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Archive for the ‘Eating out’ Category

A Green Flash of Inspiration

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

purpleorangeshibori

I love this purple and orange shibori and have wanted to use it in a piece. I started auditioning possible fabrics to go with it – different purples and oranges and a piece that I had painted. Believe it or not, that piece on the left is very purple.

shiboriandpaintedfabric

I decided I needed another color for a pop so I went to my color wheel to see what a triadic color scheme would add. I was so excited to see that it was one of my favorite colors – lime green!

triadcolorscheme

I immediately got the idea of an ocean sunset with the green flash that you hear about, just as the sun dips beneath the horizon.

Now we are getting somewhere. I went to Art Media yesterday to get canvas to stretch some work over and picked up some metallic copper paint and some pearl violet. I decided to over paint that other piece of fabric so that it would look like water with the reflection of the sunset. The colors on this are not quite true, but you get the idea. I really like it.

metallicpaintedfabric

Here is another audition of fabrics.

purpleorangegreenaudition

I wasn’t happy with that pure orange as the orange in the shibori is more reddish. So here is another audition.

finaltriadaudition

Ahh! I like this and I like the shimmering of the silk green and orange. I have actually drawn a sketch and done some chalk lines for cutting the shibori.

Yesterday was our 45th anniversary. We had a lovely dinner at Paley’s Place in downtown Portland. They knew it was a special day and treated us royally!

Sadly, we have come to the conclusion that it is time to let our beloved Maggie go. I talked to the vet on Friday and she helped me realize that we are not doing her a favor by waiting until she is even more sick. We decided to spend the week-end with her and will take her in on Tuesday and say our good-bye.

maggiecloseup

On a much happier note, I am picking up Laura Cater-Woods tomorrow at the airport. She is spending the next 5 days doing workshops and a lecture for Columbia Fiberarts Guild. I am so excited to meet her in person and spend some quality time with her.

Good News and More Good News

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

aspenplacement

The good news is that I feel as if I am getting back into a creative groove and feeling more confident about what I am doing. I was really stymied and about how to do the aspens. I cut some paper pieces to try out some options. I got brave and started cutting from my shibori stash, using some linen, first. It just was not working. I got on the computer and googled aspens and just looked at photos of how aspens appear in the natural landscape. Very often, you just see a stand of them sort of in a row and I decided that was what I needed to do, but abstracted. After several trials, I am quite happy with this. I haven’t stitched them yet. They are lightly fused. I ended up using a silk charmeuse shibori piece because there was more contrast in the markings. I was a little worried about the value change in this piece, but was pleasantly surprised when I changed it to black and white.

aspensblackandwhite

The other good news is that I saw my oncologist today for my annual visit. He says I am fine and do not need to come back unless I want to. He is such a fine man that I might go back just to visit with him. We always find lots to talk about.

M and M arrived after lunch to spend the day. We didn’t do much. Miles watched Muppets in Space. Mia kept me company in my studio and played with Scooter. Tonight, we headed over to the Farmer’s Market to shop and have dinner. They didn’t see anything that appealed to them so we went to the never fail Stickers Asian restaurant down the street.

potstickers

Here is Miles enjoying a sticker. Mia loved the new vinyl lime green and gold flecked upholstery on the booths!!

mileswithsticker

We walked back to the Farmer’s Market to do some shopping and the kids enjoyed gourmet ice cream sandwiches.

miabigsmile

I call this photo Doing the man walk in tandem.

manwalking

Mmmm! Brought home berries to eat and freeze.

oregonberries

Tonight, I found the two munchkins staring with intense interest as they watched Mythbusters, one of their favorite shows.

scarystare

Tomorrow is a play day with STASH at Terry’s house. I have my supplies all packed. We are going to do sun printing and maybe some monoprints. I will take my camera.

Pizza with My Peeps

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

Steph’s birthday is on Monday and since I will be down at the Eugene Textile Center up to my elbows in dye, we went out to celebrate tonight. I just want to say that I have the greatest grandchildren. It is such a treat to go out with them. Mia babbles on and on about things and Miles, the quiet one, takes every thing in and analyzes it, very quietly.

We went to Tastebud, which has a wood fired oven.

tastebud

Here are my peeps:

steph

mymile

mymia

Mia has a cold and sounded a bit like Katherine Hepburn!!

The pizza was great. The kids had cheese pizza. The adults had woodfired clams and focaccia, wild mushroom, caramelized onions and Oregonzola cheese and sausage, ricotta and mozzarella.

cheesepizza

mushroompizza

Have I mentioned that pink season is starting in Portland?

pinkseasonstarts

pinkseasonstarts2

My supplies are packed; I’m packed. I am leaving at 7:30 am to get there in time for class. I am really looking forward to 3 days in the dye studio. I will be blogging from Eugene. I get to meet Connie Rose in person and I am staying with Karen Miller — can’t wait to see her studio.

On the Road, Again

Saturday, February 14th, 2009

Where was I when Mr C dragged me off to Golden Gate Park. We were driving from Sonoma County, our recent home until 3 years ago, to San Francisco.

ggbridge

Church cross/sign in San Francisco.

sfchurchcross

Driving through the Castro to get to Lisa’s home, in the Mission.

castro

Look at who was happy to see me. Please ignore the double chin.

doublechinandwilfredo

We went to Lisa’s show which was inspired by Victorian Valentines. She is just so creative and full of ideas. Many of her friends were surprised to see us there. She runs with a very talented crowd. Amy Ruppel drove down from Portland, too. She followed us all day and we had a big laugh about it and commiserated over the horrible drive on 101.

The show was at the Bell Jar. It is a very electric store, and I enjoyed looking at all the goodies and collectibles. This guy looked out over the event. Isn’t he cute?

showonlooker

Here is a photo that I snapped of Lisa and Clay, her girlfriend – such a cute couple. I never did get a very good photo of Mark and Jayme.

liliandclay

After the show, Mark, Jayme, Mr C and I went to Delfina pizzeria and after a short wait enjoyed some fabulous pie!!

mrcdelfina

Here is a piece of pruciotto pie – so good. That is fresh arugula on it.

priosciuttopie

We had a change of plans today and spent most of the day at the new Academy of Science building in Golden Gate Park. It was very crowded, but still very enjoyable. I got some teriffic photos of tropical fish, jellies, butterflies and colorful frogs which I will try to post in the future.

Tonight we had a fabulous family dinner at Foreign Cinema, a really cool restaurant in the Mission, near Lisa’s home. They show foreign films on the wall in the outside seating area. Tomorrow, we will leave early for SoCal, trying to bear the bad weather that is heading this way.

What If?

Friday, December 12th, 2008

I have finally worked out the kinks in creating my latest piece for the show. When we were in Israel, one of the most poignant experiences was going through the big cement security fence from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. I thought about the Christmas story and what if there had been a big wall separating the two areas at that time.

Here is the beginning of the piece.

whatifprogress

I am using gray organza for the wall so that both sides can be seen. The figures are what have been giving me fits. I first tried Terry’s method of fusing, but had a problem with all the tiny pieces. Then I went to the Chicago School of Fusing method, using Wonder Under, by drawing the patterns on the paper. When I went to bed last night, I was ready to give up on that. I was going to do whole cloth silk painting.

When I got up this morning, I thought I should at least try to assemble the pieces that I had drawn. I did the nativity first and then the shepherds. I really had fun selecting the fabrics and I am very happy with the results. I now have to do the Wise Men. I used a children’s coloring book for the patterns.

Here are a couple of close-ups:

whatifnativity

whatifshepherds

I have to do something about the feet for my shepherds. The scenes are fused together, but not to the background. Working out the background comes next.

We are expecting snow this week-end – it is very big on the local news. I always get a kick out of that. Tonight, Mr C took me out to dinner. I had one of the specials – duck breast on creamy polenta with caramelized cipollini onions and a most divine red wine sauce. I could have licked the platter.

I still have not gotten a tracking number or any communication regarding my fabric order.