Palisade Art Lovers 30th Annual Peach Blossom Show

For thirty years, the Palisade Art Lovers (PALS) have been displaying local artists' work at the Palisade, Colorado Memorial Building.

Palisade Art Lovers began in 1964 in the basement of the Christian Church in Palisade, Colorado by a group of Ladies who simply wanted to paint together. Eventually, they moved their meetings to the Palisade Community Center. Only a couple of original members are active in the group, but Palisade Art Lovers has grown to about 20-25 members. PALS members meet twice a month to paint together and critique each others paintings. A guest artist is invited each month to perform a demonstration using different media. The group's goal is to "Promote Art Locally". The group's major event is the Palisade Art Lovers Annual Peach Blossom Art Show in April.

You can access the 2010 Gallery of Art prepared by this group by clicking on this link.  The meeting schedule for the group may be found at this website.

Artwork for the 2010 show can be no larger than 40" in any direction; all media is accepted.  Deadline submission is March 31, 2010 and the show starts on April 15 and goes through April 18, 2010.  This link provides all necessary information for artistic submission.

Several years ago, I sold a large floral poppy painting in oils at this same show. This year, I'm preparing two florals for display, judging, and sale.

This is a picture of one of the mixed media pieces (watercolor and pastels), that I will be displaying at PALS:

  Hybrid Hibiscus

(27" x 32" framed in wood, double matted)

Come join us in Palisade, Colorado for a lovely show in mid April while promoting our local area artists. 20% of all sales goes to PALS.

Scrabble in Vancouver: Another Type of Olympics

Vancouver, BC, Canada is the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics, but did you also know it is the site of the
9th Annual Vancouver Scrabble Tournament?  The Scrabble tournament will be held the first week of March, so most of the tourism around the Olympics will be only a past memory.

My registration is set, hotel accommodations reserved, and extra studying for the games has commenced. The previous link will lead you to "Important Words to Increase Your Score".  Basic Scrabble Word Lists can be accessed here.

These are the sites my friend Darlene and I will be visiting while in Vancouver:

Butchart Gardens
Vancouver Art Gallery
Old Town
Gas Town
Chinatown and great cuisine



If time permits, I'd love to visit The HandMaiden Fine Yarn: they have several outlets in Vancouver.  One can never have too much fiber in their stash!

Kimono Shawl Sweater in Wool

It took one month of obsessive knitting to finish the Plymouth Encore worsted wool shawl sweater.  I used a bit heavier wool named "City Tweeds" (55% merino, 25% superfine alpaca, 20%  Donegal tweed) from KnitPicks:

“This yarn begins with alpaca and Merino fibers dyed two different colors and then blended together to make a subtly rich, lustrous heather. We chose neutral colored donegal tweed neps to incorporate into the 2-ply yarn. The high ratio of neps gives City Tweed a traditional appeal. The use of Merino and alpaca makes it soft and warm.

It took 11 skeins of yarn to knit the sweater and a couple of circular needles. Here is a video describing how the yarn was made, courtesy of Knit Picks:



And this is the finished sweater, knit in the Morning Glory colorway:

It is warm, easy to wear, and was well worth the effort that went into this project.