First, let me just preface this by saying I feel yucky. And I am not happy about it because I have a busy week planned. For starters I was going to Northwest Quilter’s tomorrow to hear Larkin Van Horn talk about beading. The meetings are practically in my neighborhood. Then on Tuesday I have to see the oncologist in the morning and I have the Stash meeting here at my house in the evening. I’m hoping it is one of those 24 hour things. I have a Little fever, chills, swollen glands and I feel like a truck ran over me.

I am excited to announce that I am going to have a website soon. You can go here to see the holding page. I have to come up with a wish list of what I want on the site so if any of you have some ideas, let me know.

On Thursday, Mr C and I went to Lake Oswego and found A Common Thread. I was happy to find them because they are a Bernina/Janome dealer and they do have thread – not as much as I had hoped. I love Superior’s King Tut thread. I did find this lovely little bundle of hand-dyed thread from the UK, called Oliver Twists.

Tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Have you been thinking back to that day? I remember waking up and turning of the TV while I was still in bed. They were showing a plane flying into a building. Well, the rest is history, as they say.

I was a new quilter and working on my first ever guild challenge. We were given a piece of gray and black batik which had these dancing characters. I decided to enlarge the figures in black and applique them to a wacky nine patch background. It was sort of therapeutic to have this quilt to work on as I watched the horror of those days unfold.

I kept adding more and more embellishment to the figures as if I wanted to cover up the events of those days. Here is a close-up. Please be kind, I had only been quilting for a year.

I am signing off to watch the final installment of Design Star on HGTV, I sure hope the hunky David wins.

On our trip home from Seattle, we stopped at the glass museum in Tacoma. This is the home of glass artist, Chihuly, who was involved in founding the museum. There were exhibits in the museum that were not glass related. One was an exhibit of work by Joyce Scott who does mixed media work and included some quilts and lots of bead work ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù all making a political statement. I enjoyed it.

No photos were allowed except in the Hot Shop where a guest artist was blowing glass with the help of a crew of glassblowers. Mr C and I enjoyed this so much that we did not want to leave. Here are some photos of the action. The end result was to be a glass beach ball. They start with a rectangle of fused glass in different colors that is shaped into a cup-like object. Then they heat it up and blow away.

This woman donned this fireproof outfit and carried the finished ball to an annealing oven. Amazing!

Here is a finished beach ball.

Some of Chihuly’s work was on display in the Hot Shop:

Some shots from outside:

A bridge of glass connects the museum with downtown Tacoma. There are cases of glass objects and is a ceiling
made of 2,364 objects from Chihuly’s Seaform and Persian series. It was a visual delight.

Click for a larger view.

I also enjoyed the chalk drawings on the bridge:

If you are ever driving through Tacoma, I recommend stopping for the Museum of Glass.

To see the complete set of photos from the Museum of Glass or our Seattle trip, click here.

Typepad has just turned me in to a cussin’ Grandma. i was almost finished with my post with lots of photos and it stopped working and I lost the whole dang thing. Anyway, as I was saying, Seattle was full of visual treats for me and my camera. I love the architecture and the juxtaposition of stuff that I saw. We parked our car when we arrive and didn’t see it again until we left on Monday, so we did a lot of walking.

We started the morning at the Lola Cafe, in the hotel where I had my favorite breakfast – granola, Greek yogurt and fresh berries:

I loved the light fixtures:

Our first destination was the Seattle Center. once the location of a World’s Fair and the home of the Space Needle, our destination. On the way, we saw this building with a glass-like exterior. I loved how the older building across the street and the space needle were reflected on its exterior.

Once at the Seattle Center we were met with a huge line of people. We realized that this was for Bumbershoot, Seattle’s Music & Arts Festival. The line for the Space Needle was much shorter. It was fun to take the glass elevator to the top.

After our Space Needle adventure, we headed for the waterfront where we saw more interesting sights. Oh, there is the space needle again!

Our next destination was Pioneer Square where we saw more great architecture.

And this mural:

We walked back to the hotel and stopped and did some shopping along the way.

My feet were really hurting and I was very thirsty so I sat in my comfy bed, drank water and worked on my quilt:

The concierge made reservations for us at Maximilien’s at the Market, a romantic French restaurant. We sat on the deck with beautiful views of the bay and watched the sun set. We shared a fabulous flourless chocolate cake with homemade ice cream.

It was a great day. On the way out of town on Monday morning, I got this shot of another building, reflecting another:

On the way home, we stopped at the Glass Museum in Tacoma. What a visual treat. Pictures tomorrow. (I am crossing my fingers and saving this.)

Yes, I slept like a baby, here in Seattle, last night. We arrived around noon at the Hotel Andra on 4th Street. It has recently been remodeled and has the great boutiquie modern feel that I love. Here is a shot in the lobby:

Our room wasn’t ready so we checked our bags and headed for Pike Place Public Market:

I love the tables of fresh food and flowers that abounds:

We had some lunch and then walked up to the Seattle Library which is an architectural delight.

I love these bright yellow escalators which take you up and up until you get to the tenth floor.

I had loads of fun taking grid photos. Click to see larger view.

I love being in the city and taking photos of the architecture.

To see more Seattle photos of the library and Pike Place Market, go here.

We did a little shopping in the afternoon, but didn’t buy much. We had dinner at The Flying Fish at 8:30 pm. We had seating on the patio and had so much fun watching the parade of folks going by. It was pretty sad though when a big SUV got towed for illegally parking and a poodle was in the driver’s seat. I wanted to wait for the driver to show up so that I could give them hell for leaving the dog in the car.

Today, I had logged over 15,000 steps by 2:30 in the afternoon, but that is a story for the next post.

I have spent so much time on the two commissions earlier this spring, that I have not had a chance to get much new work done that I can enter in shows. Last week was the deadline for the Art Quilts XI show at the Chandler Center for the Arts in Arizona, curated by Diane Howell. On a whim, I entered Mallory Brook, in the orientation suggested by my crit group. It was in a show in Marin County last fall, but it has not gotten in to any other shows. I sent in jpegs via e-mail and today got an e-mail from Diane saying it was juried in to the show. As a reminder, here it is in all its surface design glory:

I have not been good about replying to comments. I have been so busy. M & M were here over night and after pancakes and black berries, they went home. Then I had to walk Maggie and rush off to get my hair done – a nice new red color. Since all the artwork came off the walls while Steve painted, it was my job to get it back in place. This was no easy feat ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù remember my wall of crosses? He left the nails in, but I had to pull up the photo on my computer and begin putting them back. It was like doing a puzzle. Now I have to get packed to leave early in the morning for Seattle. Ta!