Groningen, Day 2

Here are my students -- the same group from yesterday -- at today's Threadsketching class. More wonderful results! Afterward, Lya and I walked into the Groningen city center. I took hundreds of photos; here are a few:

Teaching in Groningen, Day 1

I taught my first class in the Netherlands today! All the students did a great job; you can see their work in this photo. The class was held at de Cordi Atelier in Groningen. It is such a lovely shop, with lots of tempting things, including many art quilt materials, plus yarns.









The classroom was very bright and spacious. Here, the students are examining my samples, deciding which project to do:




This shot shows the mostly residential area where the shop is located.



It is amazing how many bicycles there are here! My wonderful host, Lya, folded up her bike and took it in the car with us so she could run errands at lunchtime.


Many university students live in this area, and most get around on bikes.









After class we went to a grocery store. It is so fun to see how things are different, or the same, as stores in the U.S. They had a lot more varieties of sausage!



And an enormous cheese department. Yum!



This is the outside of the grocery. The modern architecture is so fun.


This is a photo of the many modern windmills I saw yesterday on the way to Lya's house from Amsterdam:


More tomorrow!

Voluptuous spring!

Spring may have officially just sprung (the spring equinox was yesterday), but here near Charlotte, NC, it is in full throttle. I really hate the hot humid summers here – I was born a Yankee, so I wilt in the heat, after all – but spring is another matter. When I first moved to the south as a journalism graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I was astounded by springtime in the south.

If you have never experienced it, it can bowl you over. There’s just something so voluptuous and earnest about it. No dilly-dally peeking through the snow, no slow plod to the first glimpse of green. It just takes a few days of strong sun and warm temperatures and then – wham! – it hits you.

I went out for my morning dog walk this morning, and I took my camera with me to record what I saw. We had a good, heavy rain last night, and it seemed like nature just turned on the green this morning, and everything was blooming. It was so beautiful that I just had to share it with you.

Johnny Jump-Ups

Azalea

Forsythia

Lenten Rose

Anyone know the name of this? It is really cool!

Yellow Trumpet Vine

Bridal Wreath Spirea

Pink Dogwood

Dogwood

Dogwood

Wisteria

Loropetalum

This looks a lot like Lily of the Valley, but the blooms are more elongated.

Money Plant (Lunaira anna) is in the mustard family

Weeping Cherry

Violet

Take some time this week to slow down and take a close look at what is going on in nature around you. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and are not seeing much springiness going on yet, just wait … it’s coming!