First some art talk!! I am taking part in a mixed media collage round robin with 11 other Quilt Art list artists. We will each select a size and first layer of our piece. It was suggested that we use water color paper as the base. I think some people are painting there backgrounds, but I had some nice pieces of fused silk so I used that as my background. Starting this week we will send the piece we are working on to the next person on the list and post a photo on our yahoo site. That way we can see what is happening to our piece as it spends a year traveling from artist to artist. Here is my very simple background. Am I stuck in a rut?

Next, remember the ceramic mug that Mr C and I bought because we wanted to copy the color scheme for our kitchen?

Here is the paint on the walls. How did we do? The green is called lime ice and the red is tomatillo. I don’t know how they selected this name because I have never seen a red tomatillo!

It is actually a better match than is showing here. The red wall will be the quilt display wall. It needs another coat of each color.

M & M and their parents came for dinner tonight. The grands were very happy to have root beer floats for dessert. Mia was wearing this new tee that her mom embellished with fabric circles. Isn’t it cute? I want one!

Today was a special day as I got to meet in person the fab Pam Rupert and her adorable husband, Russ. She is much cuter than her alter ego, PamDora. June and Terry and their husbands, Jerry and Ray and Mr C and I all met in the Pearl district of Portland for lunch at Andina, a Peruvian restaurant. We shared several tapas which included seviche, crab and shrimp stuffed avocado, potato frittata, and peppers stuffed with quinoa and cheese.

Here are Terry, Pam and June perusing the menu and making our selections for lunch:

We also enjoyed a variety of desserts and Peruvian coffee served in this interesting pot:

This is Pam after a Mojito; she seems much happier!!

I sat next to Russ. What a delightful guy. He is a very famous sculptor. You can see some of his work here.

After lunch Steve ran off to protect our car from the meter maid and we hailed a young woman on the street to take a group photo of the rest of us:

Left to right: Ray, Terry, Jerry, Pam, June, Moi, Russ. Look! It was cool enough in Portland for long sleeves.

Steve and I headed off to the paint store. We bought the red and green paints for doing the kitchen and laundry room. I am so excited!!

This morning we got ourselves up early and picked up M & M for a trip to the Oregon Zoo. It was an overcast morning and, at times, Mia complained of being cold. I reminded her of what it was like just a couple of days ago! Before we left home, I grabbed what I thought was a newly recharged lithium battery for my digital camera – NOT! I only took two photos before the camera died.

Check out Mia’s high top converse. They are orange with a Japanese flower print. The next photo was taken inside, and a sea lion is performing for them.

One of the funniest things we saw was in the primate section. A little boy put his face up close to the glass protection in front of a mandril. The mandril turned around and totally mooned him. We were hysterical.

There is nothing like a morning at the zoo trying to keep up with Mia to exhaust a Grandma! But Mr C and I did make it to the Westmoreland Farmer’s market. I really must remember to take my camera next time. We tasted goat cheese, sheep’s cheese, fresh figs, hard apple cider and other goodies. I was so excited to see juicy red, ripe tomatoes because I have had gazpacho on my mind. I also bought some fresh, white sweet corn.

Here is the gazpacho, freshly made and ready for a quick chill in the freezer:

And here it is decked out with avocado, croutons, parsley and cherry tomatoes. Gazpacho al fresco:

The sweetest sweet corn I have ever eaten:

And some Maggie al fresco:

It was a lovely evening for our Farmer’s Market supper on the deck. Ahhh!

We have enjoyed a marvelous day of temperatures in the low 80’s. Mr C and I both have had a surge of energy and have accomplished some tasks that were on the back burner. Tomorrow we are taking M & M to the Oregon zoo. Expect photos!! I also want to report that during the latest heat wave, I have kept up my 10,000 + steps a day. I walked early in the morning and late in the evening. My weight loss started to plateau so I have tried to increase the number of steps to 12,000 a day.

I want to thank all of you who left comments after my rant yesterday. It is very gratifying and inspiring to know their are kindred spirits out there. Terry Grant left a link to a speech given by Bill Moyers on accepting Harvard’s Medical School Global Environmental Citizen award. In it he talks about how millions of Christian fundamentalists believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed – even hastened – as a sign of the coming apocalypse. You can read the full speech here.

If you haven’t checked in on Lisa’s blog, you can see a photo of her with all of her medals. It is awesome. She and I are participating in a secret collaborative project, and since she posted hers here, I thought I might as well post mine. I think I may be the only fiber artist. It is titled Odd Bird Out. The birds are fused cotton and are embellished with some fibers and the eyes are beaded.

I received confirmation that the clients LOVE Tropical Trio, the fish quilt. I have also been in contact with the Wesley Foundation contact and they have not hung the commission yet. The new hanger arrived, but she seems rather clueless about how to proceed. I said to get a couple of strong men with a cordless screwdriver and a level and just do it! So hopefully I will soon see it hanging in it’s new home.