I hope these look a bit like rocks when/if I finally use them. The original fabric looked like something the cat hacked up. Then the stages sort of reminded me of some kind of breaded cutlets gone a little bad or moldy pita bread and finally some mis-shapen potatos. It's like an inkblot test. What do you think these look like?
Later I realized that I probably should have spritzed it all with a little more water to get the bleach working, but some of the larger granules discharged. After it was dried and then washed with anti-clor to stop the bleaching, then washed again, it looks like this.
I think those bleached speckles are reminiscent of sparkles on water. Maybe I can draw some inspiration from this piece of fabric. I think it needs to be something pretty simple.
Today when I was out at the new house I took a break from laying flooring in the utility room (yes, I am laying flooring. I am too OLD for this...) I walked outside to inspect the creek. It is running clear now and it was sparkling a little like my fabric piece. It sounded great, too. I wish I could get the sound of water in a quilt.
image taken from a web site
They are tiny, darty little birds that we have been seeing whizzing around the trail. I'm glad to know their name and I am really enchanted with the nest.
Audubon's bushtit with the distinctive nest
We discovered a large rhubarb plant at our new house. I know many people don't love rhubarb, and frankly I'm not a fan of a lot of the things people do with rhubarb, but I love rhubarb pie. The kind my mother made, with eggs. Many people swear by the rhubarb/strawberry combo as pie filling. Ehhh. Awfully slimey for my taste. I'll take the rhubarb custard filling any day.
So I made two pies—one to take to the social and one to leave with Ray.
The lattice top is a bit skimpy on the smaller pie. I ran out of pie dough. That one will be Ray's.
Done. They look good, don't they? You should smell them. Mmmmmm. The custard is sugary and crisp-y on the top and creamy inside, with bites of tart rhubarb. Mom would be proud (though she'd wonder about those edges). This may well be my favorite recipe indeed. Easy, too.
Rhubarb Custard Pie
Combine 1-1/2 C sugar, 1/4 C. flour and 3/4 tsp. nutmeg. Beat into 3 already slightly beaten eggs.
Add 4 C. 1" slices rhubarb.
Line 9" pie plate with pastry, fill. Dot with 2T. butter or margarine. Top with lattice crust; flute edge. Sprinkle lightly with sugar.
Bake in hot oven (400°) 50 to 60 minutes. Cool before serving.
I took a lot of pictures of Sofia yesterday and most of them came out blurred and horrible, but I like this one a lot. It was the picture I almost didn't take—she was finished smiling and posing cutely—but I liked her look of concentration and the fact that she sits, surrounded by her toys and books, absorbed in a small cardboard box that checks came in. I watched her figure out how it opens and closes. I watched her put her yellow block inside and carry it through the house. She played with it for nearly an hour, finally discarding it as she crawled into my lap, ready for a nap.
The plum trees that grow all along the trail are in bloom right now and are spectacular. Aren't these huge for plum trees? This is where our trail starts, next to the baseball diamond.
I seldom have good luck taking pictures of birds. By the time I futz around and get focused they are long gone, but this morning we stopped to watch a pair of flickers guarding their nest. Here is the male. The nest is there on the left—very messy looking, leafy nest. Isn't he pretty?
I love my super zoom on my camera! Gerrie just got a camera like mine. She is going to love it.
When we got to the bridge over the creek we saw a group of rare, headless ducks.
Har, har—just kidding! They were regular old mallard ducks, busily eating something found at the bottom of the creek.
The Oregon Grape is blooming. Very sneezy stuff, but it is so beautiful.
Emily called tonight after dinner. She was laughing so hard I could hardly understand her at first. She had decided to see if the outfit I made for Sofia last summer finally fit her and Sofi was running through the house in it, barefoot, whooping. I could hear her in the background. That's one of her shoes in her hand. Emily hung up to take a picture and emailed me a couple.
We had a our first Open House today. It was a perfect day. Beautiful weather—warm, sunny. We have prepared the house, removing lots of our belongings and paring it down to the essentials. We put an ad in the paper. We put an ad on craigslist. We made sure our signs were visible from all directions and tied balloons to them. We put flowers on the table, along with extra flyers and a sheet listing improvements we've made to the house and a plant list for the garden.
I baked chocolate chip cookies for our guests (and to impart that delicious aroma to the house) and put out a pitcher of sparkling water.
Then we sat back and waited for someone to come. And they came! We had a good turnout. People liked the house. We met some really nice people. I don't know if anyone who came today will make us an offer, but they spent time and really looked and seemed interested. I feel encouraged.
Mid-afternoon a realtor called. He had seen our ad and wanted to let us know what a huge mistake it was to try to sell our house ourselves. I explained that we wanted to try it ourselves and might, at some point, engage a realtor to help us and we have one picked out if we need her, thank you very much. He wouldn't give up. "Do you understand what has happened to the real estate market?" he hissed. Well, duh, yes I do. He wanted to come by at 3 tomorrow. No thanks. OK, then 5. No thanks. He could drop by around 7 then. No thanks. Well, then what would it take to get just 15 minutes of our time to find out how we could actually sell our house with an aggressive, professional salesperson, such as himself? He was snarling at this point. This was where I told him that the more he talked the less likely it was that we would ever consider his services. And I hung up.
Other than one very unpleasantly persistent realtor, it was a great day.
This past week we finally turned our attentions to some of the space outside the kitchen. This is how the livingroom looked today.
We're not even done, but to me this is a stunning transformation! It seems the dimensions of the room have changed entirely. I am so happy with the way this is beginning to look I can hardly tell you! What seemed like such a boring fireplace even looks like it has possibilities.For June, who recently painted her office "Sweet Baby Rose" and was bemused by the name of the color, my dramatic wall color is "Spiced Carrot". I think the person that names the Miller Paint colors has a good time.
After my last post I got lots of news of "sightings" from people, that had me dashing around the Portland area—"I saw one at Fred Meyer's"—"They had it at Borders when I was there yesterday" etc. I think these folks were hallucinating. I still haven't found one in a store here—and I have looked! I also got an email from the features editor at Quilting Arts telling me that they were sending copies, but it might have been delayed by their preparations for Quilt Market this week. I was really impressed that she knew about my blog, and took the time to email me. I have to say everyone I was in contact with at QA was so responsive and so helpful regarding the article. And, by the way, doesn't it look great?!
The copies that came today were in a US mail plastic bag with the message, "we're sorry your package was damaged . . . " And the inside envelope was wet. The magazines are wet on the edges. Darn Post Office. I think that's why I didn't get them sooner.
* Navin R. Johnson: The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here!
Harry Hartounian: Boy, I wish I could get that excited about nothing.
Navin R. Johnson: Nothing? Are you kidding? Page 73 - Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.
I can see the cover of the new Quilting Arts magazine on the web site, but I can't seem to lay my hands on a copy of the magazine. There is an article that I wrote in this issue. All the subscribers have their copies and several have emailed me and left comments about my article. Since I don't subscribe I buy the issues I want. I have been to Powell's books nearly every day for the last two weeks and to Fibers in Motion a couple of days ago. Neither of them has the new issue.
I carved a little stamp and stamped and painted some leafy fabrics. Then I sketched. I was looking at our old lilac out front and looking especially at the shapes and angles of the bare branches.
Today I scanned the sketch and cropped it to something that I liked.
I like that better. I took it into Illustrator and started tracing and adding some color to get a feel for what that might be like.
Now the trunk looks spindly and off balance. The background is a little icky too, but it's just a start.
He had painted some similar paintings for Emily and I told him how much I liked them. They are fruits of Ecuador—papayas, mangoes and tree tomatoes. I don't know how many places tree tomatoes grow. They are virtually unknown in the United States. They are not really tomatoes at all, but are the same color and are beautiful oval fruits with smooth, shiny skin. In Ecuador they are the basis for the hot sauce called aji that is so popular. They are also used for juice, which is very delicious and the most beautiful color.
The first time we visited Emily in Ecuador we arrived in Quito late at night and Emily, who was coming to Quito from Cuenca the next morning, arranged for us to be met at the airport and taken to a small family run hotel in Quito. The next morning we found the charming dining room of the hotel and were served glasses of fresh, rosy-hued tree tomato juice. It was literally our first taste of Ecuador and we have loved it ever since. So I especially love the tree tomato painting.
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This is my kitchen cart. It started as the IKEA BEKVÄM cart. I stained it, added a handle and towel bar and used some of my extra Talavera tiles on the top.
Do you remember way back when I was planning this kitchen and asking for opinions about the tile on the backsplash? I had this fully tiled deal in mind and was just trying to figure out how much of the Talavera tile and how much of something else and what configuration. I ordered enough of the Talavera for two rows and planned to order plain tiles to go with it, then things got a little complicated by the placement of all the outlets and the realization that those tiles were going to be interrupted by outlets. I hummed on all this for awhile and grumbled a bit, and put off making a decision. Then after the countertops went in I brought in a few tiles just to see how they were going to look with the counters and suddenly that single little row I set up looked perfectly perfect to me.
I looked at trim pieces to finish the top and even those seemed like too much. Once again the "less is more" principle kicked in. And I have leftover tile. I used some of them to tile the top of a little rolling work station cart.
The kitchen really is finished now and I love it. I was there today sealing the grout and the sun was pouring in the skylight and and garden window. I am glad I made the choices I made. It has warmth and color. So many of the contemporary kitchens I looked at were beautiful, but very, very neutral—grey or brown granite, brown cabinets, wood floors, white or cream walls, stone colored tiles—and I knew I would grow bored with that kind of kitchen. I can hardly wait to start moving my stuff in and using it here. I think this rug that we bought in Mexico last year will look great in front of the sink. (Or maybe not. Take deep breath. Repeat. "Less is more, less is more")
Can you believe this kitchen used to look like this?
How cool to find my friend, June's, picture in the bottom corner of the front page of the Metro section of today's Oregonian. She has been terrorizing her neighborhood again—er, painting her neighborhood again. Actually the picture and caption were just to illustrate the beautiful spring weather we are finally getting here in Portland. I love the picture. It is perfectly June-ish—casting a critical eye on her work.
