I thought I’d take you on our morning walk in our neighborhood. We live two houses in from Woodstock, which is the street that Reed College borders. Reed College is a small liberal arts college – that is liberal with a capital L!!

I love the expansive lawn and huge trees.

This week-end was Renn Fayre – an end of the year raucous, no holds barred party on campus. We received a nice letter from the college explaining the event and inviting us to the fireworks tonight which ended the frivolity. The campus was closed to neighbors and outsiders. Here are some pics I took from the street:

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After walking by the campus, we walked down Reed College parkway which has a greenway with trees running the full length of the street.

Here are some photos of our walk (clickable to see a larger image)

Azaleas and a rock garden and other rock garden scenes (I love rock gardens!!)

Dogwood trees, a plethora of color from azaleas and rhodies and real  pink snow!

   
   
Dunaway Elementary School, Mr C and Maggie and a house for sale, if you want to be my neighbor. It is under a million, but not much!

 I have to tell you about our golf ball collection. This is the back of  our house.

This is the golf course across the street:

This is what we find in our yard, almost every day:

After lunch, we delivered my stuff to the Artists Among Us  show at the cathedral. When we came out, it was pouring rain. We checked out West Elm and Design Within Reach – two contemporary furniture stores, then went to Whole Foods (which is right downtown Portland) and stocked up on some produce and fresh bread.

Steph, Jack and M & M came over for Raclette – a Swiss dish of melted Raclette cheese (I have a Raclette grill) served with bread, boiled potatoes, cornichon and sliced ham. Last week, Mia told me she wanted chocolate dipped strawberries so I indulged her. She had never had them and thought they were marvelous!!

Miles was having a good time in his pirate ship shirt. Lisa made the drawing which Stephanie goccoed to the shirt. Isn’t it cute and so is he?!

I’m not sure what got in to him, but he ended up under the table:

Steph and Jack go garage saleing every Saturday. They found Mia this wonderful pioneer American Girl Doll which came with a complete wardrobe and trunk for her clothes. Mia has been wanting her for a long time.

All in all, it was a very nice Saturday in Eastmoreland!!

I have been working hard to get all my pieces ready to go to the Cathedral tomorrow for the show and sale next week-end. I have to have separate labels for each that  give all the information plus price. The pieces that are not going to be hung, but are going in to art racks, have to be put in plastic sleeves and I am mounting some on black foam core. The pieces that will be hung have to have the rods and hanging devices attached.

I finished these two pieces yesterday. This is Crucis (Latin for Crosses).

This is titled – There Goes the Neighborhood!

Yesterday, I received a package of these in the mail!

See my name there with the likes of Linda Coolsh, Cynthia Morgan, Wen Redmond and June Underwood. The show opened today in North Carolina. This is very exciting for me. The piece that is there is the Shiny Bubbles quilt which used printed images of my grandchildren and the dog in a bubble frenzy in our back yard.

Just want to add that it was over 80?Ǭ?here today. It was a fabulous, fabulous, sunshiny, flowery, pollen-filled day!!

Today was a big postcard production day. I want to have several packaged for sale at the Cathedral Art Show. We had a discussion a while back about working small and whether it is possible to do really good design in such a small  format. I don’t know if it is possible or not, but I sure love making them. Here are the fruits of a couple of day’s work.

This is called simply Abstract Shadows

These are Indigo Fireworks I and II. These are made from some of the art cloth from my Dunnewold class. There are discharged and shibori images with hand stitching.

Pear and Spring Tree

Trois Poires and Portland Pink Snow The pink snow cards were inspired by Mia, my granddaughter. In the spring, trees with clouds of pink blossoms abound around Portland. When the petals fall to the ground, you get pink snow, according to Mia.

And more Portland Pink Snow

Here is the last of the Sue Benner class pieces. This uses many antique kimono fabrics. I have added beads for some texture. It is called Kimono Collage.

Here is a close-up:

Who started the myth that it rains all the time in Portland? We are having glorious spring weather. The week-end was delightful. We took some long walks. We enjoy looking at all the beautiful plants that grow and bloom here in our neighborhood. There is a big variety of architecture which we enjoy, too. I ventured out to get some shopping done. I found a nice bead store not far from home, but not as good as the one in Santa Rosa, but there are many more to check out.

Yesterday, Steph and family came over for my excellent roast chicken and vegetables. I love to cook and especially for the family. We had fresh strawberries, angel food cake and whipped cream for dessert. Miles was watching me fix it and said, "This is gonna be good!!" The best part of all this? ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù I get to cook and Mr C cleans up.

Today, I checked out the new JoAnn’s superstore not far from me. It is huge and is the first time I have seen a JoAnn’s that was clean, neat and very well-organized. They have 50% off coupons in a flyer so I was planning to buy a new, large cutting mat. They had the really large super-sized one on sale so I couldn’t use my coupon. I’ll go back and find something else, I am sure!! They had some interesting storage modules that I want to go back and give a second look. If I buy one a week, I can get three modules for half price.

Over the week-end, I finished these two small quilts for the art show in May. This is Square Dance. I foiled some square motifs to give more of a focus. These both were started in a class with Sue Benner last November.

This is Cosmic Circles. The spirals are pale purple organza fused over the piece. The organza has squiggly threads throughout which adds another dimension.

I have several post cards almost finished.The other larger piece will be finished tomorrow. I heavily beaded it by gluing the beads since it is too difficult to sew them through the fusing.

Today the Ladies Who Lunch ( Terry Grant, June Underwood and Moi) met at the Portland Art Museum where we saw sculptures by a Portland resident, Hilda Morris. It was exciting for me to see this exciting sculptural work done by a woman. It has been several years since I visited the museum and I was excited to find that they have added a modern art wing in the building next door. On the top floor is a wonderful performance art with a computerized machine that does paintings. This is the machine.

We had a good time checking out the tongue in cheek things the artist
had built into the machine to make it look more impressive. The
resulting paintings are in white and very sculptural. A computer
establishes a pattern. The paint is sprayed on and drips and dries.
then another coat, in the same pattern is sprayed, but offset, a bit.
This is done several times.

After our museum time, we had lunch at a nearby restaurant. We talked about art quilt groups that hope to be critique groups, but fall short. So, guess what, we are going to try to do a real crit group.

This was my first foray across the river on my own and I feel more confident about driving around by myself. After I got home, I called Steph to see if M & M would like to come over for a visit. She had some errands to do and happily left them with Mr. C and I. We made these Popsicle stick people and Mr. C and the kids drew pictures of Japan. Mr. C has been there many times and so is very adept at this. He drew a monk and Mia took issue with this as she thought all monks are from Thailand!! Here are the Popsicle people; guess which one is me!

Then we all went to Cha Cha Cha in Westmoreland for Mexican food and I am still stuffed. Mia was complaining about the sun in her eyes so Mom to the rescue:

Yesterday, we took a really, really long walk in the ‘hood, and I realized how much I needed new walking shoes. We went to REI and I came home with these Keen’s. Don’t you just love ’em?