The Pirates of Portland gathered on Sunday afternoon to celebrate the birthday of Miles the Maverick.

The place – an indoor display of beautiful play equipment that is rented on the week-ends for parties.

The only wench in attendance, Mia, was decked out in her party finery.

There was lots of dancing, jumping yelling and fun.

Here is the Pirate Grub:

Of course there was plenty of Pirate Booty:

A fabulous time was had by all, just check out these smiles:

Yesterday, I left the Nevada desert:

for cloudy Oregon:

One positive note is that the Oregon climate is much better for your skin! Later in the day, the skies opened up and it was very rainy and windy.

Last night, I managed to stay awake for the Dancing with the Stars finale and then I crashed. I awoke to a beautiful sunny day and a dog who is happy to have me at home. Well, so is Mr C.

This morning Steph and I went to Fabric Depot to buy fabric for the Puddletown School auction quilt. Here are our choices:

The solids will be sashing around drawings done by the kids. The print will be borders and the flannel on the right will be the back.

Look at what else I found ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äù art quilting goodies: Shiva paint sticks and metallic organza in fabulous colors.

It is good to be home. I am looking forward to creating new fiber art. I am excited about the approaching holidays. Life is good.

It is early on Wednesday morning. My roommate left at 4 am. We both crashed early last night so I am up and posting before breakfast and packing to go home. All of my supplies are packed and will be shipped home by the hotel today.

I can’t believe that I didn’t take photos of my work before I took it down so I tried to get some photos in the room this morning.

Here is work # 1 – and a closeup.

Here is work # 2. It is all silk and very unstable. When I get it home I will fuse it to batting and fuse the elements. Charlotte helped me work out a quilting plan which will tie this all together. Remember this was folded up and is now a wrinkiled mess.

Here is a close-up of the layers in the upper left corner which will be stitched and cut in parts to reveal the different layers.

Here are some other close-ups of elements:

Screenprinted and mono-printed.

Mono-print silk discharge on silk background.

Screen-printed silk background.

Oh, and here is the delightful Charlotte Yde. That is Steen, her handsome husband in the background.

Look at what I won!! Third place from the teachers for my Aspen Reflections which is owned by Teri Springer. Teri, do I have to give you the ribbon? I’m keeping the $50 check!

The cactus piece won people’s choice. The dog won second place for the teacher’s award.

I leave you with the final dessert du jour.

I’m going home!

It has been another great day here in rainy Tahoe. We awoke to snow that quickly changed to rain and is still coming down, but who cares when you are happily creating and having fun with like=minded people.

I thought I would show you some of the work hanging in the hotel this session. Here are some of the quilts in the Crazy 8 challenge.

My favorite is this dog with 8 painted toenails:

This quilt is exquisitely done with wonderful thread work. It has 8 cacti:

This one is quite contemporary and fun:

This triptych was done by my friend, Judy Bianchi from Sebastopol. She started it in Charlotte’s class last year. It is titled Kyoto Moons I, II ans III.

Oh, and look at Anna taking a photo of the dessert. See I am not the only one. Anna is originally from Canada and teaches art education at Sacramento State.

I ave pieced my first work. I will be adding some lime green to the edges of the organza piece.

Here is my preliminary layout for work #2.

Can’t wait to get back to all of this tomorrow.

I wanted to give you an update about Elizabeth Barton. She did not have blocked arteries and was able to get home to Athens a couple of days ago. They are still not sure what the problem is, and she is under her own doctor’s care and has her daughter to help her.

Ooooh! I have had such a great day. Charlotte Yde is such a great mentor. We are doing independent work, using many of her techniques and getting excellent advice from her.

This morning, I finished my stitching on the complex clothe piece and did the cutting. Here is the result. Because the organza is shiny, the photo is not totally a true rendition. I cut it in such a way, that a couple of the circle shapes show through and the others are more concealed.

Here is my zen layout for my piece that will use the above piece. The background is a really cool batik. The orange piece is a hand dye that has a screened discharge. And of course, there is a strip of lime green silk.

Here are two surface design things that I did on some hand-dyed raw silk. On the left is a Shiva paint stick rubbing. On the right is a monoprint.

Charlotte really likes both of these and wants me to create a piece out of them.

Here are some more discharge pieces I have done that might work with them. The first is done with bubble wrap cut in circles.

The second has some screens and some stamps.

Here is a close-up.

These were both done on hand-dyed browns that have bits of turquoise and orange. I’m loving them.
I also have some Japanese textiles to try with these fabrics.

Tonight we had a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings. So, I guess I don’t need to cook a turkey later this month – ha! It was snowing when we came back to our rooms tonight. Heavy snow is predicted for tomorrow. Everyone is happy about it.

Time to sleep and perchance dream of some fabulous quilting designs.