I feel like the little boy in The Music Man, waiting for somthin’ special to arrive. Here is what I am waiting for:

• Superior thread from The Web of Thread in Kenmore, WA
• Beautiful hand-dyed extra large backing fabric from equilter
• Cotton batting by the yard and extra large felt to cover my design wall from Fabric Depot (This I could have picked up, but they do free shipping and I am afraid to go in the store until I get this current project done.
• A custom designed quilt hanging device from the Quilter’s Husband (also some spray fuse).
• A step counting pedometer because I have joined Debra’s walking challenge: Quilter’s with No Fat Quarters. All we’ve agreed to do is wear a pedometer every day and attempt to do 10,000 steps/day for 2 months.

I  have finished fusing the liturgical piece and can’t do anymore until the above supplies arrive. So I am working on the fish quilt. Here is a photo of the piece as it now lies draped over my work table.

Last night we went to see the DaVinci Code. I enjoyed it. It was a very faithful interpretation of the book. Then we went out for Japanese food – Yaki-soba and some spicy California roll.

Today was family dinner day. Here are the beautiful peonies I picked up to go with my peony place mats:

Steph and Jack dropped of M & M while they did some shopping for his new office. Milo showed me his tattoo of a dragon:

And Mia twirled around the living room: (clickable)

We enjoyed a meal of grilled Copper River Salmon, tri-tip, pasta salad with fresh  mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, asparagus, bread and strawberry shortcake (biscuits made by Steph, Yum!)

Hope you are all having a great long week-end!!

Today I finished the layout of the middle section and did a light fuse. I tried to stand on a ladder to take a photo. Here is the best I could do:

I now have to do the top and bottom and then I will put it on the design wall to check the over all look and make any corrections before I do a final fuse and  do the quilting. I am quite happy with it so far. Even Mr. C was full of compliments.

I took some time off this morning to get my hair trimmed. Tonight we had dinner at a very interesting restaurant, Navarre. You are presented with a list of items and a pen and make out your own order. I liked it because you can get small plates and try lots of good things. We had Buffalo tritip (delish), scallops and lentils, crab cakes, braised greens,  wonderful, wonderful fresh salad greens, dressed perfectly, and bread and french cheese. Oh, and a fabulous Oregon Pinot Noir. One of the tings we love about Portland are the neighborhood restaurants. We go out every Thursday, and don’t have to deal with the week-end diners. We can usually walk in without reservations and we are sampling some wonderful food.

Here is the set up for working on the very large piece that has my attention. Mr. C fashioned these tables that are long enough to work on a section of this at a time. I am starting with the center, which will get lightly fused and then I will do the top and the bottom. I then hope to put it on the design wall and make any adjustments. After that I will give it a final fuse and start quilting. The crosses will be added after the quilting phase.

Here is the warm color end:

Here is the cool end. I started on this side, but decided I was not happy with my blues and greens so I dyed some more today.

Here are my new blues and greens so I can get back to my layout tomorrow.

I knew this would be a big job and now I am right in the middle of it and I am getting excited to finish the fusing and start quilting. The quilting is fairly simple so I am hoping I can do it on my Janome by rolling up each end while I quilt the other. I know that people have done king-size quilts on normal machines so I have high hopes!!

As a reminder, here is the original quilt that I did for my church in Santa Rosa. It was seen by the folks in Alabama and that is why I was asked to to this. This is 98 inches long and 18 inches wide.

Sorry, Diane D., but I just had to use this for my post tonight!! My first task this morning was to draw a grid on the white cotton background:

After a trip to the post office to mail quilts to Dee and Teri, I got to work rotary cutting 3 1/2 squares of the fused silk. I will probably suffer from rotary wrist tomorrow! Here are the squares; now everyone say Ooooh! Pretty colors!

My next project is to pad the table and start laying out the design:

Look at what I found today. I just love these colors (of course) and the designs:

It has been a happy and productive week-end around here. Friday, June, Terry and I had our monthly art date. The Art Train was spending the week-end in Milwaukie, near our home. The show was contemporary art by native Americans from all over the country. Some of the art was very provocative and some was very funny, but a recurring theme was the conflict that native Americans have living in two cultures and especially the hijacking and misuse of their culture. I really enjoy my time with these two women. We sat for over an hour at Starbucks and just talked. But I had to get home because….

M & M came by to spend the night with us. Steph and Jack got to have a couple’s evening. Here they are in the morning drawing pictures with Grandpa:

Mia thought Maggie would look good in the mardi gras beads:

We also made pom pom and pipe cleaner stuff, but I neglected to get photos.

After they left, I got to work on fusing fabric. Look at the tables that Steve built for me:

Each one is about 4 ft. X 4 ft. One will be an ironing table and the other will be a screen-printing table (and other surface design stuff.) For now they are clamped together so that I have a large surface for working on the liturgical piece. They are on casters so that I can roll them around.

I got all the silk fused with Misty-fuse. It comes like this and is light as a feather:

I also purchased a huge sheet of Teflon to use for the fusing. I put half on the bottom. Then the piece of silk with the Misty-fuse cut to fit and another sheet of Teflon. It fuses at a fairly low temperature and rather quickly.

After the Teflon cools, pull it back to reveal the fused silk which is lovely. The Misty-fuse hardly changes the hand of the silk.

Today, I shortened the red draperies that used to be in our living room for Mr. C’s office. They look great with his red and black theme. Tonight I cut and sewed the background for the liturgical piece. Tomorrow, I will draw out a basic grid and start cutting the silk into 3 1/2 inch squares. We had thunder storms and rain tonight, and I think it will be rainy all week, but I need to be working in the studio anyway. I hope I have something cool to post tomorrow night.