- plenty to do in Jackson Hole -

We're in Jackson Hole for a landscape painting workshop that Scott is taking from Jim Wilcox. Yesterday the class went in to Teton National Park to paint mountain scenes. With 22 people in the class, Scott is surrounded by artists and art talk. Today the class had to paint inside, in the studio area of the Wilcox gallery because of the rain. It poured all day long. Scott painted another scene of the Tetons, this time from a photo.

Meanwhile, back at the motel room, I'm finding plenty to do. I finished a book yesterday that I'll tell about in another post. I also decided to bring my sewing machine to try some quilting - I've been so glad to have it. I set up the motel room iron and ironing board and it's working out great. I forgot to bring a cutting mat, so I went to the cute little Jackson Hole fabric shop this afternoon. Thier selection consists of 30% wildlife fabric, 30% western fabric, 20% juvenile, 10% printed polar fleece, and surprisingly, a small display filled with Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry fabric! I picked out a few pieces that I hope to turn into aprons and tote bags over the summer.

I'm working on a quilt that I started about five years ago. I made four complete blocks and parts of five other blocks back then. I don't remember where I got the pattern or what I was going to do with it, but as I looked at the four finished blocks today, I thought that they looked pretty dull, no pizzazz - see above. So I thought and thought about what to do and decided that the quilt needed a splash of black, and that's when I went to the Jackson Hole fabric shop. I was pretty depressed because of the selection, but found this black dot fabric that I think will work. I finished the rest of my blocks with black centers and I like them a lot. I'm still deciding about how to do the borders - whether to use the black or just a narrow stripe of black (probably that). It doesn't look so great when I just set the fabrics on because there's too much black, but less, and quilted, I think it'll look pretty good. btw - the block pattern is called Twister Sister and the fabrics are by Mary Englebreit.

So tonight while I continued to sew and make this blog post, Scott painted. Since his painting was painted from a photo and not from real-life scenery, he had a chance to actually finish it. The weather forecast is for more rain tomorrow with a chance of clearing by afternoon. We'll hope for that. I'm hoping to walk through the shops on the square in Jackson - and get going on quilt project #2.