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Archive for the ‘This and that’ Category

Thursday This and That

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

I have had a nice day. My STASH group met here today. We didn’t discuss our book. We had a few things for show and tell, but we did the most important thing — we talked a little, laughed a lot and had a great time catching up. I prepared a tortellini soup, pear, green bean and feta salad and an apple tart for dessert. I should have taken some photos before we consumed the goodies! And they were all WW recipes!!

This afternoon, I added the finishing touches to my last Round Robin collage piece. As I mentioned yesterday, I did two and it is a good thing because I noticed today that the first one I did was the wrong orientation on the page! Here it is. I used some of my Chinese Good Luck papers, and some motifs and a dragon that I printed. It also has an embroidered dragon, a red tassel and some old Chinese coins.

The other piece is my favorite. The first layer is torn tissue paper in 4 different colors. Next, I cut some curvy strips of a piece of art cloth which I glued down in a circular design. I then monoprinted a blue similar circular design. The final layer was copper foil. I painted glue with a brush and after it dried, I added the foil.

I decided that it needed a little more depth and detail so I stamped various designs using Tsukeniko inks.

I need to get these shipped off to Rita as she has been waiting a long time for her work to return.

The other activity that is occupying a lot of my time involves this:

I used some of my American Express points to acquire this shiny red IPod Nano. I am in the process of uploading all of our cd’s. I was complaining to my son-in-law, Jack, that I was having a problem managing all of my cd’s and he suggested that I upload them to an IPod and use it to play music in my car and on the home stereo. Brilliant!!

Tomorrow is the real Columbus Day and my birthday. It is my last year in my 60’s – eek! However, when I was shopping at Mill End’s yesterday, the clerk said – You aren’t 65, are you? Ha! I almost didn’t admit it, but I wanted the discount.

M & M are out of school and so we are going to go out to Hood River and hunt down apples and pears and pumpkins and have a birthday picnic. Doesn’t that sound perfect. Mr C will take me out to dinner in the evening. I am a lucky old broad.

Coming Clean in the Studio – Part 2

Tuesday, September 25th, 2007

But first, here is my latest Cruciform – #3. It is in the mail on its way to the recipient.

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I think I mentioned that someone was interested in one of my Lunar Eclipse pieces. She came by today and wrote me a check, and it went home with her.

lunareclipse.jpg

And Terry really likes this one, so we are trading. I am getting one of her exquisite nests.

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So, about the coming clean. You can do anything for 15 minutes. That is my mantra for cleaning. I set a timer for 15 minutes and have at it. So tonight, I got some organizing done. Here is the cutting table clean and ready for the intended purpose.

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And here is the sewing machine area. Ahhhh!

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Don’t be deceived, there is still plenty to be done. But this much accomplished has already energized me. I must get finished as I have quilts in my head wanting to come out.

A Little M & M Time

Saturday, September 22nd, 2007

This week, I had a few deadlines to finish and appointments to keep. On Wednesday, while I was waiting for the WW meeting to start, I made a to do list in my new Moleskin journal. I am carrying it with me and trying to use it to keep track of things and to amuse myself while I am waiting around.

Yesterday, I took care of a couple of the things on my list. I purged the pantry of old outdated stuff and reorganized it. After that, I cleaned and sorted stuff in my computer area. I have a tendency to make piles which soon become piles on top of piles. I reach a point where I can’t find the scanner and I start losing important papers — and my mind.

Feeling energized by the work accomplished, I called Steph and asked if she would like to bring Mia and Miles over to spend the night so that she and Jack could have a nice evening alone. No arm twisting involved. She packed their bags and brought them directly from school.

Here is evidence of their presence from the breakfast table. They devoured whole wheat pancakes and syrup, bacon, cantaloupe and apple juice with raisins on the side.

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After breakfast, we made some stuff from Sculpy and baked it. Mia made the flower and some dishes for her dollhouse. Miles made balls. I made the Maggie figure.

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They also spent some quality time with Grandpa playing with the Legos.

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miles907.jpg

This afternoon, I worked at the Japanese Garden Show with Terry. Another piece of hers sold this morning. I sold another one a couple of days ago. There were lots of visitors this afternoon, but no sales.

Tomorrow afternoon  I am going to start on the studio clean up. I will take some photos of how bad it is and post them. It will be somewhat of an archaeological dig as I haven’t done a major clean-up for some time.

Coming Up for Air

Sunday, September 16th, 2007

What a week. Summer is over. I have had meetings every day and some evenings stuff, too. Then there is the Japanese Garden Show. We had the reception today. It was very nice and we sold some more work. I am happy to say that another of my pieces sold yesterday. It was this one with the bamboo screenprint and vintage Japanese textiles.

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I also sold another silk scarf.

Anyway, I have still been working like a crazy lady to get the big journal quilt done to ship to Houston. Plus, my five journal quilts that were in the book, Creative Quilting: the Journal Quilt Project, are also going to Houston for a special show of the pieces from the book. So, last night, while watching a movie, I sewed sleeves on all of them.

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The bottom one is see through and so I did a see through sleeve:

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Now, I must get caught up with all of the mundane tasks left to pile up around the house and on my desk. And, I am looking forward to creating some new work, very soon.

Thursday This and That

Thursday, September 13th, 2007

I am starting with a bit of a rant, tonight. At 9 pm EDT, what were you doing? I was not watching our pig-headed president once again try to scare us into believing that leaving our troops in harm’s way is a good thing. Mr C and I could not bear to listen and so we watched an HGTV re-run. Does anyone believe the report that was given to Congress? I feel so sad for the Iraqis who have been killed and who now live in terror — captives in their homes, if they have not fled where they now live as refugees in another country. Most of the time I just don’t want to deal with this. I want to pretend that this chaos is not continuing in the name of operation Iraqi Freedom. Is it best to sit idly, waiting for the end of Bush’s term? Or should we start hitting the streets, as we did during the Vietnam war?

Next on my list is a report in on my weight. I lost almost a pound during the last two weeks. I missed a weigh-in last week because I was partying with Mr C. It is slow, but going in the right direction.

I am so behind in answering e-mails and comments on my blog. I have had a very busy week. I also am having a major sinus allergy attack this week.

This morning was STASH, the small group that I meet with once a month. We met at Reva’s, and she made us an incredible lunch of grilled veggies, a garbanzo/kidney bean salad and a pasta salad with shrimp. This was finished off with a plum crisp , made with plums from the tree in her backyard.

In between meetings and other things, I have been working away on the Journal Quilt. I was so depressed with it last night when I went to bed. This morning, I came down to pack up stuff to take to the meeting and thought maybe it wasn’t as bad as I thought. My quilty friends gave it a thumbs up and made me feel a little better about it.

Tonight, I finished the quilting and I think that has helped pull the piece together. Here are a couple of more sneak peaks. I was looking through some of my fabrics and found some grids that I had screen printed in Rayna’s class. I thought they referenced the high rise windows in the skyline of Seattle.

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Here is the reflection of the space needle in a high rise, printed on organza and quilted. I love how it looks.

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Tomorrow, I am going to work the show at the Japanese Garden in the afternoon. Congrats to Terry who had sold two pieces as of yesterday. I am going to try to sneak some photos of the show. We are not supposed to take photos of the work, but I think some long shots will be ok.