I Like #298

Last week I was thrilled to spend the week in Toronto Canada for the annual SAQA Conference and board retreat.  It was the first in-person conference since before the pandemic and the first in-person one I'd attended since joining the board.

The whole experience was really fantastic.  It was just great to finally meet in person (or see again in person) so very many friends I'd mostly just seen on zoom.  The conference content was wonderful, in particular talks by Susan Avishai and Dorothy Caldwell. And on Saturday afternoon we had a chance to tour several fiber art and quilt exhibitions at the Campbell House Museum and the Textile Museum of Canada.  So great.  At some point I'd love to do a post about the exhibitions we saw.

I took lots of selfies with good friends, all wonderful artists as well.  And met up with lots of other great friends and artists who I didn't get pictures with!

With my wonderful roommate Jette Clover

With my friend Claire Passmore.  I was so excited to win her quilt in the spotlight auction.

With my friends Mel Beach and Jennifer Solon who are also the current SAQA board president and SAQA Assistant Executive Director

With Shannon Dion- I feel like we're the twin Shannon's of SAQA, she also makes lots of work inspired by faith, spirituality, and religion and 3D work!

With great friends Susan Lenz and Helena Scheffer.  Helena and I had such a good time hanging out and going on an adventure to a yarn store (we're both also knitters). 

And with the incomparable Zara Zanettino and Vivika DeNegre (ignore my stupid look)

We didn't have much time for touring around Toronto but we did get to walk around one evening and I was struck by the wonderful blend of building styles and the great reflections on buildings and the melted skating rink.

The two museums we got to visit were the Campbell House Museum which was showing Colour with a U, a SAQA exhibit of Canadian Artists.  The whole thing was wonderful, but I especially enjoyed seeing Susan Avishai's piece in person just after we had heard her talk.  Her work is entirely made from recycled mens shirting.

And at the Textile Museum we saw an amazing exhibit by Padina Bondar, an artist who has developed a mechanism for making thread from used plastic garbage bags with which she then tats, crochets, knits, etc. to make amazing artworks.

The conference was a great opportunity for knitting as well, and I made lots of progress on my current sweater project.

Of course it was sad to be gone from the pups, but they were fine and happy to see me on my return.

My garden still isn't doing a whole lot, it's growing but everything is small.  But baby crabapples are forming on my tree and I loved these roses blooming at our church.

This week's prompt from LeeAnna is about singing.  I've always loved to sing, I was always the girl scout or bible school participant who had all the verses memorized and wanted to sing all through car trips and hikes.  As a kid though I could never carry a tune at all, so it was interesting to say the least.  For most of my adult life I've sung in our church choir which means I've gotten much better, but I'm still definitely what you would call mediocre but enthusiastic!  I can sing well as part of a choir and usually hear my part (either alto or soprano depending on how many choir members we have at any given time), but am not the type to do a solo!

Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!