Friday Food on Saturday! 08-11-18

I don't know why I missed posting last night.  I didn't go to bed early.  I was still sorting yesterday and again today and managed to clean out six boxes.  So, I'm making progress.  I repeat - "get busy and organized your stuff, lest you get hit by a bus."  Of course, it will take me months to wade through my mess.  So I shouldn't be admonishing anyone else!

Crusted sturgeon w/risotto, asparagus and coleslaw at Hops - Kalispell, MT  06-06-12

The first and only time I have eaten sturgeon, it was fantastic, but it isn't something I usually see on menus.  This small restaurant in Kalispell was a real find and I ate there several times during the week I was there.  When I returned in a later year the place was still called Hops, but it was an entirely different menu.

 Salmon in caper sauce - Lunch at Solare - SDiego  02-01-13 

In looking through my photo files I find that I mostly have pictures of sushi, sashimi, or cooked fish.  I usually do eat fish when I am out because I don't do a good job of cooking it myself.  When a friend and I were on a road trip she finally asked me if I was going to eat salmon every day.  My answer, "If I can!".  And I did.  

Remembering 08-09-18

Today was my mother's birthday.  She was born on August 9, 1906, but she only lived to 65 when she died of an aortic aneurysm in February 1972.  I think she had a sad life and I believe she suffered from depression, as I do.  Her father was a tyrant and took her out of school when she was just a sophomore and got her a job as housemaid to Dr. and Mrs. Babbitt in a big house in NE Portland. They paid him for her service.  She never did go back to school, but worked at a number of different jobs.  She met my father when she was working for a huge laundry and one of her fellow employees was Ella Spencer, whose son, Ellery, came to pick her up after work.   His family didn't approve of her, mainly, I think, because she was not educated.  She was "common" besides.  Not that the Spencers were gentry.  So, they made it difficult for her.  Then my father died in 1942 of kidney disease and she was left with two babies and a house that was only about three quarters built.  My father was a millwright and he was building the house after work and on weekends.  As many people did then, they lived in the basement while he continued building the two stories above.  

She had to work and it was difficult finding child care for her two little girls.  We lived various places for short periods of time and for about six months in a Catholic boarding school for children whose parents couldn't take care of them.  That was an adventure as we were not Catholic.  I don't know how we happened to be accepted.   However, we kept getting sick and the school couldn't keep us.  About this time our grandparents house burned down and the decision was made to move to Los Angeles where their daughter, her husband, and their baby girl lived.  Vernice was the only daughter and Gordan, the other son, was off to war in the Pacific.  They convinced our mother to let us live with our grandparents in LA and we drove down the coast in an old jalopy with grandmother, aunt, baby, and the two "orphans".  Grandpa traveled down on the train with Buddy the dog in a crate.  

When World War II was over in Europe in April 1945 mother married one of her co-workers at the Railway Express Agency, where she was a package handler.  Soon she and her new husband came down on the train to retrieve her two girls.  It was not a happy marriage, he was a drunk, and a mean one at that.  We regarded him as our mother's husband, but not as our father.  Very sad all around.  

My sister married and had four sons and a daughter who lived nearby, so mother was able to enjoy her grandchildren.  I moved to SCalifornia as soon as I turned eighteen and could legally do so and eventually lived with my grandmother again for a couple years before going out on my own again.  I visited Portland every year or so.  I could drive the 24 hour, 1000 mile trip easily when I was in my twenties.  And mother came down on the train a couple times to visit.  But the years passed quickly and she died in February 1972.  I was divorced and had yet to meet my 2nd husband, who I think she would have enjoyed.  

Hers was a sad life and she was so talented.  For many years she made costumes for the Portland Rose Festival parade.  And repaired and dressed dolls for the "Toy and Joy Makers" which was operated by the fire department.  That was an era when toys were not discarded, but repaired, repainted, and redressed for some other child to enjoy.  She was the personification of the saying, "make a silk purse from a sow's ear".  And I do believe she could have.   

Colleen Dingley with brother Arnold  c.1912

Colleen Dingley  c1926

This is a studio portrait taken at her work, a photo studio where she did the hand tinting of photographs since this was before color film was used.   She tinted this one.  

Colleen Dingley Spencer  c1941

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Wordless Wednesday 08-08-18

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Delivered a pile of items for sale.

I drove to San Diego today to deliver a car load of items for the Visions Veranda Sale which will take place on Saturday (only).  I stopped to drop KoKo off with Nancy Ota and to pick up fabrics she had gathered from an estate of someone she knows.  Good thing KoKo stayed there, because the car was packed to the gills!  I wish I had been able to get through all of Toni's things, but will continue to sort and donate to other fund raising events.  The traffic was bad, but not horrible, and the ocean was covered with fog most of the way.   And, of course, it was hot in San Diego, but not 99F as it was in Placentia.   I had sushi for lunch at Ikiru in Liberty Stations, shared with friend Beth Smith.  We had a nice visit, short but satisfying.  And then the trek home, stopping to pick up KoKo from Nancy and Bud, then off the I-5 to pick up a poke bowl from my favorite poke place, H2O on Jamboree, and finally to fill the gas tank.  Home again to feed KoKo his dinner at 5pm and then we both took a nap.  We were completely out, with both ceiling fan and A/C running.  What a long hard day.  Fortunately there was a nice guy with a dolly at the museum to haul the bags and boxes from the car.   Once home I pulled three more boxes into the house, but am too tired to work on them tonight.  Tomorrow.   I will need to find a larger basket for the thread raffle basket I am putting together for the Surfside QGuild November Fest.  This basket is almost full and I have a lot more boxes to sort through.   It is a pretty ratty basket, anyway! 

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Monday Browsing 08-06-18

How can it be Monday again, so soon!   I have not been online  browsing this week because I have been sorting and suffering from the heat.  I vowed I wouldn't bitch about the heat, but it really, really gets to me.  Edison has been cycling my A/C and I may have to resign from that program since the heat has actually been making me sick.  KoKo did not have a walk tonight because it was almost 11pm when the temp dropped below 80F.  80 is my cutoff, I can't do the walks when it is hotter than that.  

More trivia for you tonight.  These all have to do with money. 

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Very small quilts from TCQC 08-05-18

 Tonight I am posting some very small quilts from several different makers.  There came a time after I had been collecting contemporary quilts for a while that I had to decide how small could a quilt be.  Did I want to hold to 12X12?  Or would fiber postcards be okay?  And what about those artists who only made small quilts?  When I first started the Thomas Contemporary Quilt Collection in 1987 most quilt artist were making fairly large quilts, but as the years went by it seems that they get smaller and smaller.  Which works for me because I have less and less storage space.  I do have a box full of fiber postcards and I have made quite a few myself.   The standard size is 6"x4", but very small quilts (less than 12X12) come in many sizes.  I'll show you a few this week and maybe continue next Sunday also.   

"Just Because"  June Underwood  2005  5"WX4"L

Whole cloth.  Cotton fabric, machine quilting.

Simply but sweet, I keep this one hanging in my bathroom.  There are several of her quilts in TCQC, all larger than this tiny one.  

June's distinctive signature  "jou" is rather joy like.  

And what a pretty back - with a dedication.  Nice.

"Cherished Friends Flourish"  Tracy Chapman  2007  4"W x 6"L  

Cotton fabric  and glass beads.  Hand quilted and beaded. 

The beads are threaded on while quilting.  Notice the picot bead edging. 

The back shows her tiny stitches.   We have sort of lost touch in the last eleven years, but I still consider Tracy a dear friend and I cherish this symbol of that friendship. 

 "Happy Birthday"  Judy House  2003  8"Wx6"L

Machine appliqued and quilted.  Cotton batiks and glass beads. 

Judy and I became friends at Empty Spools Seminars at Asilomar.  She was very talented and made some great quilts.  She succumbed to cancer in 2005, all of her friends, and there are many, still miss her a lot.  

The beads are hand sewn. 

She sang Happy Birthday on the back.

Vest Pocket Tour II   Joan Schulze  2001  7.5"Wx7.5"L

Cotton and silk fabrics.  Printing on fabric.  Machine pieced and quilted. 

Here is Joan's machine stitched signature on the front lower right. 

On the back of the quilt you see her signature in reverse and this long skinny label. 

This is one of several quilts in the Collection that have Velcro for hanging.  I never use Velcro hangers and I would take this off, but I have a hard time seeing black on black, so I left it on. 

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