Project 365, What Week Is It Anyway?

I have been horrible at taking photos the last two weeks. I just went through the pitiful -- and very minimal -- assortment and chose six to share. I have no excuse other than my life has been completely crazy since we got back from Colorado, with all the medical stuff and... well, mainly medical stuff. But everyone's life is crazy and most of the rest of you are managing to take your photo-a-day just fine. *sigh*

Up first is a photo of our nephew and his family:

They helped so much during our trip to Colorado! Andrew picked us up at the airport and they put us up that first night. Joy fixed amazing meals while we were with them (and gave me recipes so I can try to make them myself!) and she also gave me a ton of fabric PLUS two cutting mats and assorted rulers and other fun goodies. Like the gel pens that disappear when you iron over whatever you've written with them! Über cool and will be very helpful for marking quilts. They also loaned us their car to use while we were there. Ivan and I decided when we retire we want to move out near them so Ivan can help Andrew build planes and I can quilt with Joy :)

[This is not to say we didn't have fun with the other nieces and their families, but we spent more time with Joy and Andrew this trip.]

When we got back to Michigan, there was still plenty of color on the trees!

I have thoroughly enjoyed the extended fall this year :) Which effectively ended yesterday when it started SNOWING.

Anyway, on to more pleasant topics...
I knew there was going to be an exhibit of art quilts at the college so I scooted over a few days after we got back to check it out. Barbara Bushey is an adjunct professor and, as you can see, accomplished art quilter as well.

She had a recurring theme of water and earth in her pieces for this exhibition, and does a lot of layering with different fabrics (sheer over sheer over solid) which you can't really tell from my photos. In this small piece she actually included real stones:

I don't know if you can tell, but under a thin, sheer fabric you can see where she did a photo transfer onto fabric, featuring rocks like you'd see on the bed of a lake. She also did shibori dyeing on the sheer fabric. Very pretty effect.

Ivan was able to make it to the Friday morning prayer gathering this morning:

This is a group of men from various churches who meet every Friday to encourage one another and pray together. Ivan was part of the group for many years before we went overseas.

He had the camera with him so a lot of the snow had melted before he got back and I remembered I wanted to take a picture of it:

It was a lot prettier first thing this morning when every tree was covered. BUT I don't mind a bit that it's melting :)  Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we had not planned to be here this long and aren't really prepared for the colder temps. Ivan doesn't even have a coat!

But in 10 days he won't need one :)  Because we are heading south. WOOT!