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.

I was so excited to wake up this morning and wash out my dyed fabrics. Here they are ready to go in the washer:

And her

e they are washed, dried and ironed:

I decided I needed some stronger blues and greens so I dyed some more fabric today. I am testing fusibles, trying to decide whether to use Wonder Under or Misty-Fuse. Sometimes I fuse directly to the batting. Liz Berg fuses to cotton and then treats that as a layer which she sandwiches with batting and a back. So I am testing that as an option.

Mr C is constructing a large table for me to work on. Hopefully that gets done before the end of the week cause I am getting itchy to start cutting and fusing.

Last night, I went to my first meeting of the High Fiber Group here in Portland. A very talented group of women!! I love to be around really creative people, it gets my juices flowing.

On Friday, I have my monthly art date with Terry and June, more about that later.

I would like to add that it is hot in Portland, unseasonably hot. So I have felt a little cranky today. Tonight, Mr C and Maggie and I walked down to the Rhodie garden. It totally changed my mood. It was shady with some nice breezes coming in off the lake. The goslings and ducklings were in abundance, waddling and swimming close to their parents. There were families and couples enjoying the evening. I came home in a much better mood.

I am one of those people that has to have every thing just so before I begin a project. I can’t work in chaos. I can create chaos. Then I have to reorganized or I will just shut down and play computer games. So over the past few days, I finally have taken the time to get everything under control in the studio area.

Last night I cut silk charmeuse in to yards and then in half. This morning I couldn’t wait to get up and start mixing dyes. Here I am, looking very scary, but ready to deal with the chemicals or wmd’s – whatever may come my way.

Fabric is soaking in a soda ash solution:

Here are my supplies: mixing box, dyes in a rainbow of colors, measuring cups and spoons and mixing spoons. I spent the money to buy dyes already mixed as I did not want to take the time to mix dyes to get the color gradations that I want. I did do some mixing so we will see how that turns out?¢¬Å‚Äû1tonight

Here are my finished containers of dyed fabrics. I ran out of plastic containers so I had to put some in zip lock baggies.

Tonight, I am going to High Fiber Diet with Terry. This is a group of art quilters here in the Portland area. Their big event for the year is coming up – a show and sale of art quilts at the Japanese Gardens in August.

I am also excited to say that Kimono Collage is going off to live with Dee in Northport, NY and Aspen Reflections is going to Teri in Michigan. How exciting is that?