Such glorious greens and yellows! These are a series of photos the I took during the Robert Norieka workshop in early August and only just discovered that Mark had downloaded them on to our iMac and erased them from the camera before I could load them on my Mac laptop! Well, as least it is easy to transfer them over.

So enjoy this look back at summer and a really fun workshop.

This is Robert’s demo at the Campbell Farm.

Nothing says summer like sunflowers!

Once more with feeling . . .

When we first got here we ambitiously planted 10 fruit trees in the “back forty” and then didn’t have the time to protect them from the deer! So I’m starting over, but this time we are planting just one or two trees per year and making sure that the fencing goes up at the same time the trees go in. (The cherry trees that I planted the first summer and fenced right away are doing just great.)

So this year’s tree is a Persian mulberry! I’ve wanted to get a mulberry tree ever since seeing one for the first time at a farm in Gilroy, California. I had never seen “blackberries” on a tree, but grew up with loads of blackberries growing in our backyard. Nothing like fresh picked berries. Of course, a mulberry is not a blackberry, but they look very similar.

It is hard to believe that just last week the trees around the parking lot of the inn were still in full color. Now all of the leaves you see on the trees are on the ground — waiting for raking!

This is what it looked like while the annual Fall Retreat was in session. Just beautiful!

Here is the happy crew that took advantage of the Fall Retreat to enjoy the inn and the area while working in their favorite medium. Some came for the full 6-nights and some for just 3 or 4. Peggi has already signed up for next Fall! We can’t wait.

Liz Berg was here teaching her Abstract Quilt principles. I first met Liz in California when she and I were in the same art quilt groups – first the Studio Art Quilt Association (there is a fund-raising auction of some incredible fiber art going on right now on the SAQA site), and then the California Fiber Artists. I knew then that she’d be a wonderful teacher, so I’m glad that I finally got her to come out East to teach a workshop for us.

Liz put this hard working group through their paces as they studied the elements of design and created first compositions on paper and then in fabric.

Here are Alison and Melinda totally focused on their work!

This is a shot of some of the students first work in fabric. Isn’t it fabulous!

This is Susan Garfield-Wright strip piecing on her featherweight. She created a wonderful composition using the fabric she created with the strips. A Nancy Crow alumni? I forgot to ask.

The colors of the trees in the front yard matched the fabric used in the studio!

Here is Liz with Moira, who came all the way from Australia for both Liz’s class and also Carol Soderlund’s workshop (with a fun couple of weeks in NYC in between).

You can see on the table in the foreground the notebook/journal that Liz had everyone create from the handout, their own notes, sketches, and thumbnail compositions. What a fabulous idea and a great reference.

Here is Sheila from Canada. If you see her ask her the way to Woodstock! She and Liz arrived a day early and went on an unintentional tour of the Catskill Mountains on their way back from Woodstock to the inn. They had a grand time anyway!

This weekend is our final 2008 workshop (Boohoo! And I mean that!). Larkin Van Horn is here teaching a plethora of beading and embellishment techniques. It’s only the first day and already everyone is creating such interesting designs. Larkin is the author of Beading on Fabric: Encyclopedia of Bead Stitch Techniques, published by Interweave Press. I’ll start take taking pictures tomorrow.

Well, I wasn’t actually there fore her fabulous talk because she was too nervous having me in the audience. She was afraid I’d heckle her the way I do when we are showing the up and coming workshops. I would not do that to my sweetheart.

This is the where. As in where’s Waldo?

Who’s having a great time?

Getting ready for the lecture. She’s ready. Isn’t that sweater beautiful? Kim made that.

Kenn Backhaus, oil painter extraordinaire and just an all around great guy, was here teaching his outdoor oil painting workshop.

He took them to the Hollyhock Nature Preserve on one day, stayed around the inn on the one iffy weather day, and then spent 3 glorious days at Olana.

The views from the upper part of Olana, where the house is was beautiful with all of the fall colors. Everyone also went on the house tour while they were there.

These follow photos were taken on the last day when the group paint down by the barns of Olana.

Don’t you wish you had been here!

Here is a shot of one of the apple pies I was talking about.

Carol Soderlund, master fabric dyer, taught a workshop for us for the first time this past October and hopefully it won’t be the last time! Everything that I’ve heard is true. Carol is not only an expert at dying fabric, she is a wonderful instructor. She has broken down the steps for getting the exact color you want into a easy to follow process. I will definitely have to sign up for a class with Carol sometime myself!

Everyone had a marvelous time including at the dinner table. I never heard such laughing and carrying on! 😉

Here is Carol wearing one of her many hand-dyed shirts.

A couple of happy dyers!

And a luscious stack of yellows.

Everyone created such beautiful fabric.

Don’t miss this class the next time around!

And speaking of color, there’s a good reason that New York is called the Big Apple! October is apple picking time and there are lots of pick-your-own orchards in the area. We were lucky enough to be invited to pick apples at an orchard belonging to an inn guest who stayed here this past summer. 800 trees and loaded with the most delicious Empire and Red Delicious apples.

Mark has been making lots of apple pies for dessert. Yum!