Here are two postcards made today. The top one is made with a photo of a bouquet that my friend Patty designed for a brunch I had earlier this month. The photo was printed on bubblejet set silk and collaged with silk fabrics.

The second is a sunflower for my friend, Janet Shore, who turned 81 today. She is a most amazing person. One of the founders of the East Bay Heritage Quilt Guild and master quilter. She had a quilt in Quilt National way back in the dark ages!! She has so much energy that we 60 somethings can barely keep up with her. She had hip replacement surgery last year and bounced right back. She is on the road almost every day in her blue Volvo going to some quilting group around the bay area. Her motto is “Always drive five miles over the speed limit.” She loves sunflowers and so I thought this card would be appropriate for someone who has brought so much sunshine into my life!!

I haven’t talked about my breast cancer and mastectomy in a while. I put it on the back burner, but, today, I had an appointment to be fitted for a prosthetic and new bras. I was shown all the styles of bras available and then off to the fitting room which doubles as the wig fitting room. The first prosthetic made me have small versions of bullet breast’s a la Pam of PamDora’s Box. Now, in her illustrations, they are quite cute and perky, but on me, let’s just say, it was not a pretty picture.

Another problem is that I am round, firm, and fully packed, but I have an A cup. I have never been able to find bras that fit comfortably and, the bras I was interested in were not available in my size.

Melt down. The fitter left to rummage in the storage room for something that would work for me. My eyes began to well up with tears. I went into my meditation mantra: ” I am aware that I am breathing in; I am aware that I am breathing out.” Just be calm, I told myself, when what I wanted to do was bolt from that place and never return. I looked up and saw about 25 pairs of doe eyed heads with identical, insipid smiles, each wearing a different color and style of wig staring at me. It’s a good thing that I have a well honed sense of humor because it saved the day.

She came back with a “tear drop” shaped boob and another style of bra and voila!, I looked pretty darn “au natural”. After having a fiberfill boob for 6 weeks, I keep touching this thing and marvelling at how natural it feels. I even had Steve give it a feel! He agreed. I don’t know if he got a thrill – he was on a work related conference call at the time!!

A bathing suit, however, is not in my immediate future.

I have been at the beautiful Bishop’s Ranch retreat center for my April quilt retreat with good friends. I go every April and October. We call ourselve’s the Ranch Hands. Here is a photo from the front of the ranch house looking out over vineyards to the Mayacamus mountains.

Remember these?

These are the blocks made for me by members of my art quilt group, the Pointless Sisters. Each member chose a shape and two colors and then we made blocks for each other. Mine was any number from 0-9 and lime green and turqoise. We decided to have the finished size be 56″ as we want to enter them in to the Paducah challenge quilt contest. We need to have them done by next Tuesday so that we can choose the quilts to be photographed. SOOO, I spent the whole retreat working on this.

First I cut the blocks down to about 8 inches, on an angle. Then I bordered them with black batiks and added wunder under to the back. I next laid out the background fabrics and figured out the size I needed for each fabric.

Then I tried different layouts for the numbers on the pieced background.

Notice the backwards six (or nine?). I decided to have fun with it and put it next to the other six as a mirror image.

I then did much quilting which was a bear because of the fusing and decorative stuff on the blocks. But the wonderful Superior King Tut thread worked beautifully. When it is completed, I will do some close-ups of the blocks. I had fun quiling in things like, Two is company and Three’s a crowd. Here is the piece quilted; now I have to steam the heck out of it and hope that I can get rid of the bloopers. Then it gets a binding. It’s name is “I’ve Got Your Number”

In answer to Diane’s question: My favorite room in my house has to be my studio where I also have my computer, my tv and my tivo and comfy sofa where Maggie, the JR hangs out.

I am leaving town. I can’t tell you where I am going, but after Sonji’s admonition it is best that not too many people know where I am. ( See comments here.) Diane is coming to visit. Perhaps she will let you know how I am doing at my safe house. I will come back with something lime green and turquoise with touches of orange and purple.

Here is what I have in my front hall:

This is a serigraph of a painting done by Wilmington NC artist Claude Howell, called Waiting for the Shrimp Boats

This is a mixed media piece by Wilmington NC artist, Elizabeth Darrow called Yin Yang. It has matches placed on paper that she has painted, cut up rearranged, photocopied, etc.

And my very own Liz Berg untitled art quilt which I bought right off her design wall at Asilomar last year!! (Still love it)