Tomorrow I begin teaching a 3-day class at the National Quilt Museum! It's going to be fun and I hope to be able to share some of that with you. I'm lucky enough to be staying with Caryl Bryer Fallert in her very fine studio here in Paducah. Caryl's studio includes the space where she holds her retreats. Oh my – it's very nice!

Today Caryl took me out to see an art installation in progress. Well, it's seriously hot in Paducah and the art was (slowly) happening outside so we went inside Etcetera, the coffee shop in the arts district. I met these lovely ladies who are members of the Radioactive City Roller Girls – it's roller derby time in this part of the world!

From left to right: Jennifer Blair (Smackeroni N' Cheese), Emily Sands (Mean Mean Mississippi Queen), Claudia R. Harris (Dollface Delilah who was celebrating birthday #20), and Kelsey Doyle (Scream Queen). They are getting ready for a fund raising event this weekend benefiting Charles Bradford, a local window washer much beloved here, who fell from a 2nd story window and suffered extensive injuries. These ladies are characters in the best sense of the word – lots of fun and very friendly!

Etcetera itself is very arty. I was especially taken with the tabletops, painted by local high school art students…

I think they are painted in acrylics and then covered with an epoxy resin finish.

I have two tabletops that are crying out for this… don't know when I'm going to get to them but at least now I'm developing a plan!