Bears, Great Students and a Beautiful Sunrise

This week has literally slipped away, we're painting the living room so everything is in an upheaval, I'm leaving for John Campbell this weekend and have company coming when I get back - whew! so I forgot about my blog....Booooo on me and I've been wanting to share more on my wonderful stay in New Bern, NC.  New Bern, NC is the sister city of Bern, Switzerland and their trademark is the bear. There are bears everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. They're wonderful, colorful, artistic and add so much to the city of New Bern.  Each bear has a sponsor and costs around $3,000. They are painted by local artists and a plaque sits besides each bear telling all pertinent information. They are such fun to see. 

There was even one in the hotel lobby.
And speaking of hotels, I had the best room with great views, got up early one morning to see this outside my balcony. Does it get any prettier than this?
And onto my workshops, first day we did a half day of Bobbin Magic and a half day of dimensional work (flowers, petals, leaves and off the edge). The students were wonderful.
And lucky for me, I had so many repeat students, making it more fun and personal.
The classroom space in the upstairs of a church was absolutely great, plenty of room to spread out, and even a "whiteboard".
So amongst all these lovely ladies, we also had a lovely man - Ed! Ed was great, the hubby of the program chairman and a great help to me.  Ed is also active with community theater and was involved in the production of Guys and Dolls which he gave me a ticket for and I used on friday night! What fun!
This is some of the samples that came out of our first half day workshop; we did dimensional work with wire, with interfacing and with machine lace and also off the edge applique pieces. All my gals (and guy) did great and wish I could show all of them.
Our other half day workshop was Bobbin Magic which included bobbin stippling, bobbin beading, bobbin stumpwork and bobbin curls. I was amazed that everyone was able to complete every exercise in our very short 3 hours.

It was a wonderful experience and I thank the Twin Rivers Quilters for their wonderful hospitality.

On another note, today I went to the Asheville Quilt Guild's quilt show and have lots to report so please visit me again real soon and enjoy this wonderful fall weather - I'm in Heaven!