Had a great time...

I had a great time in Hector. The week after was a little busy since I flew to Toronto on Tuesday, attended a Dinner on Wednesday and Thursday I don't remember...oh yes, did my taxes on Sunday. In Canada we get until the end of the month then the government demands their pay. Its a little scary to owe the gov money- they're very serious about it. A friend of mine (formerly an auditor for Revenue Canada) told me once that you want to pay your taxes (since that's what gives us nice roads, police, etc...) but not a penny more than your share.

So, finally I am getting a chance to review my Hector weekend. I missed the Friday night potluck dinner. I made rice crispy squares to for Friday night but brought them on Saturday instead. I kept a few at the hotel for breakfast and snacks which in retrospect was probably not the healthiest choice. It may have caused me to be a little wired...

All of the classes were great. In Ginny's class we made Christmas ornaments with beaded picots. I brought pink thread and blue beads for the project completely missing the whole Christmas theme. The red and white teapot beads clashed with the pink and blue. Fortunately someone loaned me some blue beads. I loved this project because it was very simple (except for the beaded picots) but looks fantastic.

Martha Ess taught her Maltese Teapot. I had never done a Maltese ring before and I loved the way it looks- kinda like a mouth. Maybe its the colors I chose, but if you took the handle and spout off the teapot would look like Cinderella's pumpkin carriage. The pattern was a lot of fun and I managed to finish it with only a few mistakes.

The class I took with Karey used a cabone ring as the center round. When the motif is done you sew it on a bag to create a ball holder. I love her patterns because they are very forgiving. Its not the end of the world if you mess up a little bit (see picture). She used some of her hand dyed thread for the project. I really like the colors and purchased a few skeins of size 30 thread. The thread used in the project is a very thick and heavy duty thread.

The last class I took was with Bina. She showed us a great way to hide threads on the 2nd half of the ring. It was definitely something I'm going to use in the future. She showed us the necklace that she made from Marilee's Rockley's Duchess pattern. It was beautiful, you can see a picture of it on Marilee's blog.