December 8, 2010

We are in the midst of our December retreat and the rabbits are coming together nicely.

We started out by creating the template patterns and enlarging them on the studio printer. (No one wanted to leave the nice warm studio to drive to Kinko’s!)

Then the fabrics were selected and cut to the template pieces and assembled into rabbits!. Linda did a running rabbit.

This is Leonie’s rabbit in process. Leonie is here from Australia!

And here is the rabbit I am working on.

Today we are stitching all of pieces down to finish them off. Linda is already creating the other elements for her overall composition – grass, cattails, and mushrooms – all made from some incredibly luscious hand-dyed fabric by Judy Robertson.

Leonie and I are having too much fun putting together animal figures, so we are going to next move on to squirrels! Leonie said that she loves squirrels.

In between working on her rabbit, Leonie is also working on completing the still life piece that she started in Esterita Austin’s workshop. It is really coming together nicely!

Mark, the chef, has been taking advantage of the small number of people here and is trying out some dishes for next year. So far we’ve enjoyed a Moroccan beef stew and some Lamb Tangine. Both were so, so yummy. We also got to sample a new dessert featuring almonds and philo dough. Very yummy.