Rain Rain Go Away

The  last week in September we were in Myrtle Beach for the annual American Needlepoint Guild Seminar.  The forecast was for rain, and it turned into more rain than expected.  Hurricane Jouquin stayed offshore, but a storm front stayed over South Carolina and dumped rain and more rain and more rain.   Our hotel was actually only a couple of blocks to the beach, but I never made it out of the hotel until Day 4, and that was just to walk across the entrance to see a plaque.  We tried to see the lunar eclipse on Sunday night, but just as the eclipse started, the clouds rolled in, so there was nothing to see.

The classes were great.  I took a four-day class by Joan Thomasson called "Tidal Textures," which involved learning how to use heat transfer paints to paint a canvas, then using our creativity to stitch a tidal pool of shells, sand and water. Each of our canvases turned out quite different; it was fun looking to see what other students were doing.

Once I got home, I put away my canvas from class, considering it a "doodle" or "practice" canvas and started over.  Here's my painted canvas, with shells scattered about: real shells from Atlantic City, Clearwater Beach, San Francisco, and Myrtle Beach.  The white shells are paper cutouts of shells I will stitch.  I am currently working on stitching the background water and sand.  This is the first canvas that I'm creating as I go along, as opposed to following a pattern that someone else created.

The beginning of my Tidal Textures, class taught by Joan Thomasson at ANG Seminar

The other class I took was a one-day class, taught by Margaret Kinsey, called "Three Leaves."  It was an introduction to using gold threads.