Congratulations Emily!

My BRILLIANT daughter Emily just graduated from college this past weekend!  She attended Savannah College of Art and Design, so off to Savannah we went.

Warm and balmy, deep south, Spanish moss dripping from the trees just like the sweat dripping from our brows.

Architecture, Spanish moss, Savannah Cotton Exchange, the Mercer-Williams house, expressive limbs, horse-drawn carriages!

Old south/new south: gracious manors, good cooking, girl scouts, art galleries, dorm rooms, old forts, and beaches.

Paula Deen's restaurant, The Lady and Sons

Riverboats, Leopold's Ice Cream, Count Pulaski monument, cobblestones, and my very own chocolate bar!

This old girl scout was pretty excited to visit the birthplace of Juliette Gordon Lowe!

SCAD"s Silver & Ink photography show, featuring Emily Moon

Emily's AWESOME dorm room!

Fort Pulaski

Tybee Beach on Tybee Island.  Looks like day camp fun time, plus some local grads celebrating in their caps & gowns!

Graduation day!

Next day, June 5th: Good morning.  Gorgeous morning at 5:30 a.m. Took the pups for a walk and had perfect views of Mt. St. Helen's and Mt. Hood.  Went to pick up Emily, took her to the airport.  She's on her way to L.A. for some internship interviews.  Good luck, baby!  Mama loves you!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo, maman

So much going on, so little time to blog! Part 1: Quilt Market

May has been crazy busy!  There have been hockey tournaments, family birthday parties, First Thursday in the Pearl, Crafty Wonderland, Quilt Market, NW Folklife!  And now, to top it off, I'm heading out tonight for Savannah GA. - my little Emily is about to graduate from Savannah College of Art and Design!

Maybe I can sneak a few photos on here before we have to go to the airport...

First, Quilt Market.  Thanks to Janet's friend Reets we were allowed to attend this wholesale event.  Reets is the owner/designer of Reets' Rags to Stitches.  She creates wonderful quilt and wall decor patterns for quilt shops.  We were there ostensibly to help out in her booth, but honestly, we spent most of the  time ogling all the fantastic display booths that offered everything quilty.  The big fabric companies were all there, designers galore, and a quilt show with exquisite quilts.  It was overwhelming, and fantastic and incredible and inspiring!  Here is just a sampling:

Eeek!  Gotta fly now!  I'll have to come back to label these.  See you later!

Art Day at Janet's house

Yesterday our little art group got together at Janet's house.  You might say that we didn't get a WHOLE lot done, due to the fact that show and tell went on for awhile.  Janet has an amazing collection of art, and Diane and I had to see it all.  Here is a slide show [my first EVER slide show!] to give you just a glimpse of all the wonderfully inspiring things there are to see at Janet's house.  A good portion of the collection consists of ceramics created by the Sisters: Sissel Auerbock and Mette Julian.  Love, love, LOVE the fine texture and whimsy of the sculpting and painting!  You'll also see textiles by jude hill and Jane La Fazio, a fun mixed media piece by Julie Haymaker Thompson, a wooden bird by Stephanie Brockway, an embroidery by our dear Sally, and some brilliantly colorful work by Janet herself!  Plus, Diane's stitching piece, a work in progress.

A couple more pics of Jane La Fazio's gorgeous needle felted piece in Janet's collection.

Textile art by Jane La Fazio

And a couple more of Diane's wip - she's working on a Sue Spargo leaf stitching sampler.  Don't you love these luscious colors and all the fun embroidery stitches?!  And that hand-dyed embroidery yarn!!!

Diane's Sue Spargo project

Oh, and I did get a wee bit of stamp carving done. Voilà!

And finally, a few more pics from last week's surprise birthday celebration at Diane's house, by Janet and Sally.

A BIG HOWDY and HOLA to Sally and Jan - we miss you!!!

xoxo  lulu

Cheers to the Winterhawks

On Sunday we celebrated the Winterhawks winning the WHL Championships!  Great game, boys!  We love you!  Here are some youtube clips for people like me who want to remember this moment forever!

   

Rob and I went down to the Rose Garden that night with our friend Tom to welcome the team home after their trip back from Edmonton.  There was a good crowd of fans ready to cheer them.  Miraculously, we landed in the spot right in front of the bus door and got some great shots of the guys coming right off the bus!!!  Afterwards, I ran around asking for autographs on my brand new WHL Championship t-shirt, feeling very much  like a star-struck kid.  [Excuse the quality of my slide show, please - it's only my 2nd slideshow ever.  My first one was made today just before this one!]

 

Congratulations, Portland Winterhawks!!!

Surprises, a couple of wips, and a little bit of hockey!

Yesterday was another fun gathering for our little art group, this time at the home of the lovely Diane.  Diane lives in my current favorite neighborhood in NE PDX.  Wonderful houses that are now approaching their centennial birthdays, with porches and gardens galore.  Diane's home was a wonderful example.  I wish I'd brought my camera - then I could show you all the different peonies and clematises and roses that grow in abundance all around her house.  Diane truly has a green thumb, and she knows the names of all her different plants, to boot.

Inside her home is a garden of a different sort: a garden of creative endeavors.  Walking into her living room you might not suspect the artistic genius within, but a quick turn into the large dining room reveals all!  Diane says it's her room of shame because it does not adhere to the traditional dining room accoutrements found in any common home, but I walked in, saw the bins of stamps, the Santos dolls, the artsy shrines of Diane's work and that of other artists, and I said YEAH!!!! with a big grin on my face.  Being the first to arrive I got to take the grand tour of the house TWICE!  Every floor has amazing treasures - artwork Diane has made and art she has collected over time and over the world.  Silk kites from China, kokeshi dolls from Japan, trees of life from Mexico, landscapes from England and France... the list goes on.  And then there were Diane's quilts - I haven't know Diane for long, so I was amazed to see how prolific she has been making art quilts!  She has a glorious sense of color and pattern and loves the same contemporary folk art feeling that I love.  What a delight it was to see her work spaces filled with all the things she loves!

Janet and Sally arrived with arm loads of luscious materials for an afternoon of textile arts.  We toured the garden, the house again - always more to see! - and chatted around the table as we worked.  Unbeknownst to me, Janet had also snuck in a cute little cake which she cleverly frosted on the spot, to... SURPRISE!... celebrate my belated birthday - woo hoo!  Diane pulled out a collection of candles to choose from, so we picked one single and a number eight.  The one and the eight add up to the same numerological number of my age: one and eight equal nine.  Let's see, I guess that means I could be 27!  Or 36, or 45, or 54, 63, 72, or 81!  Whatever age I am, it's already been a very good year, and may it continue.  Another sweet surprise, according to Janet's tradition, I got some extra wishes!  A big one for blowing out the candles, as usual, but also, a small wish for the first slice into the cake, and then another one for the first bite.  Yay!  I know they will all come true, because they are already coming true.  I am so thankful to my wonderful friends!

To finish up this post today, a little show and tell.  Yesterday I finished up my second Japanese pattern dress.

For this one, I used some real live Japanese fabrics I'd just recently acquired after going to the quilt show with Janet and Sally last month.  Some are prints, like the fabric I used for the sleeves.  Others are woven patterns, like the sleeves bands.  These have such a yummy, nubby texture!  I love just running my hands over the yardage.  The main fabric of the bodice is something I bought over THIRTY years ago!  I was going to make a Gibson Girl blouse with it (from a Folkwear pattern).  I got as far as cutting out those pieces and even sewing pin tucks into the back of the bodice, but then the project sat, and sat.  It was enough to do a sample for the Japanese pattern to see if it would fit.  It did.  I decided I liked it, so then I had to do some shopping to find other fabrics that would go with it.  

White bodice sections: fabric I bought over 30 years ago!

A detail of one of the pockets: I used a navy polka dot I bought at an estate sale, plus more of the Japanese woven plaid.  I used some of the selvage from this and let the fringe show for a fun effect.  I also added mismatched buttons for fun.  These are grayish shades.  The other pocket's buttons are shades of blue.  I love to add little quirks like this to the clothes I make.

And now, a peek at our barn.  It has been so nice and sunny that I have gotten back to working on the mural I started last year.  (See it here.)  I've been working in short spurts in the mornings - it's actually gotten too hot to continue past 9 a.m.

Can you find the hockey stick in the mural?

 And finally: a shout out to the Portland Winterhawks!  Go team!!!  See you at Game 5 on Friday!

Brendan Leipsic scores the first goal of the game in Game 4 at Edmonton!  Photo from OregonLive.

Hawks win game 4 in Edmonton, 2-1!  Photo from OregonLive.

Happiness Is

I had the BEST DAY today [Wednesday]!  Although it started with that frantic white rabbity feeling of I'm late I'm late, it suddenly went calm as the dogwood blossoms and Mount St. Helen's drew prayers of gratitude from my core.  Every tree, house, flower, color, and person going by made me smile.  My ukulele lesson went swimmingly, and then I went to my version of Nirvana: a day of art play with friends - the kind of friends who share all your art geek passions.  We bring show and tell, we ooh and ahhh over colors of wool and speckles of thread and patterns of paint and gelli plate prints (and chocolate treats!).  We share tales of scouts and of childhoods long ago, of places we've been and where we dream of going next.  Our paint brushes, needles and thread, brayers and nimble fingers keep time to the music of our voices mixing, layering, and weaving together.  Our hearts become so full that we hate to leave at the end of the day, so we quickly make a date for the next gathering: next week!

Today Janet shared from her amazing collection of art by other artists.  This wonderful piece is by British artist Janet Bolton.

More artwork by Janet Bolton.

This is a close up of one of jude hill's intricate textile pieces that Janet has in her collection.  Like I said, we go bonkers over stitches!  See jude's blog for more of her amazing work!

We also bring in work we've done ourselves.  Janet created this gorgeous mixed media piece: collage, watercolor, stitching - oh my!

Janet and Diane pouring over just a small sampling of Janet's extensive hand-dyed wool stash.

Janet, Sally and Diane discussing a background Janet has prepared for a wool quilt.

Just one of Janet's Sue Spargo wool quilt projects in progress.

By the way, we're meeting in the classroom at collage.  We get to see brand new stock like this luscious Nepalese paper as it comes in.

Janet gets to work on her layout for another Sue Spargo project.  In the background, our dear Sonia, the manager of collage on Alberta.

Sally works on refining her color layout for a Sue Spargo project.

I did mention chocolates, didn't I?  Hmm, not much left...

Oh yeah, I was there, too.  This is one of the pieces I worked on today.

My happiness spills over into the grocery store, la Winco, where even the cashier greets me with, "Hello, darling!  How are you today?"  I tell her I'm fine, then squeak, "You're so cheerful!"  

She says, "Always.  Every day and with every person.  It's a blessing."

Yes, it is.

xoxo   lulu