.

Oatlands sold some more books and we had a Group Correspondence Course exhibit. Lots of pieces were shared. Beautiful work.

Saturday evening was our Regional meeting and then we were done. Over too soon. Made some new friends, saw some old friends. Thanks to all who helped the event run smoothly!

To Do

Ndwango (means "cloth") is a new form of bead art developed by a community of women living and working together in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The Ubuhle (means "beautiful") artists' community was established in 1999 by local resident Bev Gibson and master beader Ntombephi Ntombela [En-Tom-be-Fi En-tom-bell-la] to empower local women with the means to provide for their families through their art. The flat surface of the textile onto which the Ubuhle women bead is reminiscent of the Xhosa headscarves and skirts that many of them grew up wearing. Using black fabric as a canvas and different colored Czech glass beads as the medium of expression, the Ubuhle community has re-imagined the longstanding beading tradition as a contemporary art form. Twenty-nine works are featured, including The African Cruxifixion.
Ubuhle: pronounced Uh-Buk-lay in Xhosa (Ho-Sa)

From our Secretary is a suggestion for something to do:  go visit the Anacostia Community Museum. It's part of the Smithsonian and there's a shuttle bus from the Mall on weekends.  

This current exhibit is open until September 21st. 

FREE ADMISSION
FREE PARKING

Daily Hours
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Closed December 25th

202.633.4820

1901 Fort Place SE
Washington, DC 20020

On Retreat

Sunrise in Syria.

And first finishes.

Lack of Posts

My apologies for my lack of posting. I'll try to do better. 

Nineteen of us are packing our projects and getting ready to head out on retreat. I've been mentally packing my projects for weeks now. And just when I think I've got the perfect mix, I unpack and start over because something else has popped up on my radar. 

Will try to post a few photos of our fun next week. 

A President's Challenge Preview

Thanks to Mary Corbet of Needle N Thread today we have a preview of the July President's Challenge.

I wrote to Catherine Jordan and invited her to participate and here's her reply on Mary's blog.

March 2014

I think that Kathy and I both forgot to take photos on Wednesday.

Which is unfortunate.

Because everyone enjoyed Marty's bracelet class and we all made good progress. We thank you, Marty, for taking time to come and teach us. I'm sure we'll be seeing many versions of this project.

Today was our day to volunteer at Woodlawn. I'm grateful that we had eight of us show up for the afternoon shift. Thank you to Ellice, Barbara G., Holiday, Barbara F., Maura, Amanda, Melissa, and me, too.

We had a wonderful time.

My favorite part was at the very end when two intrepid New Englanders - Barbara G. and me got Holiday's car unstuck from the mud. LOL

Retreat

Many thanks to Barbara F. for organizing our retreat again this year. She found us a wonderful new location, Graves Mountain Lodge in Syria. 

This is the view from the balcony outside our rooms down to the main lodge where we dined. Many people walked up and down this nice long hill, several times a day. A few people drove down so that they could drive up. My Fitbit says walking up that hill was the equivalent of 8 flights of stairs. My calves agreed.
 

At dinner the first night we were treated to a show - a beautiful rainbow appeared down in the valley and we got to watch it for a long time. 
 

Sunrise Friday morning. I was up at 5:30.
 

We had some interesting wildlife experiences. This little cutie is a Rosy Maple Moth. It's yellow head is fuzzy. Lots of deer and bunnies. And yes, we did see a bear!

The son of the owner was in our stitching room fixing our AC when he stood up and asked if we wanted to see a bear. We went pouring out the door. The bear was at the bottom of the hill doing a slow saunter over to check out the garbage. He was not a small bear. He was a large bear. We saw evidence of other nocturnal visits strewn across the hillside in the mornings. 

If you spent time sitting in the rocking chairs on the balcony, this was what you saw. 
 

A few pics of our stitching room.
 

Let's move on to the food! We all ate way too much. Roast beef and mashed potatoes. Fresh fried trout. Fried chicken. Apple butter, apple sauce, fried apples, apple pie, apple cobbler. I think you get the idea. 
 

General consensus is this a good location to retreat at. We were sad to leave. 
 

Here's a bear from inside the lodge. Because every retreat should have a bear???