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Archive for the ‘Cooking and Recipes’ Category

Let Christmas Begin

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

miamiloshelftree

I have been busy for the last couple of days with M & M, getting into the holiday mood. Yesterday, they had no school so Steph dropped them off early in the afternoon. We got tickets for the Holiday Laser Show at the OMSI planetarium. It was fun to listen to Christmas music and stare at the hokey graphics on the planetarium ceiling. We also spent some time in some of the exhibits. There is so much there for the kids to learn from experiments and exhibits like this one”

weirdscience

I think Mr C had as much fun as M & M.

MrCatOMSI

We had to go home to pay some attention to Scooter, then it was off to Burgerville for supper. Back at home we broke out the Peppermint Ice Cream and chocolate sauce — a sure sign that the holidays have arrived. Next on the schedule was Bah Hum Duck, a Looney Tunes version of The Christmas Carol.

This morning, we mixed up a batch of Nigella Lawson’s edible gingerbread tree decorations. M & M had lots of fun cutting out and decorating the cookies.

cuttingcookies

readytobake

decoratingcookies

miadecorates

milodecorates

yumtastesgood

Next, they implored me to get out the nativity sets and the shelf tree (Mia’s description of my wooden Swedish ornament holder.

miloshelftree

Scooter was very intrigued with the Santa hat and kept jumping up and grabbing the white fluffy ball.

We arranged all of the nativities. Mia remembered where each of them is assembled. I was quite worn out when their Dad came to get them at noon.  After a rest, I went out to Fred Myer’s, a local grocery with lots of other stuff. I bought a new hat and gloves for the cold weather and a Christmas adornment for Scooter. The antlers light up and blink, but that was too much for him.

scooterreindeer

I have a very busy week ahead of me and I still want to remake my pink piece. I think I can pull it off. I may just do a pretty pink collage and take the easy way out.

I’m Here

Monday, October 26th, 2009

fishbubblewrapdyeing

I had a hectic few days. I hosted the Oregon Fiberarts Critique Group on Saturday so there was the frenetic getting ready and providing coffee and treats when every one arrived on Saturday morning. Our guest critic, Alice, was our cathedral arts director until we ran out of funding for the position. She did a great job. I got a good kick in the butt. First of all, the only work I had was really safe work that I had done for the Twelve X Twelve group and them SDA member’s show.

Her biggest advice to me was to kick it up a notch and not be so safe. I had already begun to think about this. I really have had a problem getting something going in the studio so I think I just need to do the work and spend more time with perfecting some techniques. I need to go back to where I was before I did my solo show which took me off track.

Enough soul searching.

Right now, I am having fun whipping up a piece for the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. The theme is an animal. I don’t really do animals. The most abstract one I could think of was a fish. I wanted to try a new technique with the Colorhue dyes which involves printing with Lumiere paints and then applying the dye. The pain acts as a resist.

For the background, I chose a lime green silk from my stash. I shose some paints from my collection.

fishpaintpalette

I then screen printed with a thermofax screen that I had made last year.

screenedfish

They were a little more purple than I wanted, but looked iridescent which was good.

Here is the fun part. You lay the silk on bubble wrap. Then paint it with water; that makes the silk adhere to the bubble wrap. Then I painted with 3 or 4 colors of the  Colorhue dyes. the result is what you see at the top of my post. It is still wet and needs to dry on the bubble wrap. I think I should have used the smaller bubble wrap, but it is still very fun.

I have to go finish getting our supper ready. We have to eat early and go to theology class tonight. I have a very wonderfully smelling slow cooker soup going. Chicken, black beans, corn, salsa, mushrooms, cumin. I am going to garnish it with sour cream and avocados.

A Very Busy Day

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

celestialblackhole

This morning, I got myself down to the studio so that I could finish this, now named Celestial Black Hole. Last night at my theology class, I unquilted the black areas. It really was a mess and the wrong thread — a metallic silver and black — which kept shredding in the needle. I sometimes like pulling out quilting threads. I don’t know why. Maybe it is because I am fixing something and that is satisfying.

I requilted it with a wavy line using an understated black, copper and gold. I then added some celestial glitz with some gold mica chips in gel medium. I am not all that thrilled with this piece. I am hoping that I can do a better job of finishing the other piece. I have this problem of not wanting to do work that is too perfect (probably because I can’t!), but really, even if I could, I like a more organic look to my work, but this piece is a little more sloppy than I like to show.

Here is a detail:

celestialblackholedetail

I took the photos using my new lighting system that arrived today. There are two of these lights with fancy carrying cases. Not sure  where I would take them. Anyway, I got my piece uploaded to the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge (not fast for me) Yahoo site and Blog.

newphotolights

Yesterday, I received a sweet little package from Kirsty in Australia who is part of the 12 X 12 group. She just opened a shop called PomPom Rouge. She had these gorgeous hand-dyed embroidery threads that I loved. She sent some to me. Can’t wait to use these.

kirstyembroiderythread

Tonight, I got to have 15 minutes of fame at High Fiber Diet meeting. So I packed up a selection of my quilts. It was fun to show some of my early work.

I had leftover lamb from the week-end, and I made the best lamb and lentil soup which we had with feta cheese garnish and pita bread. We had to eat early so that I could rush off to my 6:30 meeting.

During the meeting, we made Momigami paper. This is a way of treating paper so that if looks and behaves like fabric. I used some magazine pages. You start crumpling the paper.

crumpledpage

It is a great way tor relieve stress. You just keep kneading it in your hand and then add a drop of oil to your hand and continue then add another drop of oil and keep this up until you have added 5 – 7 drops of oil. Then, you iron the paper between paper towels or brown paper. Here are my two sheets,

momigami1

momigami2

These can be cut up and used in collages. Depending upon what you start with, you can get very different results.

So that was my very busy day. I wish I had had time for some Expressive Drawing. I am feeling so much better and have a lot more energy. I was afraid that I was going to start acting my age!! Not yet.

Artistic Food

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

tomatozucchinitarts

Aren’t these gorgeous? Reva made them for our Stash meeting lunch. They are puff pastry with a savory cheese base and tomatoes and zucchini. They tasted great, too. For dessert, she made a beautiful plum tart with plums from her backyard tree.

revaplumtart

Before lunch we sat around and caught up on our comings and goings and carved rubber stamps with some instruction from Terry.

terrydemonstrates

I carved a small prototype of Aspen trunks that I want to carve on a larger piece.

aspentrunkstamp

aspenstamped

I obviously was having some inking problems, but overall, I am happy with the image. That was all I managed to make. It was a very relaxing time. I love spending time, laughing and chatting, with this group of friends.

RIP Miss Maggie

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

maggieslastphoto

I took this photo of Maggie just before we drove her to the vet’s office. They were so kind and ushered us into a room and took care of all the details so that we could leave without a to do when it was over. I awoke at 5 this morning and knew that I had to be there when she went to sleep. If I could make this decision, then I needed to be there. Mr C and I held her as she went limp in our hands. I felt such a sense of relief as Maggie’s spirit was liberated from  her deteriorating body.

It has been a quiet and solemn day. Even Scooter is subdued today. At the end, Maggie had developed strange behaviors like constant pacing, licking the floor and licking her body. I didn’t realize how quiet and calm it would be when I didn’t have the constant worry about her. It was a good thing that we did today.

On a  happier note, I picked up Laura Cater-Woods yesterday and we had a wonderful evening with her. I made this tomato tart with tomatoes and basil from my garden. We ate every last crumb. It was so good. She was off teaching the first set of workshops today.

tomatotart

Today, I have done a little more work on the green flash piece. Here is a sneak peek. I am liking the way these fabrics are working together.

greenflashsneakpeek