Today was my first opportunity to hang out with June Underwood and Terry Grant. Terry picked me up and we met June in the Pearl district of downtown Portland. We had lunch at a Peruvian restaurant where we shared small plates of fabulous tapas. And of course we had dessert. We then visited several of the galleries that abound in the area. We took June home and she invited us in to have a cup of tea. I got to poke around in June’s studio and to see her work in progress up close and personal. It was a joy! We have decided to have a once a month art date. I look forward to it. BTW: June saw the crow on Terry’s blog and asked to purchase it and so it was delivered today. It is wonderful in person, and I love the way she stretched it on a frame.

I didn’t get much done today – cleaned up the entry way of stuff so that I could properly greet Terry. Then I took Maggie for a walk in the Rhododendron garden near our house. I must take my camera next time. It is gorgeous. Then it was time to get ready to leave.

Stephanie called this morning and asked if she could bring Milo over in the afternoon as she had a teacher conference with Mia and Jack had an appointment. I said that is why we are here and Grandpa would be happy to spend time with him. They also went for a walk in the Rhodie gardens. Mr C told him that they had to get back to the house because his Mom was coming and Milo said he was going to hide when his Mom came so that he could stay longer. I just love it! It is why we are here.

Here are pics of some nice things that have arrived at the house:

Flowers from David and Kristen, Mr C’s brother and wife:

And my prize from Virginia Spiegel of Fiber Art for a Cause. That is a postcard of one of Virginia’s pieces.

The contents; (Look close DebR – see what the charm is?)

Speaking of shoes, I have not related my moving glitch. I put my dressy shoes in one of the big wardrobe packing boxes and they arrived safe and sound. I brought one pair of casual shoes and a pair of boots in the car with me. All of my shoes, including my walking shoes and hikers and other casual comfortable shoes were packed in a separate box and they have disappeared. The box is no where to be found. I keep thinking it will turn up, but I have just about given up. I called the moving company and Kevin, our driver called back and said it must be here because they kept  our stuff separate from the other smaller load on the truck. I finally went to Nordstrom Rack and bought some Bjorn loafers and a pair of Clark slip-ons. DebR told me that if I bought new shoes, the others would turn up. So far this has no worked. Guess I will have to do more shoe shopping and charge the moving company!!

Today, I ventured out to get my hair cut, and it really needed it. I chose the salon because I liked the looks of it as we were driving by on Saturday. It is 5 minutes from my house, just past Caprial’s restaurant in Westmoreland. The name of the salon is Novare. My appointment was with Julia, a beautiful, platinum blond, Russian transplant. Her husband is from Kansas (she hated it there.) Anyway, she was great. She really listened to me and understood my problem hair. I think we are going to get along just fine. I have not been happy with my hair since Cynthia left me. Here is a picture of me and my new do. (it really isn’t new, it is what Cynthia used to do)

My darling daughter, Lisa, in San Francisco, has been begging for pictures of the house. It is still too messy to post very many pictures. With Steph’s help, I got the dining room stuff put away. We had an oriental rug on the floor, but the room is angular and everything looked off kilter so Mr C and I rolled up the rug and we really like it better. This room is meant to be a family room, I think, but it is next to the kitchen and has beautiful views outside. We have to get a chandelier that is centered over the table and put up some art and some window treatments. But I am loving how it looks.

Tonight, I got my new e-mail account set up. We have Comcast cable now. Not to worry, I have it set up to  forward from my old e-mail until I get everyone notified.

Tomorrow, I’m having lunch with Terry Grant and June Underwood. Can’t wait for that!! I’ll try to remember my camera.

I now live on Moreland Lane; I’ve never lived on a Lane – Drive, Road, Street – but not Lane. I like it, but it is hard for me to remember. It has been sunny and lovely in my neighborhood for the past two days. After two days of frustration, waiting for workmen and deliveries and dead-end shopping for the phones that we wanted, I have finally accomplished quite a bit today.

• The twins arrived! They are fraternal. They are my new front loading GE washer and dryer. They sit on pedestals and look huge. Now I have to wait for a dryer vent to be blasted through the brick!!
• I got the main mama Mac up and running so that I could see which Journal Quilts are going to be in the book. Scroll down to see them.
• We got our new wireless phone system charged and working.
• Mr. C installed shelves in the small closet off the kitchen so I now have a pantry which gave me more space in the kitchen.
• I got the laundry room and kitchen fairly well put away and organized.
• I cooked a real meal for the two of us: grilled pork, red, white and purple steamed potatoes, green beans with sun-dried tomatoes.
• The dining room stuff is all unpacked and will get put away tomorrow.
• The new furnace is finally working so that we won’t freeze our buns off tonight.
• I have an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow – wish me luck!

Since I have not made any new art, I thought I would post the Journal Quilts that will be in the book that Quilting Arts and IQS are publishing.

August 2003: Bubbly Mia I photographed my granddaughter blowing bubbles. In photoshop, I changed the photo to grayscale and then to a bitmap image, dithered it and printed in sepia tones on treated silk fabric. The bubbles are metallic silk organza.

The next four are one of the series that was selected. I think 20 of us will have a set that represents the series that we did that year. In my second year of participation, I decided to use one object that I would use in different techniques each month. I found a beautiful, leathery Sycamore leaf in our yard. I scanned it, photocopied it and printed with it until it was in shreds. Following are  the journals that were selected.

April: Sycamore Transparency ?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ I printed the leaf on white silk. The beautiful natural colors of the leaf looked wonderful. I wanted to do something that was transparent so I sandwiched the leaf between layers of silk organza with netting as a stabilizer. I couched various decorative yarns, using a serpentine stitch.

May: Trees ?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ For this journal, I made photocopies of the leaf, a bare tree drawing and Joyce Kilmer?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s poem. This was an experiment in collaging images and text. I transferred the images to silk dupioni using citrasolve.

June: Swirling Sycamores ?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ I made smaller images of the leaves in Photoshop and printed them in four different colors. I then fused the resulting leaves to their complements in a grid. I placed the leaves to give a sense of movement around the piece. I machine quilted swirls and added beads to enhance the swirling theme.

September: Icy Sycamore ?¢‚Ǩ¬¢ For this image, I discharged a leaf on a hand-dyed,lime green fabric. The result was the icy blue/green leaf which I cut and fused to the batik background. To enhance the icy feeling of this image, I mixed Pearl-ex pigment with textile medium and thickener and dribbled the mixture over the leaf.

I am tres pooped or is it tres pouped? Must get some shut-eye and hit the ground running again, tomorrow.

Yesterday, I spent the day directing traffic ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù that goes in the kitchen ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù in the dining room ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù in the library ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù and the dreaded, down to the studio. The van arrived between 9 and 10 am and left about 5:30 pm.  All the while, I was unpacking boxes for the kitchen, deciding what to put where. Steph and Milo stopped by in the afternoon and helped. He thought it was like Christmas, unwrapping all of grandma’s kitchen stuff. Last night Mr. C and I went to the local Japanese restaurant and had some sushi and Tempura Udon and Tempura Soba noodles soup. Just what the Dr. ordered. We fell in to bed at about 9 pm and slept soundly.

This morning Mia and Steph came by to help unpack. Mia enjoyed the process as much as Miles, did. At one point, she said, "Grandma, you sure have a lot of wine glasses; you must drink a lot of wine!" As you can see, I have found a place for the wine glasses, but I am not sure about the stuff on the counter!

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We managed to unpack all of the kitchen and dining room dishes with only 3 broken things and one chipped platter. I was looking for my large coffee mugs and the pot to the new coffee maker ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù finally found them in the last box that we unpacked.

We have felt disconnected from the rest of the world as we had no phone or internet service. Today, The Phone Man came and installed a jack for our phone service. The Cable Guy came and almost ran off when he saw the brick house. There was one existing cable outlet down here in the basement so we have tv and internet access. This week-end they will install more outlets, through the attic. This is a necessity because Mr. C has been watching round ball on my tv all afternoon, with occasional breaks to help with the unpacking.

Tonight, my wonderful and thoughtful daughter, Steph, brought dinner and the grandkids to us!  She made tortilla soup and cornbread, and it was delicious and greatly appreciated. We are all so happy because she has started to blog again and look at what she said about us being here. There are no pictures of M & M, but here is the proof that they have been here:

Here is an idea of what we have ahead of us:

The living room:

The state of the studio:

Here are my sewing machines waiting  for some work. Hope it happens soon!

Now for some BIG announcements!!

I am going to have lunch next week with Terry Grant and June Underwood, in the Pearl, and we will do some gallery hopping. 

I will have 5, yes, I said FIVE, of my journal quilts published in the Journal Quilt book that Karey Bresenhan is organizing. At first I thought it was only one and I said to Mr. C, Karey probably chose one of mine just so I wouldn’t feel left out. Then, I found out that I had read the list wrong and I will have 5!

Then, I got an e-mail from Virginia Spiegel who has organized the Fiber Art for a Cause, (postcards are sold to benefit the American Cancer Society). This time around, some generous sponsors have donated prizes. I won a fun party pack of assorted art quilting supplies including
Angelina fibers, Fantasy film, Pearl Ex powders, Blendables thread,
Tsukineko ink, Setacolor Shimmer paints, sequins and charms donated by Flourish! @ the Country Quilter .

So, I am on sensory overload. It is time to just crash for awhile so that I can get on with the organization of our new abode.

Please know that I am so appreciative of your comments and good wishes. At this time, I do not have time to respond to each one, but I love hearing from you,

We made it to Eureka, CA last night at about 11 pm. Maggie and Mr. C were in the Jeep and I led the way in the Lexus. We only had rain for the first half hour. Maggie was quite intrigued with her first stay in a motel. She shared a bed with Steve and they both conked out right away.

This morning we started on our last leg of the trip to Portland. Since I was driving the whole trip, I couldn’t do any drive by photography. So here are some sightings from the trip:

• coming around a bend on Hwy 101 and seeing the majestic Pacific Ocean pounding the shore
• the Smith River was beautiful along Rt. 199 ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù a raging river that was teal in color
• the tinge of yellow green in the deciduous trees
• an Australian sheep dog trying to herd traffic from the back of a truck
• a plethora of sheep, large with lambs and needing to be shorn
• a loan black lamb running to keep up with mom
• a field of mama llamas
• black and white goats romping in a pasture
• the deja vu of passing the same vehicles over and over
• snow capped mountains
• a scary rock slide
• Oregon vineyards!!!!

I like driving by myself because I can play whatever CD’s I want and sing along. Here is my play list for today, interspersed with NPR news updates:

1. Cold Play – A Rush of Blood to the Head. I know that I am 67, but I love these guys.
2. Genius Loves Company – Ray Charles and some greats sing duets
3. Annie Lenox – Bare – all time favorite CD
4. The Living Room Tour – Carole King
5. Moulon Rouge – movie sound track – one of my favorite movies

About two hours from Portland, I called Steph to let her know when we would be getting in. And then, I had a melt down. I had been totally unemotional up to this point ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù saying good-byes without tears ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù all of a sudden, hearing her voice, made me so happy about the move and so I cried my tears of joy.

We drove up to our new home at about 5:30. We unpacked the cooler and
took in some stuff from the Jeep. We parked my car in the garage. It
has my 3 sewing machines in the trunk and my Mac, Epson printer and the
Robert Motherwell print in the back seat. We gave Maggie a tour and
then headed for Steph and Jack’s house and were greeted by M & M and their beautiful smiles. We had delish chicken tetrazini and mint chocolate Girl Scout cookies, provided by me, much to Mia’s delight.

Here is the after dinner story time with all my fave people and fave dog:

I say this is proof positive that we have made a wonderful change. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.