Chocolat Weekend

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I know you've all been waiting to see WIP pictures of Chocolat after my class in Arizona! Well...the WIP pictures aren't going to be as thrilling as we all might have hoped. Also, I suffered from a severe case of camnesia, but let's work with what I have.

Teresa and I arrived in Arizona Thursday night and immediately set out to get some Mexican food.

Carnitas fried tacos

YUM. Probably the best carnitas I've ever had. We walked back to the hotel, while I marveled at the local flora. See, I do this. When I go someplace, I ogle all the "exotic" (i.e., "ones I've never seen") trees and plants and continually ask people, "Oooo, what's that? What's that bush over there? How big do they get? How often do they bloom?" and so on. I am told this is not normal behavior. However, any kind of geeky behavior is normal for me, so there you are.

It rained a little that night, so the next morning, the "weird green trees" we saw the night before were sporting yellow flowers.

But no one knew what they were.

We found out when we got back to the hotel that we really didn't need to have the copious prestitching done for class. SAY WHAT??!? Apparently, "people" demanded prestitching. Who are these people? Anyway, also not-so-apparently, the prestitching directions subtly and indirectly made an allusion (or "said") that the prestitching would be used by you at home to finish the project. I don't feel so bad since it seems everyone missed this!

The next morning after a leisurely breakfast, we headed to The Attic. I'll have another post with stash pictures, although no stash was purchased that day, since I was way overwhelmed. There are sooooo manyyyyy fibersssss there...they have all the colors of Gloriana, Dinky Dyes, Weeks, Crescent Colors...and the FABRICS!! Never seen so many Lakeside Linens in all my days. Teresa wanted to run in and take a picture of my first look.

Not an accurate portrayal of my awe.

Then came class. Now, I had my prestitching done, and I could have actually done something with it if I'd wanted to approach one of the scary mechanical beasts crouching in the front of the room (these would be called "sewing machines" by people who aren't me). I actually don't think anyone used them in our class. Instead, we ironed and cut silk fabric (or, if you were me, ironed and conned someone into cutting your fabric for you. ROTARY CUTTER!! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!) I did man up and use the rotary cutter to cut some mylar. That...was not the funnest thing I've ever done. The next step was to iron some more with stitch witchery, but we didn't know that was in the room. So at the end of the day, we ended up with some cut silk and cut mylar, and a lot of oh-so-pretty ribbons and goodies.

Let's all pretend this is a really impressive WIP.

The Attic's owner, Jean Lea, was there for all the classes, I think. She's a really nice lady and we all had a packet of goodies with a ruler and this cute little kit, including the lavendar to make it into a sachet.

The next morning Teresa and I had another leisurely breakfast while being completely freaked out that there was college football on at 9am. I think we freaked out some male hotel guests by daring to be both female and interested in football (Fact: I will probably yell something akin to "Are you going to dance with him or tackle him?" within minutes of starting to watch any random team I've never seen play before.)

Then came the real fun! Annette (who stunningly almost had her prework done even though she only registered for the class, like, less than a week before?) graciously picked us up for lunch. She gave us a "look" when we told her where we'd had dinner...a look that meant we were about to get some reeeeally good Mexican.

She drove us to Rancho de Tia Rosa.

Atmosphere out the wazoo.

Still more atmosphere.

I got some killer chicken mole.

 

And for dessert...

 

Sopaipillas and flan! Mmmmm...doughnuts....

After lunch we went to The Fiber Factory where I scored some recycled sari yarn and some Knitter's Price size 4 DPNs (because I may or may not be thinking of getting into that whole Beekeeper's Quilt nonsense).

I'm planning on making a mobius with the yarn.

Then we headed off to The Attic again!

 

We'll talk about what happened there later. But here's a preview...Jackie du Plessis had some things for sale at the class, but this little gem was back at the shop. Meet Percy and his jewel-toned fibers of fantasticness:

 

And here's the bit that put me over the top with purchasing him.

Pin butt!

JiffNotes
Seriously, I did go to Mesa to stitch, not eat. No, really.