Checking in with friends 04-03-20

Today the group I belong to in SDiego had a meeting - online with ZOOM.  It was great fun, how wonderful to see my friends again after missing several meetings.  We visited, did Show & Tell, asked and gave advice - just like a regular meeting.  And we were able to meet our dogs and cats - such nice furry babies.  I hope we can do it again next week.  

I showed the unending yellow strip quilt I have been working on as the mood strikes me. 

Yellow Strip quilt - basically a jelly roll quilt only I cut the yellow strips from my fabric library.  The mostly red separators are from a bag of fabric pieces from a lady who cleaned out her sewing supplies.  They were sewn as prairie points and I just ripped out the stitching and evened them up. This is a sort of autumn in New England color scheme.  It is currently 65" long (why didn't I make it 70"?) and 56" wide.  I'll be figuring out some borders..  

All of the quilts I make have a bird in them somewhere.  In this quilt they are on one of the printed fabrics.  Yellow fabric with birds?  How could I not buy it?

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I didn't realize so much time has passed since I last posted to my blog.  Think this is the longest recess I have done.  Sorry.  I just haven't had anything to write about.  I think I am completely over my bronchitis, but have been slow to get up to speed again.  Guess it is my advancing age, eh?

Today I drove to San Diego for a meeting of the art quilt group I belong to down there.  We have not met since September.  Illnesses, travels, family responsibilities, and, of course, the holidays have all taken up our time.  But today we had a lovely meeting with lots of show & tell (but none from me) and a fabulous Greek lunch served by our hostess.  After the meeting I went over to Visions Art Museum to see the new exhibits that will continue to April 3rd.  What a wonderful display of quilts about people!   One of the best all around exhibits that I have seen there.  Do try to see it sometime in the next few months.  The artists are Jennifer Day, Sherry Davis Kleinman, Lori Lupe Pelish, Susan Polansky, Joan Sowada, and Susan Else.  There is also a small showing by Valerie C. White, but her work, unlike all the others, is not about people.  Of course the Susan Else pieces boggle the mind.  How does she come up with such wonderful ideas and how does she stuff her figures so tightly?  All of the artists do beautiful work and the quilts are interesting to see close up or at a distance.

Then home about 6pm.  KoKo is staying with his favorite doggie sitter and I will pick him up tomorrow.  I wasn't sure what time I would be home today and I knew I would be very tired. 

This is KoKo's friend Sophie who lives in San Diego.  Her mommy was disappointed that I didn't have KoKo with me today,  Next time!

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Another night away 09-18-16

I was in San Diego last night (at an HIE) so I could attend the art quilt group meeting yesterday and the annual members meeting of Visions Art Museum today.  The art quilt group  presented their quilts for our "challenge",  Urban Elements, except for Del who only has the background finished.  I had sent to have a copy on fabric, but that came back the wrong color and the wrong size.  So, I am back to using my original background that I made in Elizabeth Busch's class in  Maine.  I'm thinking of just quilting it, details and all, and presenting it as a whole cloth quilt.  Decisions, decisions.

 

The annual member's meeting was poorly attended, I think.  Maybe we need to have a program to attract the  members.  But it was interesting to hear all that the museum has done in the last year and see what is planned for the coming year.  The biennial Visions juried exhibit opens on Oct 15 and promises to be as interesting as all those that have shown in past years.  The opening will be attended by many of the artists and it is always fun to meet new ones and refresh the friendship of those we have met in the past.  Beth Smith, the Museum Director also showed off some of the new merchandise carried in the gift shop, so keep it in mind when you are doing your holiday shopping.

 

KoKo caught a "case" of fleas and during his stay with Nancy this weekend, she bathed him with flea shampoo and brushed him free of fleas - we hope.  He has not been scratching and biting and seems to be flea free at the moment.  Do possums have fleas?  I just saw a big one in the backyard and wonder if that is where KoKo got them.

 

I plan to sleep tomorrow, as I haven't had much time to recover from the marathon to Maine.  Or maybe I should say FROM Maine.  I'm still working on the statistics and may finish them tomorrow.

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KoKo meets the Sevens 06-12-16

The art quilt group I belong to meets in San Diego, so it is always at least a two hour drive for me.  In June the hostess invites me to stay the night before the meeting with her and another member.  The other member brings her dog Sadie, so this year I took KoKo along.  He and Sadie got along very well and enjoyed the free run of the beautiful garden. 

 

Sadie is eight and has lost the puppy qualities that KoKo, at two, still exhibits. 

At breakfast KoKo took over Deb for a mutual love in.

Pictures by Andrea Bacal.

 

One of the orders for today was trying to find a new name for the group since there are nine of us now, rather then seven.   We got pretty hysterical proposing silly names.  On the more serious side we are each to propose five possible names which will be narrowed down to a list so we can vote on which name sounds best.

 

I drove home this afternoon and delivered KoKo to his mommy, so I am alone again tonight.  

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Friday Feet 03-25-16

My friend bought these plain white shoes on sale and proceeded to decorate them with fabric markers.  Then she sprayed them with alcohol to create the bleeding effect.

She didn't even try to make them a matching pair.

It would be fun to have a decorate your shoes party!

 

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Food Adventure 03-20-16

Today was the meeting of the art quilt group I belong to in San Diego.  After the morning meeting we usually go to lunch and some new and delicious place.  Today we were going to a Thai restaurant, but when we got there it was not open.  However, there were three other restaurants in the strip mall, so we checked them out an chose The Sizzling Pot King.  It had two table open and all the rest were occupied by Asian people.  Gotta be good, eh?  First we had the waitress help us decipher the menu and then order two medium "pots" - one with prawns and one with chicken and black fungi.  As you see in the pictures below the food came already cooked in flat "pots" which were placed on burners on the table.  Other than the meat components the ingredients were pretty much the same in each pot.  Cauliflower, bean sprouts, potatoes, celery, hot peppers (which we set aside) and a sauce - garlic for the chicken and sweet/sour for the prawns.  We also shared an order of noodles which had a peanut sauce.  It was all delicious - I'd certainly go again.

 

This is the sign in the window.

 

The shrimp dry hot pot.

 

The chicken/black fungi dry hot pot.

 

They only supply a plate the size of a bread/butter plate.  I noticed that the other diners were taking the food from the pots with their chopsticks, so I tried that - very satisfactory.

 

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Modern Quilting 03-01-16

I drove down to SDiego this afternoon to have dinner with the art quilt group and attend a guild that had a speaker about modern quilting.  I didn't get much out of it, she was not a good speaker and her visuals were poor.  What I learned is that there are no rules (except for 1/4"seams).  Some quilts are based on traditional patterns, some on spontaneous piecing, some are planned out by the maker, some come from actual patterns in books.  I don't think there are many common characteristics.  Maybe lots of open background, no boarders, solid color fabrics; but those don't always apply.  One of the group brought half a dozen books about modern quilting and shared them with the art quilt  group.  I found the pictures covered a wide spectrum of design, most had nothing in common except perhaps a lot of background.  It gives space for dense quilting which seems to be another characteristic of what is referred to as "Modern Quilting". 

I drove home after the meeting and arrived in my garage at 10:34pm - exactly an hour and a half after leaving the meeting place.  Little traffic, construction only lowered the lanes to two, and I was able to "fly" home.  Time for bed. 

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In San Diego tonight. 08-29-15

It has been one of those weeks when anything that could go wrong, went wrong!

Yesterday the garage replaced my power steering "pump" - I think that is what he said - and finished at 4:45pm.  Too late for the driver to pick me up  and get me back to the facility by five.  So the sweet lady who" womans" the office said she would come after five when she got off work and take me back to pick up my car.   I owe her big time, but don't know how to repay her  generosity.  Thanks to her I am driving my own car instead of a rental. 

This morning I threw some shirts in the washer (a front loader) in plenty of time to have them washed and dried to bring with me on this trip.   When I went to get them out of the washer I saw that the light was off, indicating the cycles were all finished,  I just opened the door as I thought it wouldn't open if there were water inside.  I didn't look through the window to see if they were done.  Out came a tank full of water and the clothes.  The water flooded through the garage and out the door, down the driveway.  Everything was wet, including both pair of shoes - the ones I was wearing and those I was going to wear to SDiego.    What to do?  By now it was almost noon and I had no time to hunt up a laundromat.  So I called my friend Carol, who had gone off to a baby shower, but Dick was home and I asked him if I could use his laundry facilities, explaining my problem.    When I got to their house, just a few blocks away, I asked him if he knew how to do laundry and he said yes.  I asked him if he would run the clothes on the spin cycle and then dry them in the dryer and I would come back to pick them up.   I went home and finished packing and getting KoKo's things packed up.  Everything in the car, including KoKo, I went back to Dick's "Laundry Service" and he had them all ready on the hangers and he had IRONED them!  I never iron them, just pull them hot from the dryer and put them on hangers.   Is he some great guy, or what?  Another generous person to whom I owe my gratitude.   I delivered KoKo to Nancy's son in Tustin (Nancy is flying in tonight) and hit the road.  It took three hours to get to my motel, but I wasn't stressed because I knew it would be very crowded and slow going.  My average speed for the 100 miles was 35 mph.

I'm settled in and ready for the ladies in my art quilt group at 10am.  It will be a great meeting with the 61 samples in the SAQA traveling trunk to look at and whatever show & tell the members bring.  Then out to lunch at a nearby Greek restaurant and then I have the rest of the day and evening to relax.  I'll probably go look at the Visions Art Museum exhibits again.  I do enjoy seeing quilts from TCQC on display there.  Then Monday morning I will drive home and have one day of rest before I will need to gear up again.  Where did the summer go? 

When the traffic was stopped we could see 10 or so sailboats off the coast at Oceanside - they are out there somewhere on the blue Pacific. 

Further south the highway passes sand flats that to out to the ocean with long bridges for Pacific Coast Highway.  When there are high tides the water can come up in here, but I have never seen it.

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Food - again 03-02-15

An art quilt group I belong to had a meeting on Saturday which included a delicious lunch.  The hostess made her mother's special lentil soup, someone brought "ancient grains bread", someone else made a great salad, and I'm not sure who brought an amazing hors d'oeuvre   We had Chef Don's choice for dessert.

 

"Mom" doesn't mash her lentils when they are cooked, nor do I. 

This yellow cake with chocolate chips was gorgeous naked.   Chef Don removed it from the pan whole, no little missing pieces dared stay in the pan.

And then it was dressed with sliced strawberries in a balsamic/black pepper reduction.

Almost too gorgeous to cut into.  But we did! 

 

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Where have I been? 01-12-14

My world has been an electronic disaster!  At least my car is functioning - last time I checked!  I was in San Diego for the weekend and did not take my laptop with me because it is ailing again and not be be depended on.  Whilst I was having a good time doing tours of the exhibit and dining "high on the hog", my cell phone died.  Completely.  Wouldn't take a charge on either house or car chargers.  The real disaster part was that I did not have access to phone numbers or addresses or the Internet.  The only phone numbers I have in my purse are the emergency numbers that go with my drivers license.  I had directions printed from Google to find the location where my group was meeting, so I decided to just go there and apologize to the friend I was supposed to take with me.  She did drive herself (along with the delicious lemon cake she was bringing for coffee break) and, I hope, has forgiven me for standing her up.  The moral to this story is that one should carry a variety of numbers in one's purse or vehicle.  Despite being a complete wreck (what happened to the Del who is Calm in Chaos?) I enjoyed the meeting and am excited about being a member of such a productive and knowledgeable group of art quilters. 

When I returned from SDiego yesterday I unloaded my car and went directly to Verizon where I spent about two hours buying a new phone and having everything transferred from old to new.  And, since I was just sitting there, I also bought an iPad Mini.  Of course, at this point all I can do is turn it off and on!  So, I am on a double learning curve with lots of bumpy spots and detours, but, like Terry Grant, I believe that old dogs and old ladies can learn new tricks.  However, my memory has a hard time with the new stuff, so it might take a long time before I can depend on my phone and my iPad.

Meanwhile, I will miss some postings and have trouble posting images.  But I'll work it out and keep in touch.  Thanks to those of you who were concerned that I had not posted for so many days.  I'll try to not leave you all dangling.  If I can post pictures we might have a week of Wordless Days!