home
about the artist
gallery
blog
links
contact

Archive for the ‘This and that’ Category

A Fine Day

Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007

Mark ad Jayme arrived yesterday, after spending a couple of days camping with M & M ad their mom and dad. I made shrimp and scallop skewers marinated in a soy wasabi sauce, Asian slaw and brown rice. It was enjoyed by all.

This morning, they went off to see Body World at OMSI. Jayme is planning on attending medical school, and she had not seen it yet. Mr C reported for jury duty at 8 am and was excused by lunch time.

I went to WW for my weekly weigh-in and meeting. Woo hoo! I lost 1.1 lbs. ad am closing in on a 12 pound weight loss. I then went across town to the Japanese Garden to pick up our postcards and posters for the show next month. Here is the poster:

hfdposter.jpg

Now, I have to put stamps and labels on postcards to be sent to our mailing list. Then I have to figure out how to dole them out to the troops for mailing to their personal list.

When I arrived home, I found some great mail. The super fantastic Sonji sent me a copy of Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition — an exhibition curated by Carolyn Mazloomi.

texturalrhythms.jpg

Here are Sonji’s pages with her autograph:

sonjipage.jpg

I know the names of many of the quilters so I am very happy to have this in my possession. Thank you, dear heart!!

This afternoon, the house guests went for a 25 mile bike ride. I tried to get me studio cleaned up from the last creativity episode. I started making plans for my journal quilt and a quilt for an invitational show. I made reservations to go to Tacoma in October for the Contemporary Quiltart Association symposium and to see the Gee’s Bend Quilts. There are going to be some interesting speakers, including Robert Shaw, best known for that huge book, The Art Quilt.

Mark and Jayme have gone out with a former neighbor who moved up here. Mr C and I went to the Farmer’s market and spent every cent I had on some delicious veggies for the week plus some Albacore tuna, just off the boat. It was delicious with cannellini beans and heirloom tomatoes.

Hope you had a fine day, too.

Good Things

Friday, August 17th, 2007

Yesterday, I weighed in for the first time since my vacation and I lost .6 pounds. I am so happy with that. It was great to know that I can be in control of my eating, even when I am eating all of my meals out. Even better, is the way my clothes are fitting. I have a few things left from the last time I lost 10 pounds, but once I get to the next ten pounds – look out – ’cause I am going shopping!!

On my way home from WW, I stopped at Mill Ends to buy fabric for curtains for the bedroom because Mr C was anxious to get started with the painting. Here is what I picked out. Isn’t this a cool and modern print?

bedroomcurtainfabric.jpg

Yesterday, he finished painting my chairs. If only I had time to sit out there and read!

greenchairs.jpg

In the afternoon, Steph, M & M and I went to IKEA. It is a little overwhelming to take everything in, but the cool Swedish design is just wonderful. Suits my aesthetic to a tee. Miles helped me find ice cream dishes. He wanted the tall sundae dishes, but I opted for something smaller and more simple. Mia was getting a kick out of the Swedish names for things. I was excited to fnd these bag clips which is what I was using in my shibori class last month.

bagclips.jpg

After a trip to the Farmer’s Market, I came home with lots of wonderful fresh and organic fruits and veggies and these zinneas.

zinneas.jpg

Under the zinneas are my new kitchen placemats from Target. They are a knock-off of the much more pricey Chilewich mats that I have been coveting. Plus, the color is perfect for my kitchen color scheme.

Another good thing is this little saying that I find in the cap of my Sobe Green Tea at lunch.

catwalkcap.jpg

Last night I panicked when I realized that there were two quilt show deadlines in the next two days. I scratched one of them, since A Thin Place is going to IQF and it was the only fit that I had. Today, I managed to get organized and e-mail and entry to Art Quilts XII, Current. I love it when I don’t have to deal with slides and Fedexing an entry.

This morning was the monthly STASH meeting at Beth’s home. Before Reva picked me up, I had to run to the paint store with Mr C to pick out the paint. We have cocoa brown for the curtain wall and something called reflection which is the bluegreen in the fabric. And sand for the woodwork. I had to make a decision on the fabric, but I don’t think there will be any curtains made for awhile!! Fortunately there are fabric shades there for now.

It wasn’t ideal weather, but we did enjoy sitting in Beth’s beautiful backyard. Click on an image to see it larger.

bethsgarden2.jpg bethsgarden.jpg

bethsbirdhouse.jpg bethsgardenbluepot.jpg

She had challenged us all to get something finished to bring for show and tell. I was too enthralled to take pictures, sorry!! She served us a great lunch of sesame noodles, veggies from her garden and blueberry tartlets. Yumm!

I got some paper work done this afternoon and had hoped to get some studio work done. Tomorrow morning is critique with June and Terry — always a great time.

Activity on the Home Front

Monday, August 13th, 2007

What have I been doing since I got home? — not much on the creative side.

  1. Did lots of laundry.
  2. Stocked up on groceries.
  3. Went to Target and Fabric Depot and bought some great goodies.
  4. Made a family dinner for Steph, Jack and M & M when they got home from camping yesterday. It was so good to spend time with them.
  5. Got caught up on lots of work on the SDA website.
  6. Set up my Mac Calendar to signal me when I have approaching deadlines. I have so many coming up that I am afraid, I will forget something.

Today, we had to call this woman to come and help us out.

molelady.jpg

This is Kelly, the mole lady. We have a really bad infestation of moles in our yard.

moledamage.jpg

First, we tried one of the electronic gizmos that is supposed to send out a vibrating sound that annoys them. Ha!! They were dancing to that tune. When we got back from our vacation, there were mole trails throughout all of our landscaping. So, Mr C bought poison pellets and put them in all the tunnels. Every time we turned around, there were more tunnels. They are immune to the stuff.

This morning, I consulted my landscaping guru, my son Mark. He says, Mom, you have to call a mole trapper; you can’t do it on your own. So, Kelly showed up an hour after we called her. She set about 7 traps in the front and back yard. She puts these buckets over them to prevent an inadvertent dog, child or adult foot from getting snared.

moletraps.jpg

moletrapcover.jpg

She will be back in a week to check her traps. We have to pay her $25 for each mole she traps — that could be pricey, but worth it.

This afternoon, I went to the paint store with Mr C. The couple who bought our house from the estate of the previous owner, ripped out the molding in much of the house and put in molding that does not match the rest of the house and is the wrong style. You can not buy it as stock now, so we had some milled for our bedroom. Mr C needed to get primer for it and I went along to pick out paint for my Adirondack chairs. Isn’t this purty?

greenchair.jpg

I get so excited when I see a wall of paint chips. Last week, I found some great fabric for curtains in the bedroom so I picked out some paint chips to go with the fabric — turquoise and brown are involved.

I now have to give my attention to my weekly guilty pleasure — Big Love.

Wednesday This and That

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007

sheehanresized.jpg

How cool is this? Cindy Sheehan autographed one of my bumper stickers for Ellen, who lives in NC. She sent me this photo. She told me that Cindy was there to speak and there were lots of protests and threats against Cindy. Her husband went to take photos and got this autograph. I had some photoshop fun with some photos and have received some new photos which are on the Virtual Iraq War Protest Flickr site. You can get there by clicking on the bumper sticker in my side bar.

I could really go on a rant right now. I am so glad that the Dem’s forced the debate last night. I feel that momentum is on the side of moving faster towards bringing our troops home. I am saving the rant for another day.

I had an art date with Mr C today. It was a rainy, summer day. A perfect day to head downtown and spend the afternoon at the Portland Art Museum. The current exhibit is Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art. We have been her over a year and have been remiss in joining the museum, which we did today. When we lived in Santa Rosa, we belonged to the fine arts museums which is collective, including the De Young, Palace of Legion of Honor and the Asian Art Museum, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. I am very happy to have a husband who enjoys the arts with me.

One of the paintings that struck my funny bone was of a group of Dutch young people, in full 1600’s fancy dress. They were having a party — quite a scene of debauchery. A puritanical couple was looking on in disdain. The listener’s guide said that people of that time would have had a fascination with how these folks led their lives. I was thinking that it was the People Magazine or Access Hollywood of it’s day!

We stopped at the Farmer’s Market on the way home which made dinner very wonderful. I bought baby beets and roasted them and served them on the sauteed beet greens with a little red wine vinegar. Mr C does not like beets so they were all mine. I only lost a pound this past week for a total of 6 1/2 pounds. I think it is more than that, but it was cold and I wore heavier pants. (Excuses, excuses!)

Last night I attended a High Fiber Diet planning session for the Japanese Garden show. Some of us brought our work to show. It is interesting to see the variety of ways people are interpreting wabi sabi. apparently, the garden has a consultant who has written a book on wabi sabi, and she is a bit concerned about our using this as a theme. Our show coordinator is meeting with her next week.

I think my Bamboo fence piece was very well received so I am thinking of doing another. Look what I found — this photo of a bamboo fence taken by my son at the garden last year.

192392386_cec461e2df_o.jpg

I played around with this in photoshop and am going to make a thermofax screen and print it on fabric, too. Lately, I have more ideas for work that I can keep up with. This is a good thing.

Tomorrow morning, Miss Mia is coming over to play with me while Miles is at school and Steph meets some friends for coffee. I am looking forward to some solo time with her.

Keeping My Cool

Wednesday, July 11th, 2007

It has been very hot in our town. This means taking walks earlier in the day, drinking lots of water and staying in the cool basement studio getting stuff done.

Before I show you what I have been doing, I just want to say this. Why in heck would I give a rat’s patooty to know anything about Victoria (Posh) Beckham. I am sick of the hype!! (Edited to remove the suggestion of profanity!!)

bluebonnets-on-mopac.jpg

These are Texas Bluebonnets, in honor of Lady Bird Johnson. I adored her. I remember when she started the wildflowers along the freeways campaign. Every time I saw them in California, I would say a silent thank you.

Today, I decided to use some screen printed bamboo with some of my antique Japanese textiles. The first one has a lot of pink and probably does not look very wabi sabi, but I like the combo of fabrics and colors. The screen print is done on one of my discharged fabrics from the class last week. I don’t know whether to face it or do a binding in black or green.

japanesegarden2.jpg

The next piece is fused to black felt. After I quilt it, I think I will do the satin stitch edging. There are two screens on this. One is a discharge which discharged to blue. I decided to screen over it with textile paint to look like a shadow.
japanesegarden1.jpg

Wednesday is my weigh in day at Weight Watchers. I am happy to say that I have now lost 5 and 1/2 pounds in my first two weeks. I feel pretty good about that because this past week, I did a lot of eating out.

Tomorrow, we are having our Stash meeting at Gale’s house. She lives in Astoria, over on the coast. So I have to get up and be ready to take off at 8 am. It will be much cooler there, so it should be a good day. Well, any day with the stash women is a good day!!