It has been a busy month!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Wow - I am always surprised at how time can fly.  It has been a month since I posted and a lot has been going on.  I took at trip to Pennsylvania, a trip to Houston to the International Quilt Show, and am now in Colorado on vacation.

I will devote this post to my trip to Pennsylvania. And the next posts will be the Houston Quilt Show and our Colorado trip (where I went to a KC Willis workshop and made a beautiful fabric collage piece using her techniques).

What a wonderful time we had in Pennsylvania!  My friend, Barbara, and I flew to Philadelphia to attend a breast cancer event at Byer's Choice and the James Michener Museum which Victoria Adams Brown, the founder of The Way to Women's Wellness Foundation had set up. Byer's Choice makes Christmas and other holiday dolls about 15 inches tall or so - some smaller.  They have a lovely set up where you stroll down what appears to be an old English cobblestone street and each window is decorated in a different theme. Their campus is unbelievably beautiful and manicured.  Here is a picture of the statue of children at play that greets you as you enter their campus.

They had a lovely open house event with food and wine called "Think Pink" where our artbras and several of our crazyquilt wallhangings were exhibited.  The room where they had the artbras and quilts was just stunning and each artbra was behind a glass window.

Six of the artbra designers were able to come in for the event.  We autographed and sold our calendars.  We were fortunate to meet and talk with survivors and listen to their amazing stories.  (in the picture left to right:  Laurel, me, Stephanie, Barbara, Leone, Brenda, Victoria)

After the Byer's Choice event, we went to Skippack - a beautiful little community where they were having a street fair which was fun and we visited a great shop called The Wooden Duck (we had met the owners the night before at the Byer's event) and had a great time shopping!  We then went to the James Michener Museum where one of Vic's bras was on display and one of Barbara's bra's "Grape Expectations" will soon be auctioned.  While there, we also shopped (imagine that!) because their gift shop had fabulous things ( the muppets were there) and a wonderful metalsmith artist, Sherry Tinsman, was too.

Here is a photo of me with Sherry.
Sherry had wonderful silver designs and I have to admit, I left with a couple of pieces and I believe most of our group did as well.  The majority of her designs focus on dogwood flowers. It was a wonderful, busy, whirlwind of a trip.  Vickie was a great hostess to us and it was wonderful for us all to meet and get acquainted.  We chat online often, but many of us had never met face-to-face and that was really special.  One shop I really enjoyed visiting was "Ten Thousand Villages".  It had hand-made items from all over the world and the sales of these items benefit people who would otherwise have no means of support in their country/village.  I discovered that we have one back home in Houston as well and plan to visit it when I need that special gift for someone.  We all bought some beautiful jewelry there at very reasonable prices.  I also got a really neat scarf and hat.  The most challenging thing about our trip to Pennsylvania was the driving....they don't have their streets laid out perpendicular at all and intersections often had six or more streets converging so even GPS directions were hard to follow, but we made it!
One of the greatest things that happened is that our first print run of the calendars sold out!  A second printing was ordered and has come in so I hope you will order yours:  artbra calendars 

Here are a couple more fun photos:
Byer's Choice had a costume room
and I had fun trying on different
clothes and hats of the Victorian Era.

Here is a picture of a real covered bridge.
Vic found this for me - I have always
wanted to see one in person.

And, of course, here is my artbra on display at the exhibit.  Mine is the one on the right.  The one on the left is an artbra by Stephanie Novatski.

God Bless till next time!
Jules