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Archive for the ‘House and home stuff’ Category

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?

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Posted in Flowers and plants, House and home stuff, Landscaping, M & M, Quilting Friends, Stuff I Buy, This and that | 1 Comment »

Activity on the Home Front

Monday, August 13th, 2007

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

Did lots of laundry.
Stocked up on groceries.
Went to Target and Fabric Depot and bought some great goodies.
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.
Got caught up on lots of work on the SDA website.
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.

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

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.

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?

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.

Posted in Family, House and home stuff, Landscaping, This and that, Uncategorized | 4 Comments »

I Love a Parade

Saturday, July 14th, 2007

We live in the Eastmoreland Neighborhood, but are adjacent to the Woodstock neighborhood, where we do a lot of our shopping. Today was the annual Woodstock Festival, complete with parade, entertainment, food and street fair.

Maggie and I walked up the hill to the Woodstock neighborhood while Mr C worked in the yard. I arrived just in time for the beginning of the parade. It was the total small town/neighborhood parade. Lots of kids, a couple of bands, some dogs, antique cars, bikes and dedicated neighborhood souls. Here are a few pics. You can see more on my Flickr set.

Steve worked on planting the area outside my studio. This is the view from my studio, through the sliding glass doors.

It is still a little barren, but at least we have a good start. Here is how it looks from above, taken from the deck — yellow bird bath and Japanese Maple.

Here are close-ups of my new lacy Hydrangea and a gorgeous Begonia. Clickable to see larger.

Mr C and I have been spending the last couple of days planning a driving trip in August. We are driving to the Olympic Peninsula and staying one night, with a day and a half to explore. Then we stay in Port Orchard and catch the ferry to Victoria the next day. We will stay there for two nights. Then we are driving to Seattle for an overnight stay so that we can take in the new sculpture park and art museum renovation. I am really looking forward to this. I love to hit the road with Mr C!

Posted in Flowers and plants, House and home stuff, Landscaping, Travels | 4 Comments »

Could It Really Be Friday?

Friday, June 15th, 2007

This will be a multi-purpose post. I have a few things to catch up on.

First of all, I have posted new photos on the Virtual Iraq War Protest. Click on the Endless/end this war bumper sticker in my side bar. Hope all of you who have not taken photos yet are looking for something really interesting for us.

Here are photos of the finished fence for my son in San Francisco. We added these wonderful Stainless Steel post caps which makes it look quite elegant, don’t you think?

I had lots of queries about wanting to know more about Trisha Hassler’s work. There is a link to her website in my previous post. She is this skinny little thing who drives around Portland looking for rusty metal pieces. She says that if she can pick it up, drag it to her car and fit it in the trunk, it is hers. She has a studio where she does her sewing, but the metal work is done in a shop owned by some guy who does metal work. She has her own piece of equipment for cutting the metal into shapes and making holes. She had a slide of her in her work garb — heavy duty boots, big gloves, leather apron and one of those helmet face guards. She makes exquisite little pieced quilts in a variety of shapes which she then finds a way to attach to metal frames. The metal is finished with a polyurethane before the quilts are attached. She found a guy in a hardware store who has been helping her with fasteners for four years. He specially orders stuff for her, but the funny thing is, he has never asked her what she is doing with it. In her other life, she is a photo stylist for her husband who is a professional photographer. Her work is even better in person because it is so textural. She has started rusting fabric to use and said that the fact that pieces of metal become permanently attached to the fabric is very synergistic for her.

This is one of the images that Mr C and I saw at the Body Images 3 show at OMSI, here in Portland. I had always thought that I would not enjoy seeing these exhibits, but it was just fabulous. I especially loved seeing the intricate nerve and capillary/vein systems — really mind blowing. Most of the bodies did not have an ounce of fat on them, but they did have a sliced section of an obese person, which gave you pause. Must get rid of that adipose tissue!!

Here is a thread doodle that I did today. I didn’t quite get the roundness of the vase or the correct clustering of the lavender. This is a vase with lavender that Mark and Jayme gave me. I think I will try this one again.

Hope you all have a great week-end.

Posted in House and home stuff, Quilting Friends, thread doodles, Virtual Iraq War Protest | 4 Comments »

Freaky Friday

Friday, June 8th, 2007

Well. it wasn’t really freaky, but I got your attention, didn’t I. And thank you to everyone who left those lovely comments on my last post. I want to report that less TV and computer time is a good thing.

Yesterday was a good day. I spent the morning with the Stash group and Terry made us a delicious lunch. We had fun with some show and tell and discussing the Twyla Tharp book. This particular chapter discussed the possibility that our DNA is contributes to the way we work — do we see the large view or do we see things in detail. I have often wondered why I am not motivated to make large quilts with sweeping motifs. I love them, but don’t want to do them. My commission quilt was large, but it had a repeating detailed image. I now have an excuse, it is my DNA that makes me do it.

Back at home, I did some quilting on the latest cruciform. Reva told me about a neighborhood guided walk with a mid-century modern theme, starting at 6 pm. So, Mr C and I put on our walking shoes and joined the throng of 50 – 60 people.

We started out at Reed College, where the original architecture is rather Ivy League Gothic. But many building constructed after the 1950’s have a decided mid century modern look. Brick was added to many of the new buildings to help them blend with the other architecture.

On the other side of Reed College is a development called Reedwood. Until the 1950’s, this area was dairy farms and gardens — the last farms within the Portland city limits. The area was built differently than most of SE Portland. It has no sidewalks and most of the houses have pools. There are many styles of mid-century modern architecture. The Oregonian used to publish a house of the week with plans and encouraged good design. Here is one of the houses.

And a detail of the cement screen, that I love. Many of the homes were influenced by Japanese architecture and have Japanese style landscaping.

One of the homeowners invited us to her back yard which was a Japanese garden; she served drinks and snacks — very classy! Here are Reva and Jer.

Today, I finished the latest cruciform and decided to make it asymmetrical. I also did the Sue Benner satin stitched edges with the corner threads.

This afternoon I worked on postcards for a demo that I am doing for the Columbia Stitchery Guild artist’s tea, tomorrow. I’ll show pics tomorrow.

I found out today that my entries to the Lowell Art Quilts at the Brush Gallery did not get in, but one I am soon to own will be there — Village Series #2, by Kristin LaFlamme. Congrats to Kristin! Rayna, one of the jurors, said that there were hundreds of entries for 38 spots so I guess I am in good company. But, I am still bummed about it. On to the next show — or maybe not. Rayna said she had to recuse herself when she recognized work like mine so I will not hold her responsible. : )

Tonight, M & M are here. We had some fun playtime and bought them helmets to wear with their scooters, then went to Burgerville. They were really tired and went to sleep very quickly. When those two are around, I feel so blessed.

Posted in House and home stuff, Quilting Friends, Quilting Purchases | 7 Comments »

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