Out and About in Portland | Crazy for Fiber

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Archive for the ‘Out and About in Portland’ Category

Where Did the Week Go?

Thursday, March 14th, 2013

I can’t believe that tomorrow is Friday!! I have had a fun and busy time with Jane Davila. Yesterday, she did a lecture for our guild which was an overview of doing the business of art. Today, some of us had a day long workshop with her where we delved into the art business in depth. We could have spent another day.

Yesterday afternoon, I took her to the Japanese garden to see the lithographs and prints that I had seen last week-end. Jane has been to Portland many times, but had never visited the garden. She loved it and her iPhone died taking so many photos!!

Her she is gazing at Mt. Hood. I can’t believe that I had the luck of seeing the Mt. two times in one week.

Here are some other photos that I took.

There is no end to photo ops in the garden.

Yesterday was Jane’s birthday. Her brother lives here and showed up at our guild meeting place with birthday cupcakes, but we had already left! So he came by our house last night. It was nice to meet him. Tomorrow, Jane is teaching a sketching with a sewing machine class. I will drop her off in the morning. Her brother is picking her up after the workshop so that she can visit with the whole family.

Mr C and I will be heading south to Ashland and Medford where High Fiber Diet has an opening reception for our Elements show at the Rogue Gallery. We are taking Scooter with us. The weather looks good for the drive down there. I will hopefully be able to blog about the reception tomorrow night

Posted in Columbia FiberArts Guild, Out and About in Portland, Quilting Friends, workshop | 3 Comments »

A Really Good Thing

Saturday, February 23rd, 2013

My wet studio or actually, a little kitchenette, where I mix dyes and clean up printing and painting supplies, is now fairly neat and clean. This morning, you could not see the floor. The table was covered with stuff – some from Kerr Grabowski’s workshop from last June.

I did some purging and cleaning of this storage unit – a place I tend to pile stuff to deal with later.

My kitchen sink is white again! Bottles and containers are washed up. My brushes and other print/paint supplies are in containers on the counter.

There is nothing stopping me now – except getting the 3 x 3s put together. I will work on them tomorrow.

Thank you to Del and Linda for giving me some great drawing ideas. I will get back to that tomorrow. I was busy yesterday doing a marathon session of Constant Contact mailings for SDA reps. Jack and Mia and Miles came over for dinner last night. Stephanie was in Maine all week working with her 3191 partner, MAV. She flew home last night.

Tonight we went to the Symphony. It was a jam-packed fabulous and eclectic concert. The guest conductor is from Estonia and he has quite the amusing personality. So it has been a busy, but lovely two days. I am a happy camper.

Posted in Family, Out and About in Portland, studio | 2 Comments »

A Festive Week-end

Monday, December 10th, 2012

The week-end flew by as we busied ourselves with decorating, cleaning, partying and entertaining. On Saturday night, we attended a party in the neighborhood. We were greeted at the door by our host in a tux and top hat. Our coats were whisked away and we were handed a glass of champagne. We looked around and didn’t see anyone that we knew. We were invited to this annual shindig because Mr C is on the Eastmoreland Homeowners Board.

Many people were dressed to the nines and others, very casual. I suddenly saw someone that I recognized, but I had never met him. He is a Facebook friend and the newly elected mayor of Portland, Charlie Hales. We got a chance to chat with him for awhile and it was nice to know that he was such a down to earth guy. His wife is so cute and really sweet. One of our senators, Ron Wyden, lives in our neighborhood, and was invited, but didn’t come because they have a brand new baby.

We met some people who come down from Seattle every year for the party. The champagne flowed and the food was great, but even though a small tent was set up in the backyard, it was very crowded and difficult to get around and meet people. I got into a bit of an argument about architecture with an architect who is on the board. He is an old curmudgeon and does not like modern architecture.

On Sunday, I hosted the first every Oregon SDA meeting. There were 25 people in attendance. Every one brought some food to share. We shared our work and our frustrations with marketing work. Mr C was surprised to see so many young women. I said SDA is not old quilting ladies, and it is one reason that I love it so much. Many of the younger women are in to clothing design and production. One person, from Eugene, brought several of her felted garments to show. Other members got to model them. I wasn’t fast enough with the camera to get pics of all the garments.

The woman modeling the scarf came with her husband. They have a business making floor cloths that are painted and finished with polyurethane and wax. They had a catalog of their work – really beautiful.

Marci McDade, who is the SDA Journal editor, asked to see my articles in the Art Quilting Studio magazine. She was very impressed with the quality of the publication, the photography and how most of the ads are in the back. I was really happy to hear her positive critique!

Today, I have been working on the sweet themed 12 x 20 piece which will be revealed on Wednesday. Here is a sneak peek at the back.

I had fun showing the SDA members my studio and my 3 x 3 pieces. Here are two more from the past couple of days.

Posted in 12X12 challenge, 3 x 3, Out and About in Portland, Surface Design Association | 3 Comments »

A Day Off

Sunday, December 2nd, 2012

Wow, the holiday season has hit us with a bang. We have been on the go all week-end — two concerts and doing some holiday decor prep.

I got the organ piece to a point where I could photograph it. I told the committee that it was not completed – I still have some quilting to do. I couldn’t get to sleep on Friday, fretting over the hot mess that I seem to have created. I had an idea that some quilting with silver thread would integrate the silver foil. I feel that it is working. I also realized that because this was not fused, it needed more quilting. I think it is better. At any rate, I am putting it aside for a bit because it was taking over my life. If I could start over, I would. I learned so much doing this.

Anyway, I took the day off. I got dressed for church and stayed in my dressy clothes all day because we had a Bach Christmas concert at Trinity and Wassail after party. It felt good to just take it easy. I went to the local mixed media store, Collage, to see if the Art Quilting Studio magazine was in. It was there. I wanted to toot my horn a bit, but they were really busy so I just pointed out to the young clerk that I had two articles. She seemed less that interested. Oh, well.

I need to clean up my studio again. My sister says I am always cleaning it up. Yes, this is true because I create in a mess! I need to put the yellow orange fabrics away and pull out the yellow greens. I am having an Oregon SDA meeting here next week-end and I know the studio will need to be ready for visitors. I also have to start on the 12 X 20 for the sweet theme. I know what I am doing and have it all planned in my head. So that is on my agenda for the week.

Posted in 3 x 3, Out and About in Portland | 1 Comment »

Bring On Your Wrecking Ball

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

The highlight of my week was going to see The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, in the Wrecking Ball tour. What a wonderful experience. As our friend, Jer said, it was so uplifting to be among thousands of happy people, singing and dancing and just happy to be in the moment. We had great seats, right above the stage, left. We could watch all the action in the mosh pit and had a great view of Bruce and all the musicians. My ears were a bit overwhelmed, but I can still hear today!!

You can see Bruce with his guitar on the center right of this photo. He was so great with the mosh pit — inviting people on stage and taking requests. At times, it was like being at a revival meeting.

Back in the studio, I went to sleep on Tuesday night, knowing I was not happy with the foiling that I had done. I found some Wonder Under and took a big breath and foiled directly on the quilt. My original intention was to have a very impressionistic representations of the organ pipes and I had moved to a more literal interpretation. I am also doing some silver foiling on the pipes to represent how illuminated and reflective they are. I may have gone to far, we shall see.

On the organ case there is an engraving of these words: Cherubim and Seraphim Sing in Endless Praise Holy Holy Holy. I wanted to include some of the words to anchor the piece. I had to scrounge up enough f the reddish brown fabric and piece it.

I made the largest thermofax screen I have ever made: