Here are more of Cristobal's paintings. That's my daughter, Emily, in the red shirt.

Here is Emily talking with Allan Oliver about the show. If you are in the Portland vicinity, I urge you to see the show. My photos don't do the paintings justice. It will be at Onda through October 24. Onda is located at 2215 NE Alberta St.

This is what I did with the paisley fabric

I tried out all kinds of backgrounds for this crazy hat lady. Nothing worked until I tried the paisley. Yes, it's a little, um, busy. But I just went crazy with the prints and I do love the richness of all that pattern. I think pattern is where my head is these days.

Where did she come from? I thought I was embarked on a series of architectural images, but after I finished the domes I just kept seeing this crazy hat in my mind. (it actually looks a little like a paisley shape in itself, doesn't it? Do you call just one a "paisl"?) Now I am envisioning different kinds of hats. Maybe "hats" is my new thing. Ironic, because I look stupid in hats. My head is way too big. Maybe this is my way of dealing with hats.

Who says my art doesn't express deep emotions?

Paisley

I love, love, love paisley prints. Always have. I can't even count how many paisley dresses and shirts I have owned over the years. Last week I found these great paisley paper napkins.

Did you know that the teardrop design that came to be known as paisley originated in India more than 2000 years ago? It got the name "paisley" in the early 1800's when Scottish soldiers serving in India brought back shawls in that design. The design was copied by weavers in the Scottish town of Paisley and they made the shawls quite popular.

Last week I showed you this pillow I made from a placemat. I think this paisley is quite fresh and modern looking.
I have to say I am especially fond of red paisley. These cushions are on my diningroom chairs.
About 14 years ago I bought a couple yards of this Liberty paisley print. It has been in my stash all these years waiting for just the right project. Today I cut into it for the first time. It is exactly the right thing for something I am working on. One of these days (soon) I will show you.

John Lennon owned a Rolls Royce that was painted with a paisley motif.

Allied Arts in Richland

Another impressive thing we saw in Richland last weekend was Allied Arts, which is a community arts organization and gallery in Richland. They have a nice building near the beautiful park that runs along the Columbia River. I loved the mosaiced pot with the brushes that stands out in front. The steps up to the door have similar mosaic work on them.

Inside there is a sales area with a lot of wonderful craft and art work for sale, and a separate gallery room that had an exhibit of Hispanic art. They also sponsor classes and an outdoor art festival in the summer.

I think this is such a great thing to have in a community. Wouldn't it be wonderful if every community had a place for artists to display their work and for classes and events? Richland is not a big city.

I took this picture of some of the work that was for sale, then I saw the sign that asked that no pictures be taken. Oops. I loved that mug with the face on it, though, and just had to share it.

Tri-cities, wine and more

It was a great weekend for a road trip. The weather was glorious and the Columbia Gorge, always breathtaking, was beginning to show some fall color. It's about a three and a half hour drive to the tri-cities of Richland, Pasco and Kennewick, Washington where we were meeting 3 of Ray's fraternity brothers and their wives for a long overdue reunion.

Friday night consisted of a lot of catching up around a bottle of good bourbon. The "Idaho" boys have a lot of yarns to spin when they get together.

The next day we headed out into the countryside to taste wine. It was the weekend of the "crush" with lots of local wineries participating. Wine-making is a fairly recent innovation in the tri-cities area, but there are dozens of wineries around. We tasted some good and some pretty ordinary wines and saw very fancy wineries built to look like French Chateaus and Italian monasteries as well as wineries that were more along the lines of metal farm buildings. It was a fun day, the sky was incredibly blue and a good day to take pictures.

At one of the wineries they had an exibit by the artist who designed the wine label. It turned out she was a fiber artist. She shall remain nameless because I thought her work was, ummmm, shall we say "disappointing".

All in all, it was a lovely day.

Landmark—Domes

I decided I wanted to finish the edges of the Domes quilt with piping. I took the piece, along with a sample of the piping I made, to my small group last week to get their opinion. They liked the piping, but someone said, "how about the corners?" I assured them that I thought it would turn the corners just fine. I sewed the piping on and, guess what? It really didn't turn those corners fine. It really rounded them off and I didn't like that so much.

Boy, I hate taking things apart, especially when I am in the home stretch and so close to being finished. I let it hang on the the wall for a couple of days and tried to talk myself into liking those rounded off corners. No go.

So I picked the old piping off, I went to the fabric store and bought some narrower cord and came back and made narrow piping. Much better. Now it is finished, though I may come up with some interesting hanging rod for it.

Yeah, yeah—there's a lesson here. It goes something like, "if you don't fix the thing that just isn't quite right, you are never going to like the piece." Or maybe it's "when someone asks about the corners, they might be onto something."

Monday footnote

I frittered away most of the day right here at the computer. My seat here affords me a view out the back door and this is what I saw earlier. This little guy found the stacked blocks Ray is using to redo part of the patio just the right vantage point from which to check things out.

Fallen leaves on the patio. Fall is here.

Monday, Monday

It has been a lazy morning. I am recovering from some kind of brief flu-ish sort of thing. Feeling much better this morning, but lacking energy and ambition. Ibuprofen and comfy clothes are the order of the day.

I've been thinking about how you quit seeing things that are right in front of you when you look at them long enough. I have had these little pillows for years. I made the two bargello ones probably 25 years ago in a fit of needlepointing. I made the other from a Ginny Beyer fabric that I liked at least 15 years ago. They are all small and relatively hard and the needlepoint is getting quite threadbare and you can see the canvas through it at this point. The photo is flattering. They are actually rattier in person.

My sweet sister-in-law, Brenda, may have noticed the tired condition of my pillows because she brought me this beautiful pillow when they came to visit this summer. It was designed by a designer named Janie Gross who has a line of pillows based on dried flowers. It looks so good (see how cleverly it relates to the lamp?) that I decided the old, tired pillows had to go.



Here is another new pillow, with a larger, squishier size and a brighter look. I made this one from a placemat that I bought at CostPlus. I just love the paisley pattern. I opened the seam on one end and stuffed fiberfil between the front and the back, then sewed it closed again.

I know, changing pillows in the living room is not a big deal, but it reminds me that change is good for the creative spirit. That little shock of seeing things for what they have become and not what you remember them to be reminds me to actually see what I'm looking at.

This has got to be a little disappointing

One of the neat things about the site meter that is at the bottom of this page, is that it will tell you, among other things, on what site visitors to my blog, found the link to my blog. If a search engine, like Google, brought them to me, I can see what they were searching for that brought up the link to me.

The most common search that brings up my blog is for "Reiko Yamaguchi". You may remember that a neighbor gave me a book by Japanese Quiltmaker Reiko Yamaguchi.

Well, it turns out there is also a Japanese porn star by the same name and there are many, many links to sites featuring that Reiko Yamaguchi. I imagine my site about quilting is not exactly what most of the folks Googling Reiko are looking for.

Probably the second most common search, and this is just plain peculiar BTW, is for "clog wearer". Last spring I showed pictures taken at the Garden Show where we sold garden art. Included was this photo of footwear seen at the garden show.

The red clogs in the lower right corner are mine and those are my feet. This entry got me listed as a "clog wearer" on a site that is all about, well, clogs. See my name at the very bottom of the list? Who knew?

P.S. OK, this is pretty funny. (Or sad) Three hours after posting the above, I just checked the site meter page again. Someone just found my blog by Googling "Japanese Porn." Google sure works fast doesn't it? I'm amazed.

This little light of mine . . .

And sew it goes, and goes and goes . . .

Today marks one year of writing this blog. This is entry # 182. I have managed to average an entry almost exactly every other day. So, I would have to say it has become a big part of my routine.

At a recent family gathering the subject of my blog came up. I don't know how many of my relatives and in-laws actually read it regularly, but it seems they had all, at least, seen it. One of the group commented that it must take a lot of time. Then he wondered how hard it was to think of subjects to write about. Then his true feelings emerged.

"It seems like a person would have to have a pretty high opinion of herself to write about herself on the internet every day."

This was said with a smile and a chuckle to signal, I'm sure, that he was just yanking my chain, but my history with this family has taught me that having a "high opinion" of oneself is not a compliment, and I felt a little put down—and a little defensive.

Is blogging just self-indulgence? Before I started this blog I thought so. And it probably is. And, is there anything wrong with self-indulgence? Well, nobody's forcing you to read. But I have been thinking about why I continue to do this and I have some ideas about that.

• I enjoy writing. I never could keep up a journal or diary. Too solitary, too introspective. Writing here feels like a conversation. I like that.
  
• Pictures. I love seeing your pictures and I can share mine. That's why I'm really here. Visual stimulation is sustenance. It's the greatest thing about the internet in my humble opinion.
  
• I take time out of my day to think about where I have been, what I have seen, what might be worth sharing. I can't overemphasize the importance that has taken on in my everyday life. I feel more aware, more present when I take the time to do that.
  
• Community. A new kind of community. The blogs I read and the people who read and comment on mine form a loose community that is unique. It doesn't take the place of face to face friends, but sometimes the communities overlap. When Gerrie Congdon moved to Portland earlier this year we already "knew" each other from our blogs and mutual interests. And because of that, I now have a valued friend that I might never have known. The world has become smaller.

So, "Happy Blogiversary to me!" I plan to stick around for awhile. And to my critical relative—you've always known I had a "high opinion" of myself, even before I had a blog. Get over it.

First Day of School

I have been watching the kids go off to school this week and hearing my daughter, the teacher's, stories of the first days of school. This time of year always makes me nostalgic.

Years ago when I went"back to school" one of our assignments in my design class, was to create a postcard-sized image using the theme of "nostalgia." That's my interpretation above.

Another Landmark

Continuing on with my architectural theme, I had an idea of domes. It may have had something to do with the research I have been doing on Paul Klee. I am leading a discussion of Klee on the raggedclothcafe list this month. Klee had a turning point in his art and his use of color when he visited Tunisia in 1914. That is one of his Tunisian paintings at the upper left of this page.

My domes were really not a direct result of the Klee paintings, but they were probably there in the back of my mind when I started sketching. Here's the main part of the piece all fused down. It looks pretty flat. I think the reason so many fabric artists dye their own fabrics is that commercial fabrics do look flat. I like pattern however, so I stick with commercial prints and occasionally create some of my own prints. I like the way the yellow stripes chevron in the bigger dome, but eh, that color really looks dead. So that is when I get out fabric paints and pastels and punch up the color and add dimension.

That cheddar color is on the wall behind the buildings because my plan is to cut a half circle from it to go behind the buildings.

Now I needed to try out some background fabrics. I bought these two beautiful hand-dyes from my sister-in-law's business and thought they might work. Sorry—those colors are too dead for the rest of the piece. But they will be great for something else.

I found two good possibilities in my stash. The stripe is really old, but I have always loved it and knew someday it would be the perfect piece for something. The purple, dotty fabric is newer. I love them!

Art in the Pearl

For the past 10 years there has been an art festival called "Art in the Pearl" over the Labor Day Weekend in Portland's Pearl District. We usually try to go and have even bought art there at least once. It is held in the Portland North Park Blocks, which is a beautiful, tree filled series of grassy blocks, lined with nice old buildings.

This funky elephant sculpture is near the children's playground area as you enter the blocks. When we first came to Portland, the North Park blocks were full of homeless people, sleeping on park benches and under the trees. As the Pearl District has become more gentrified you see fewer of them occupying the area. On Saturday amid the carnival atmosphere of the art festival, you could still see a few of the transient residents lurking about. This woman seemed to find it no problem to sleep despite the crowds and the bands performing nearby. There was something quite sad about people streaming past her as if she wasn't even there.

Perhaps I am jaded. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood, but I found the art mostly uninspiring. So many booths of oh-so-whimsical prints of cats jumping over moons and coyotes howling. Several booths selling wee purses, made from upholstery tapestries with vintage button closures—novel several years ago. And all those scratchy-looking handwoven shawls in earthy colors and too many wispy scarves. Too many salmon and too many booths featuring one idea rendered endlessly in large, small, horizontal, vertical variations.

There were, of course, some art pieces that I liked a lot. I took pictures of a few things that caught my eye.



The crowds were brutal and, as is more and more the case, a number of people brought their dogs. (Because dogs enjoy art so much—?) I saw one poor dog snap at a man who brushed by him. The dog's mortified owner apologized profusely and kept repeating, "he's never done that before." Can't imagine the dogs were enjoying the crowds any more than I was. There are some places dogs don't belong. (Don't get me started about the folks who bring their dogs to Home Depot . . .)

That's Ray wandering among some wonderful kinetic sculptures. The parts turn slowly in the breeze. Across the street is the US Customs House, one of the grand old government buildings up toward the end of the Park Blocks.

We didn't buy any art, but we walked downtown from there, got a cold coffee beverage and managed to find a few things at Meier and Frank's (soon to become Macy's) Labor Day Sale—another Labor Day tradition!

Hmmmmm—maybe

Both Carla and Dianna said my "Landmark" resembles the Sydney Opera House. I can see the resemblance in the gothic arch shape and also the horizontal rectangles. Interesting. I didn't have the Opera House or any other actual landmark in my mind at all. Maybe it was there subliminally.

Landmark completed

Well, I ended up going with neither option. I decided the two ideas I showed yesterday both had too much going on and went with a much simpler composition.

Now I am not so happy with the colors I chose. I wish I had used something warmer. I will be playing with this idea some more. Perhaps this is only one of a series of "landmarks".

The actual piece, by the way, does not include the black background, but my plan is to mount this on a stretcher covered with black fabric.

Landmark

OK, so this is the idea that I have been pondering. Some sort of architectural thingie. Some sense of structure, but in the abstract. This is small. It measures about 5.5" x6" and I think it is supposed to be part of a larger, though not too large, piece.



I scanned it and opened it in Photoshop to fool around with. Here it is on a larger background. I think it is overwhelmed by the background.


Here's another version. Smaller background—same basic shapes as the other one. Darker colors. I think I like this better. I'm still thinking.

Bugz

I made a couple more postcards for Fiber Art for a Cause. You may recognize the beetle motif. I made some larger beetle pieces several months ago and thought they would work for the small format postcard size as well.

I now have seven altogether to send. It would have been nice to send more, but I am quite happy with these and if all sell at $30 each that will be more than $200 for the American Cancer Society.

I am itching to start work on some new ideas. The postcards got me back to the workroom. Now, as soon as I hit "publish" on this entry, I am heading back to start pulling fabrics to see if I can get this thought out of my head and onto fabric.

Sunshine and Shadow

Years ago (about 20), at the beginning of my quilting career, I became enamored of Amish quilts—specifically those made in Lancaster county, PA during the first half of the 20th century. After seeing the Esprit collection at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco, and then a trip to Lancaster County, I made my own version of the "Sunshine and Shadow" design, a particular favorite of mine.

In the book, Plain and Simple, author Sue Bender says, "The Amish love the Sunshine and Shadow quilt pattern. It shows two sides—the dark and light, spirit and form—and the challenge of bringing the two into a larger unity. It's not a choice between extremes: conformity or freedom, discipline or imagination, acceptance or doubt, humility or a raging ego. It's a balancing act that includes opposites." For me it has come to represent the balance of human existance—the good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow, and how they are both a part of the whole. It's not a great quilt and the colors are really not what the Amish would have used—too match-y, too tasteful—but the quilt is a symbol and reminder of those ideas.

I have realized that in writing this blog I tend to focus on sunshine and ignore the shadow. When I showed you a beautiful day at the beach I failed to mention the stench of rotting seaweed that finally drove us from the beach. In describing the fun our group had in Seattle at the Quilt Show, I purposely avoided mentioning that between viewing of quilts and exploring Seattle, I was on the phone with my distraught sister and worrying about my nephew's fractured skull and brain injury. And when I wrote about our wonderful party last weekend I skipped the part about my aunt being taken to the hospital in an ambulance and our day, following the party, with her at the hospital which concluded with a pacemaker being implanted in her chest. And today I am a little preoccupied with the news of a lovely friend's metastacized cancer. My life is good, but not perfect. My life is pretty much like yours. No matter how warm and cheering the sunshine is, the shadows are lurking.

I'll continue to focus on sunshine—you have shadows of your own and don't need mine. But, in case you are wondering, my nephew is making good, if slow, progress; my aunt just called to say she is feeling fine and happy and lucky to have her pacemaker. My friend's cancer—well, that is something we just don't know about yet.

Fimo fun

Today I showed my nieces, Steffi and Jamie, how to make Fimo beads by first making canes with a design that can be sliced and applied over and over.

Steffi was working with a purple and red palette, Jamie was using teal and green. I was using purples.
















Steffie shows off her first completed bead.

I was happy to see that the girls experimented and tried out their own ideas, rather than just copying what I was doing.


Here are our completed beads and some tins to put them in that we covered with Fimo. Remember when I bought these nice little tins at S.C.R.A.P. back in April? I knew I'd find a use for them.

Leftovers

We had a party last Saturday. Our friends and family came to welcome my daughter and son-in-law to Portland and to celebrate their marriage, which took place a year ago in Ecuador. Emily's college friends and work colleagues came and brought their beautiful children. Our brothers and sisters and their families came. Dear friends and relatives came. North Americans, South Americans. The sun shone and a nice breeze kept it from being too hot.

Today we are enjoying the leftovers.

• Lots of yummy leftover food—if you ever need a caterer in Portland, Oregon, I can give you the name of a good one.
  
• Leftover kids—Our two nieces are spending a few days with us while their parents enjoy some time on the Oregon coast. We had fun shopping at Claire's Boutique, Bath and Body Works and the Junky Art Supply Store today. Tomorrow we're making Fimo beads. (I'm always hoping to be remembered as the cool aunt.)
  
• Leftover balloons—They're floating around the patio. Every once in awhile one bursts with a nerve-shattering BANG!
  
• Leftover favors—Emily and Cayo brought wonderful little figures of Ecuadorean Indigenous people and we almost forgot to give them to the guests. We missed a few of those who left first. (Sorry, Carla—I'll send you one)
  
• Leftover memories of a beautiful day and wonderful people.

Sometimes the leftovers are almost as good as the party.

APNQ wrap-up

Here is my quilt "The Weaver" hanging in the show. It is always interesting to see your own work hanging. It looks different than it did at home. For me, it always looks smaller and a little dull. I tend to use a subdued color palette, so when my work is surrounded by work in really bright, bright colors it washes out.

There is always a lot of discussion on the QuiltArt list about whether Art Quilts really belong in traditional quilt shows and the difference between how work looks on pipe and drape compared to gallery type shows on white walls. You can see we are looking at pipe and drape here. Dark canyons of pipe and black drape.

It seems to me that while APNQ accepts a lot of "art" quilts, they tend to be judged by the same criteria as the traditional quilts and the art quilts that win awards are those that are easily understood, have elements of traditional quilts and exhibit fussy workmanship.

I got my quilts back today. The judge's comments on The Weaver included:

"The applique appears to be very precise and machine satin stitch is quite consistent."

"Strong visual impact and an air of mystery portrayed in subject. Strive for more consistency in the length of your quilting stitches."

"Excellent use of thread painting on painted fabric. Knife-edge finish is well done."

Fair enough, and flattering in some instances, but it was clear they were more concerned with technique than design and content and meaning. Oh well. It is what it is and I understand now why my favorites weren't usually the judges' favorites. I don't notice the length of quilting stitches and don't particularly value consistency in the satin stitch.

Two years ago we were all quite disappointed in the jurying of the show. There were two large machine embroidery sampler quilts that were literally identical, not very interesting and, it turns out, were made in a class. There were at least three quilts made from this commercial pattern. There were a group of nearly identical quilts all made in another class. For such a large pool of quilts to choose from we expected more originality. This year's show was much better in that regard, though we did encounter a few quilts that were both poorly constructed and dull, dull, dull. You have to wonder what the jurors are seeing sometimes. Still, there was a lot to enjoy, as I have shown in the previous posts.

In two years the show will move to the Seattle Convention Center, a much larger venue. Will we go back? Absolutely. It's a getaway weekend that we look forward to for two years. The Quilt Show is just an excuse.