What a Beautiful World!

As promised here is a wrap-up from my vacation last week.

The purpose of the trip was that my friend had signed up to take a workshop from Susan Else who is a soft sculpture artist. We started our trip by going to a needlework exhibit at the Filoli Estate. This estate is part of the national trust and has been used in movies and TV shows. A great place to add to your itinerary if you visit this area.

The glass balls and flames are part of a sculptural exhibit

This is a reproduction of the front of the estate done
using an embroidery technique called Blackwork

A needlepoint reproduction of gardens at Filoli

The ballerina's tutu is done using a
technique called Stumpwork

I love the light that the artist
has captured in this needlepoint

After a lovely lunch we drove on to Mendocino which is about 3 hours north on the coast. The town looks like it is in Cape Cod and was used in Murder She Wrote as well as many other TV shows and movies. We were blessed with fabulous weather. Usually it is cold and foggy on the California coast until September but we mostly had blue skies and warm temps.

While my friend was in her workshop I tromped around Mendocino and Fort Bragg which is about 15 minutes north. I went to Glass Beach which has loads of beach glass washed in from the old practice of dumping garbage into the ocean.

The white, brown and green are glass which
you can find anywhere on Glass Beach

And I went to the Botanical Gardens. There were so many beautiful gardens that I have to restrain myself here.

Part of the Heather Garden 

The dahlias were in bloom and I had to include
the sign keeping people out of the dahlia beds

This sign was on the railing of a bridge over one of
the creeks. Somebody has a sense of humor!

I couldn't resist including these two pictures:

What's an artists' colony without an art car?

And this because of my love affair with trees

I also spent some time working on a few art projects that I brought with me. I had this fabulous old desk to work on in our hotel suite (the house was built in 1878).

I decided I wanted to develop a piece I did in my journal a while back. So I drew a version on tracing paper and then transferred the design to paper so I could cut out patterns and make a felt appliqued version. I really enjoyed the process.

Last but not least, this week's Diva Challenge was to use the Rio Olympics as inspiration for a tile. I used a picture of Rio and Sugar Loaf as the string for my tile and I used tangles starting with the letters R, I, and O.

Tangles Used: Raindotty, IndyRella, Insydout, and Ojo