Field Trip

This past weekend was great. Saturday, the weather was decent and we managed to rake and bag all of the leaves which had already fallen from the trees. (They're still coming down...) Then Menachem helped Rachel with a leaky tap problem. In the afternoon, we went for our flu shots and then a quick visit to my mother. So, not terribly exciting but practical.
Sunday was quite blustery but couldn't dampen my enthusiasm for FAT's field trip to Oshawa. Laura was kind enough to offer me a ride and we made arrangements to meet at Yonge and Lawrence at 11 a.m. Menachem dropped me off at 10:15-ish and I spent a leisurely 45 minutes sipping hot chocolate and reading old newspapers at Coffeetime until I met Laura.
Our field trip started at the Station Gallery. There was an exhibit of Threadworks called "Passion". I believe it's sponsored by the Ontario Network of Needleworkers so there were many types of needlwork from fine embroidery, needlepoint, quilting and anything and everything in between. Since we're doing our own exhibit in March, we were very attentive to the way pieces were mounted and they way they hung in the gallery. From there, we headed out to lunch at a cafe Maggie found. The food was delish and the atmosphere lovely. We ended our trip with a visit to an exhibit of a group (whose name escapes me at the moment) of fabric artists. I thoroughly enjoyed myself -- lots of visual stimulation, lots of ideas, good company -- what more can one ask for?
Did I mention my frustration about my variegated thread breaking on the Autumn wrote piece? One of the FAT girls suggested I call the vendor and ask if I'm doing something wrong i.e. tension, needle, etc. I did call and was told that for the 12 wt. I'm using, I should: a) use a topstitch needle; b) use a lighter weight bobbin thread; c) loosen the tension. So I'm going to buy the topstitch needle this week.
In the meantime, I scribbled around the perimeter of the clouds and they got a nice puffy texture. And I started quilting lines in the flowers.
Tomorrow, Thursday, morning, Menachem will take me to the Japanese Cultural Centre so I can drop off my quilts for the YHQG show. And then in the evening there is an orientation for the YHQG show volunteer hostesses so I have to figure out how to get back there by TTC from work. And then I'm doing hostess shifts on both Saturday and Sunday. So it should be a busy weekend.
And I want to get an outline started for my third library piece.
Focus.