Wow, I am SO tired!

I am really fortunate to be a member the wonderful Memphis chapter of the Smocking Arts Guild of America (SAGA). This week, Claudia Newton came and spent 3 days sharing her vast wealth of knowledge with us! Wow is all I can say! She is absolutely amazing, sweet, and is an incredible teacher :o) I can't find a webpage for her, but her work is simply gorgeous! Thursday night, our class was on Italian hemstitching, Friday we worked on a whitework sampler, and yesterday we did a notebook class on making scalloped edges. Holy cow! Talk about intense lol! Thursday was 6-10, Friday was 10-5 and dinner afterwards, and Saturday was 9-4. I actually broke down and cried when I got home Friday, just from sheer exhaustion. By yesterday morning, my brain had turned to mush, and my stitching looked horrible. I gave up, and figured I can work on the projects another time... I worked the whitework sampler on a sample piece of fabric, and feel like I am comfortable enough to move on to the piece of linen that will be the actual finished piece. I absolutely love Claudia's teaching style - she had everything in powerpoint and showed it on a large projector screen as she described what each figure represented. Then, she sat down and demonstrated for us. After that she would walk around the room and help each of us individually as needed. I'm such a visual learner, and when someone just *tells* me what to do, I'm lost. I really feel like I got more out of these classes than I have from any of the other wonderful teachers we've had in the past. The moral to this story? If you are interested in creating beautiful hand embroidery and have a chance to go to a Claudia Newton class, by all means JUMP ON IT!!! On top of it all, she is incredibly sweet!

Other than that, I've been busy with the kids and their schools. Audrey needed to be in band, so I went up to the school Tuesday to get her schedule switched around. I entered about 250 new PTA members into the computer for Madeline's school, and then I had my class. I BARELY had time to complete my round 3 submission for Funky Playground's Teacher's Pet program. I didn't have time to make an add-on for it, but if you would like to get it, you can check it out here.



I've got to get to church - have a wonderful Sunday!