"Challenging Ourselves "

I just opened a new blog which will be used for our new group -

20 of us have joined together to do challenges four times a year. The

new site will show pictures of works in progress and every four months

we will show our final challenge. We are busy working on our first

Challenge "Hidden Treasure" which must be finished by May 15.

http://challengingourselvesfabricarts.blogspot.com/

I am excited about this group as it is something I have wanted to do

for years.

It has been a very good week for me.

My grand daughter Hayley's 6th birthday! She had a wonderful time with her kindergarden friends at the Science Building for her birthday party. She is very aware of the universe and amazed my husband because she told him the name of all the planets! She is

such a joy for us!

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We were talking on our Learningfa group about a wonderful challenge blog one of the girls had told me aboutArt quilts around the world . As the group was full, and as the idea appealed to me so much, I suggested that some of the girls on the learningfa group would like to start one of our own. Within about 30 minutes we had 20 people and after a lot of work, we have a yahoo group called "Challenging ourselves" and have chosen our first Challenge. We have Canadians, Australians, Americans and an Irish woman in the group - Some are traditional quilters, others have lots of Art quilt experience some have none and we really should have a variety of different challenges when we

finish them for May 15.

The first challenge is "hidden treasures' and there are no rules as to how we interpret the theme. I will post as I take this journey. I

have so many ideas of things I might want to do -- I want to try new things, but

to be honest - I think I will follow my own thoughts with this one - even if

I use tried and true techniques.

I hope to learn something about photo shop, but doubt I will ever really get

into doing abstracts as I love what I am already doing. I just hope I can come up with something that speaks to me - as that is what the new group is about.

We already have a waiting list but have decided to limit the group to 20 people.

Once we are near finishing our challenge I will open a blog so that we can show our pictures of each of the challenges and continue to do so for each new challenge.

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Our weather has improved as we had a Chinook wind this morning which

causes the temperatures to rise very quickly. It makes a nice break and today a lot of the snow on the side roads melted. We have had a very large amount of

snow and the it will be great when the snow goes and the streets are cleaned. Oh well, this is Çanadian weather! It is hard to believe it is February already

and soon we will see our first robins. After this past year, I am looking forward

to a happy 2010 with no unexpected surprises.