Wine and Chocolate?

Yes, chocolate and wine do go together! Very well, actually! Last night Peggy, Sharon and I attended Art Night at The Artisinal Dish. The Dish is only 2 miles from the house so no excuse not to go, right! It was a really nice evening having a glass of wine, girl talk and chocolate! Well, Sharon did have carrot cake, which was really good! Peggy and I split The Dish's famous chocolate/chocolate chip cookie. OMG this cookie is the best! It's not too sweet, which you would think with all that chocolate it would be. It went perfectly with our glass of wine.
Anyway, there were several artists there (Celeste Adler, Sally Ann Lyle, Lou Petty, Erin Wismer, Linda Ballentine Brown, and Laura Dellaporta) who are all local, from Ocala area. They displayed acrylic painting, pencil, oil, watercolor, jewelery (one made jewelry from horse hair and they were awesome) and hand dyed/painted silk scarves and place mats. The place mats were painted on canvas material and quite interesting...hmmmmm an idea coming I can just tell!
The Art Night was a nice end to a day with Susan, Verna and Jan to do our quilt shop and lunch 'thing'. We started out at 9:30 a.m. headed to Trenton and the Suwannee Valley Quilt Shop and Cafe. This is the nicest quilt shop and the cafe food is fantastic. Trenton is one of the longest 'treks' we take while in Florida (about 50 miles!) from Ocala Palms, so we usually only go once. But it's worth the trip. A very quaint town with antique shops, embroidery/stitching and a stained glass store. A very nice and fun afternoon...it was nice to take "Ethel" out for the afternoon...that's an inside joke! A story I'll tell in another post sometime.
So today, I've taken Kalee for her long walk, a 3.10 mile bike ride, home to do laundry (on my 3rd load!), washed all the floors, took shower and now I'm having lunch (yes, I can multi task!) then I'm off to sewing room and playtime!

Honestly, I have been doing art work!

First off...CONGRATS to my friend Susan! Her stained class piece has been juried in to the IQA Spring show. I can't show the quilt (until she wins!) but I'm showing one of her quilts she finished a year or so ago. This is ALL hand pieced and hand quilted. I believe it's 200+ different ways for triangles. I know that's not a correct title but you need to click on the picture to get the full beauty of her work and workmanship. Anyway, I'm really excited for Susan. Just wait until you see the piece that was accepted! It's AMAZING!!!







It's hard to follow work by Susan! Just remember this is just my sample piece I'm working on for my online embroidery class with Susan Sorrell. We're on lesson 3 and doing some basic embroidery stitches. It's nice to have some of Susan's insight on embroidery stitching and suggestions for changing them up by elongating or not being so 'perfect' with your stitches.

It's hard for me to NOT try and make the stitches all match up, yada, yada...but then it gives me a good excuse when they don't!



We'll be getting lesson 4 this week and I hope to sign up for another of Susan's classes.

Today is finishing up the edges on my fiber Valentines so I can get in the mail the end of this week. Tomorrow I'm going to post some of the finished cards for friends that don't use the Internet to look at my blog.

AND my friend Carol and I are signing up for a cooking class at The Dish! We are both pretty excited about the class but it's not until the end of February. It's called the Fundamentals of cooking. Along with wine (of course!) here is our menu and what the chef will be cooking for us!

• French Onion Soup
• Classic Caesar Salad
• Chicken Piccata
• Mocha Custard with crème anglaise

Sounds good doesn't it!! I can't wait!