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Archive for December, 2008

Holiday Meme

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

I have nothing much to share, but I saw this on Christine Thresh’s Blog. But first, I knew it, I didn’t hear a word about tracking numbers for the fabric. I cannot believe the customer service!!

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Egg Nog ( too bad it has all those calories)

Does Santa wrap presents or set them under the tree? He puts them under the tree.
Colored lights on tree or white? We switched to color lights this year – seemed more mid-century
When do you put your decorations up? Sometime before Christmas Day.

What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Beef Tenderloin Roast

Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Taking the sled out to the woods on our farm to cut down a tree.

When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I was the oldest of 5 children, I figured it out when I was about 8 and then I got to help play Santa.

Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? All gifts are opened Christmas eve. Stockings are found on Christmas morning.

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? I have a huge variety of eclectic ornaments collected over the years. I do not like theme trees.

Snow! Love it or Dread it? We don’t get much in Portland, but i dread it.
Can you ice skate? I used to ice skate when I was a kid.
Do you remember your favorite gift? My first camera

What’s the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Being with family.
What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Christmas cookies.
What is your favorite tradition? Soup and little sandwiches for Christmas eve.

Which do you prefer, Giving or Receiving? I love to give.
What is your favorite Christmas Song? Silent Night or maybe I’ll Be Home for Christmas or Silver Bells or the Hallelujah Chorus – I love music.
Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? Yum!

Ever recycled a Christmas present? I don’t think so.

I am working on a piece that is going to be great when I figure out how to do some of the elements. So far, I have tried two things that were not quite successful. Number 3 will be a charm, I am sure.

Potpourri of Activities

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Here I am, coming to you from my new IBook Photo Booth. I picked up the new computer yesterday and have been having getting familiar with the new things, like the photo booth – a camera in the laptop.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr C and I drove out to the country to cut our Noble Fir Christmas tree. We met the most delightful owner, who took us way out to the back forty where trees had not been cut and found us the perfect one. We also learned a lot about Christmas tree farming. We will go back there from now on. The tree is up with the new color lights, waiting for M & M to come and help me with the decorating.

This morning, I went to the quarterly Columbia Stitchery Guild meeting. We had a wonderful speaker who is an expert in Kumihimo, Japanese silk braiding. She gave a slide lecture on the history of the braids. We also had our annual silent auction. I scored this gorgeous scarf, made by Carol Heist. The photo was taken from the computer and does not do it justice.

I have been still getting the run around about the fabric. After two promises of a return phone call on the status of my order, today, I e-mailed them and said to cancel the order. Tonight, I got an e-mail saying it had been shipped and they would send me the tracking number tomorrow. Ha! I will believe that when I see it. In the meantime, I came up with another way to print large pieces of fabric that is working very well. I spray basting glue to a large sheet of poster board and then brayer fabric to it, trim and print.

I have been stuck on a piece that should have been very easy to do. Perhaps, I have been over-thinking it. I wanted a collage for the beginning of the show which would highlight “Pilgrimage.” I have played with lots of different images and different backgrounds. I wanted it to represent a page from my journal, so I decided I had to do some handwriting. I am not ecstatic about my final result, but I decided that I had to finish this tonight and move on. I did a few lines of machine stitching and am now hand stitching with some lovely hand-dyed perle cotton.

Here is a close-up.

Woe is Me

Monday, December 8th, 2008

This was one of those Mondays when nothing was going right. I know you want to hear all my woes, right?

Number one. My laptop died on Saturday. I thought it was caused be a dead battery and a power cord with a short. Turns out, there was a problem worse than that. Anyway, I got a pretty good deal on a trade-in and a new open box Mac I-book. Open box means that it was purchased and returned and I got it for a discount. I get the new Mac warranty. I also get a new carrying bag and a Lacie external back-up drive. I was hoping to pick it up this morning, after they had copied all my files to the new computer. But they called and said that it kept freezing up and so they had to try another method. Tonight, they called and I can pick it up tomorrow. Woohoo! Can’t wait.

Number two. This morning I packed up my nice clothes that are too big and took them to the nearest consignment shop. They only took about 1/4 of the things I took in. They said they were not “their” style. I said, Oh, that is why I can never find anything here. You don’t carry “my” style!! So tomorrow, I am going to call the Savvy Plus consignment store to see if they are interested. I find it amusing that they want items purchased in the past year to year and a half. And yet, when you look around the store, she see all this stuff that you know is older than that. Sigh. It is so much easier to go to the Good Will and forget about cash!!

Number three. Two weeks ago, I ordered 3 rolls of fabric prepared for printing on a large format computer. the company is ColorPlus, in Las Vegas. Last Tuesday, I called to find out where my stuff was. She said it had not been sent because the organza was not in. I said, just send the silk and the cotton – I needed it yesterday. She said she would send it priority mail. You guessed it. No fabric has arrived. I called again. I was told that they would call back in half an hour to let me know if it had been shipped. No phone call. I will try again and tell them I have 500 fiber artists reading my blog, and they will hear about my problem!! (Sometimes a little exaggeration works!)

Otherwise, it has been very pleasant around here. Olivier left at 4:30 this morning. I never got to take a photo of him in his cool coat, but I found one on the Internet. He is on the right. He found some wonderful vintage German-made opera glasses at an antique store on Saturday. We had a great lunch at Papa Haydn’s. The Bach Christmas Oratorio was absolutely divine. It includes 6 cantatas and is 3 hours long, but very worth it. It was followed by Wassail and cookies.

My latest project, while I wait for my fabric, is a collage titled “Pilgrimage”. I have printed a photo of our group on organza and also have a photo of footprints on silk. I have made thermofax screens of the religious symbols in the background. The orange linen will be the base for this. I am going to try writing on it with a syringe or tjanting tool.

Lastly, I was talking to Mr C in his office and looked out and saw this wonderful sight of water droplets on the strange flowers that bloom in the fall on the plant outside his window. I tried to get a clear photo of it using the close-up button. If you click on the photo, you can see the droplets a little better.

Here is another shot of the flowers.

My friend, Diane, takes incredibly beautiful macro shots of flowers. My camera cannot compete with hers, but I love trying!!

Bindings and Facings and Sleeves, Oh My

Friday, December 5th, 2008

I find that I have to keep busy at all times. I do not want a lot of handwork left to do , two days before my show is hung!! So, I am trying to keep up with all the finishing things. Then, I can do hand sewing when I am tired and watching TV or a movie, as I am, tonight.

Here is the binding, with mitered corner ready to stitch on the Jerusalem Cross quilt.

And the top and bottom facings on the urn quilts have been stitched and ready for hand work. The sides were done last evening.

And, I cut sleeves for all of the quilts that I have finished. I need to do the machine work and then I will hand sew them to the quilts.

Yesterday, I went out to have a final fitting for my new bras and spent some time shopping for some new winter clothes. I found some incredible bargains. Today, I did my Friday WW weigh in (lost my turkey day gain!!) and got my hair cut this afternoon. I have not had any quality time in the studio to start my new pieces, but I have ideas!! I stopped at Mill Ends and bought some gorgeous gray silk organza and dupioni silk. These will be used for a couple of Israel security wall pieces. I also bought some interesting black organza with a very loose weave.

Olivier has been very busy with rehearsals. The first performance is tomorrow night and he has tomorrow free. He loves to go antiquing so we are taking him out to lunch and antiquing in Sellwood. He has one more concert on Sunday afternoon and then he leaves on Monday morning.

NEWS FLASH: KathieB, who comments often on my blog, attended Lisa’s show opening in Milwaukee, WI. Go to her blog and you can see the amazing installation that Lisa did, titled, Life on Wonder Mountain.

A Gory, Yet Funny Story

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

This morning, I got out of bed and jumped into the shower. I use a color enhancing shampoo. It is red. As I was rinsing my hair, I looked down and the water coming off my head was really red and the more I rinsed, the redder it got. What the? My first thought was I had a cut on my head, but no, I had the mother of all nose bleeds. I turned off the water and grabbed one of the brand spanking clean white towels and pressed it against my nose. Dripping wet I walked out to the bedroom to summon Mr C to come to my aid. He toweled me off and still holding the towel tight against my nose, I put on my robe and got in a prone position on the bed. Mr C went for a bag of ice. I usually get one of these every winter and sometimes it takes hours to get them to stop. They are caused by extremely dry conditions combined with my sinus problems.

Fortunately, it was over fairly quickly. I went back into the bathroom, and I kid you not, it looked like someone had been attacked by an axe murderer. There was blood on the shower walls and the base, on the floor and the rugs and in my sink. We finally got it all cleaned up. I have made it through the day without another one, thanks to some petroleum jelly lining my nasal passages.

Our guest, Olivier, arrived last night, in his very classy duds and his violin. He is really a sweet guy. Mr C and I are ready to adopt him. He is the single father of a little boy. His young wife got bored and left him to go back to the city. He lives in the country north of Montreal. He is French Canadian and speaks with a lovely accent. he declared my messy studio to be a happy place!! he saw my two sewing machines set up side by side and wondered if I had them going at the same time! He has been at rehearsal most of the day. Mr C just left to pick him up.

I am getting nervous. I think my quilt on the SAQA auction may not sell. They go down to $150 tomorrow and $75 on Friday. I hope I don’t have the embarrassment of being sent to the bargain basement.

I wanted to do a piece about Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in old urns in caves. In my UFO pile, I had a quilt with urns that I started in a Robbi Eklow class. So I got it out and did the quilting on it. I love the background fabric. It is one I bought from Judy Robinson.

I need to cut and stitch the binding for the cross quilt. Then I will clean up my stuff again and start on the collage pieces.