Monday in Sisters

 First day, first class, which was Carve Original Stamps/Print Original Fabric.  An enthusiastic group of artists (most of whom claimed never to have done this before) had so much fun carving that they didn't want to stop and print.    Nevertheless, the made the sacrifice and printed a remarkable amount of fabric for the first day.  Just a few examples...

Tonight Jean Wells Keenan and her adorable husband John hosted all of the teachers at their home for a fabulous dinner. This picture doesn't begin to do justice to the lavish spread -- 

nor can this picture begin to convey the slice of heaven we looked out on as we ate.

It was good to meet colleagues I had not met before and of course, to see old buddies!

Lynn Koolish (my editor at C&T) was here to teach dyeing, and Laura Wasilowski is teaching several different classes in her inimitable style.  Notice how color-coordinated Lynn is:-)).

And you can tell from this photo what a terrible time Rosalie Dace and I are having this week. 

We're looking forward to another day in our classrooms and more unwinding time tomorrow evening.

It sure felt good to sit down and put our feet up after having been on them all day.

Sunday in Sisters

Sitting outside and relaxing for a while this morning -- and not too far from the patio -- 

at first I thought I was seeing things,but soon realized this was no hallucination.  I took a closer look.

Mostly, they were chomping away, but I think this guy was expecting me to feed him. Fat chance.

Mid afternoon...

Back on the patio, relaxing after a lovely lunch and some errands.  Rosalie Dace and I were picked up and chauffered by a delightful employee of The Stitchin' Post, Jill, who took us over to the Clearwater Gallery, where Jean has an exhibit up.  The gallery is also a wine bar/restaurant, which is a great idea.  We sat outside and had paninis and a highly original soup: kale, sausage, and sweet potato chowder.  I really enjoyed it!  (at it all  before I could take a picture - LOL).  

Jean and Valori were greeting people, and behind them was an exhibit of student work from Jean's classes.

On our way out after lunch, Rosalie pointed out this interesting tree, which she referred to as a "weeping something or other."  Exactly.  A name that can come in very handy from time to time.

We headed over to the Stitchin' Post - a shop to die for.  It was pretty busy, so Rosalie picked up some supplies and we left without really having the luxury of browsing.  But I had to take some photos; even the samples on the walls are gorgeous.  And I think they sell every quilt book in print that is worth having.

A feast for the eyes, no matter what kind of quilter you are.  I hope to get back here some day with an empty suitcase.

Tonight, dinner and a chance to get to bed early so we can be bright-eyed for tomorrow's first day of teaching.

more from Sisters

Was able to sit out on the patio for an hour or so after checking into the hotel and it was lovely. Hot but not humid,and with a splendid view.

Tonight after dinner, Jean Wells Keenan, Rosalie Dace, and I went to a SAQA exhibit at the museum in Redmond.  What a beautiful , natural setting for a museum.  This was just outside the entrance.

The SAQA chapter here is very active and this was a juried exhibit.  Two of my friends had pieces in the show that I was partial to, so I had to photograph them (the pieces, not the friends). This piece is Gerrie Congdon's.

And this piece is by Terry Grant.

Glad to see work by my buddies; sorry there was not enough time between flights to catch up. But I will be teaching at Columbia Fiberarts next year, so I will have to wait to see them.

Tomorrow, the Quilt Walk in Sisters during the afternoon.  Can't wait!  Till then, i'm toast.

on the road

With some time between flights from Portland to Redmond I've ensconced myself at a place to eat and drink  while I wait.  I have no memory of this airport, although I was here in 2008 when Spring Market was here and my first book debuted.  It's lovely, but you have to go through security again if you want to get to the shopping and plethora of restaurants.  Not doing that, but it's fine.  Although we landed at 9:30a.m. Portland time, I am on east coast time and my appetite thinks it's three hours later.

Comfort food: an interesting plate of tzaziki, feta, and hummus (all excellent) and something that purports to be tabouli but actually looks and tastes like quinoa. I am well acquainted with authentic tabouli, having made it many times in my life and can't imagine that in this hotbed of cuisine they could not find bulgur wheat. Nonetheless, I am content.

  I was up at 4:am to catch my flight from Newark but caught up with a couple of hours sleep on the plane.  The man and his 12 year old son sitting next to me on their way home asked where I was going and when I said Sisters, they fell into raptures about how beautiful and fabulous it is. The man said he had friends (or relatives, I can't remember which) arriving on Monday from Texas to go take classes.

Instead of shipping my supplies (teaching 3 diff surface design classes) I packed them into a suitcase and half of another one.  Then I freaked out when I read a TSA warning about no paints or other flammables in a suitcase: I just hope they realize that my water-based textile paints are harmless.  I will not be happy if I arrive in Redmond to find they have emptied my bag:-(.  Well, too late to worry about it now.

Signing off for the moment. Will be back at some point.

we are unable to fulfill your request

Blogger is at it again: I didn't make a request.  Maybe I should. OK - here is a request: can we please have fireworks on July 4th instead of any old time?

 Happy July 4, everybody!  Several hours ago (still on July 3) I heard what I thought was thunder.  But no, it was fireworks.

What, may I ask, is the deal with having fireworks before it is even July Fourth??  Tuesday night, July 2nd, two people couldn't come to our crit meeting because they had to go to the fireworks. on July SECOND?  Huh?  What am I missing here?

Next thing you know, July 4th will be celebrated on the first Monday in July. Why bother to have it on the actual date?  Nothing else is.  WHatever happened to Washington's Birthday on Feb 22 or Lincoln's B.D. on Feb 16?  Or Martin Luther King's birthday on January 15? Maybe we should just memorialize 9/11 on any old Monday closest to the actual date. Cheesh!

Tonight, to amuse myself, I thought I would try recreating a taste from my college days in Massachusetts: Hood's Java Crunch ice cream.  Does anybody remember that flavor? It was the best and there has never been anything like it, since. It was coffee ice cream (hence the Java) with bits of chocolate and toffee crunch.  I found a sort-of recipe on line but first I had to make the toffee.  Since I wasn't in the mood to make a mess, I looked for an easy one and found this fabulous one that you can make in the microwave.  Really!  The only caveat is that you have to watch it to make sure it doesn't burn. Ask me how I know.  The recipe-writer said it took 12 minutes in his microwave. Well, it took only 8 in mine. The first batch went beyond 8 minutes and ended up in the garbage.  Not to be deterred, I tried again.  I added a bit of vanilla. Yum yum and quick! Try it.

------------------------------
MARK'S MICROWAVE BUTTER TOFFEE
------------------------------

 1/2 c. butter
 1 c. sugar
 1/2 tsp. salt
 1/4 c. water
 1/2 c. roughly chopped pecans or almonds (I use pecans)
 5 oz. melted semi-sweet chocolate chips

Rub inside of a large GLASS (this will not work in anything
but glass, no ceramic mixing bowl with the stick of butter,
and put remaining butter in bowl. Pour sugar directly on
butter in bottom of bowl; try to avoid getting any sugar on
sides. Add salt and water. Microwave on HIGH power until
syrup is toffee- colored, (our microwave takes 12 minutes 15
seconds to achieve this color). Place nuts on a non-stick
cookie sheet (if not non-stick, butter cookie sheet
slightly). Pour hot syrup over nuts. DO NOT scrape bowl onto
candy or candy may crystallize. I scrape remaining syrup out
on another part of the cookie sheet than where the candy is,
as it is still a good cook's treat! Let candy cool. if you
are in a hurry, place in freezer for a few minutes. Melt
chocolate, and brush over top of candy when it is cool. Let
chocolate set, again putting in freezer if needed. Break
into pieces. NO ONE will ever guess that this only takes
about 30 minutes to make, and that it was made in the
microwave! Makes 1 pound of candy.

Then I made the ice cream and threw in the toffee bits.  Caffeine is beginning to wear off now.

Basically, my fridge is empty. A couple of eggs, a bit of cheese, some yogurt.  I do have a steak in the freezer and might be forced to defrost/grill it if it doesn't pour again tomorrow. 

By the way, thanks for all your comments, suggestions, and emails about the dish towels and hankies. Will follow up with those of you who emailed me.  Meantime, hope you have good weather on this 4th of July, 2013.  I plan to be indoors, somewhere.

coffee break

At 10:pm??  Yep.  Since I finally have a day where I don't have to get up early, I have just made a cup of coffee that I hope will help me stay up for a while.

Textile Heaven (or Hell) - however you define it
For several days I have been sorting through the stuff I brought home from my mother's apartment - it just goes on and on and on.  I cried over love notes my parents wrote to each other before they were married and laughed at a wonderful photo of my father in a false nose, moustache and glasses at my brother's wedding.  I am wondering what to do with the numerous albums of my first wedding, which I certainly don't need. I have my own -- and now have my parents' and grandparents' duplicates. My children may/may not want them for a variety of reasons.

Then there are the textiles I have rescued and don't know what to do with.

Linen dishtowels in virgin condition from 1963-1971 -- and yes, I have more of them in my own closet.  What possessed us to collect them?  And now what??

 Hankies from the 1940's and 50s.  Who uses them any more?  They are beautiful, fine cotton and they all need to be washed.  There are probably collectors of vintage handkerchiefs but I'm not sure the effort of selling them on ebay is worth the work.

 Silk handkerchiefs: the yellow one, a souvenir from the S.S. Nassau when my parents took a cruise. The one on he left, hand-painted silk with lace edging.  And the one on the right can only be from the ship my mother took to Europe at age 8, when she went to stay in Poland for a year to cure her asthma. What to do with these?

And a huge pile of my Nanny's beautifully embroidered tablecloths. I have a ton of them myself.  My mother used to send them out to the laundry with a "do not use bleach" sign on them.  They came back clean and ironed, for very little money in the 1950's and 60's.  God only knows what they cost to send out nowadays.  I have a bunch I have washed and thought I was going to iron. Uh - no time.  This goes on and on and on.

Cleaning the Studio
I stopped at the studio for five minutes late this morning to pick up a dust mask and some gloves to take on my trip.  Four hours later, I was finally on my way home. I had not been there since April, when I printed the last of the scarves for my class reunion and the place was worse than disaster: it was just plain disgusting.  I washed out containers, completely cleaned off the print table and put down new, white PFD cotton.

I cleared the cutting/ironing table and put down a clean sheet  I folded up all the silk yardage I didn't even remember that I had and put it into a bin, and threw all my unfinished scarves into another bin.  I unearthed some printed cloth that I will take with me as class samples; I vacuumed, and I threw out three bags of trash. Took home a load of sheets and canvas table cover that needed to be washed.

Did not take a photo but I will do so tomorrow when I go back for a few more hours.  A third table, loaded with Thermofax screens, dyes, and other STUFF, needs to be cleaned off and all of that put away somewhere (but where??)  I have drawers full of things I print with - some in triplicate and quadruplicate. I can't bear it - I shall have to throw out the excess and like Noah, get down to two of everything.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. I think when I go back tomorrow I will take my iPad with me.  I bought a bluetooth keyboard for it and it makes all the difference.Almost feels like a real computer -- except that I know Blogger will give me grief when i try to post photos.

We shall see what develops.  Right now, the coffee has done its job: kept me awake long enough to write this and worn off enough so I can fall into bed.

Home again, home again, jiggity jog

Got home from North Carolina on Monday night -- and here it is, Thursday night.  How did that happen?
Been catching up on sleep and staring into space during the day, recovering from the 10 hour drive/detours/power outages on the way home, and a few other adventures.  Oops!  Have also been packing and shipping supplies and quilts in addition to my large suitcase filled with paints, dyes, etc.
Haven't gotten to the small one yet with my clothes.

Last week's workshop was the usual fun and creativity, with most of the participants working quite differently from their norm. Here is Debby, holding a piece of her splendid work. She is standing next to an equally splendid work in progress which incorporates some of the hand-printed fabric she brought with her.  Isn't she versatile??

 

We kidded Katherine about being an over-achiever because she made two quilts in two days.  This is one of them.

 And here is one of the quilts she brought from home.  Katherine was productive because she is going to have a solo exhibit in the near future.  Again, you can see how different her other work is from what came out of her free-form experiment, above.

 

Lori M. loves the autumn colors and brought in a Strips That Sizzle quilt to show.   You can see how she is using the same colors in the free-form pieces on her wall, below. I can't wait to see what she ends up with. You can already see how different it will be from her other work.

 Here are the strips Lori R. sewed together and threw at the wall (ad hoc design).  She had a few different things going here, but eventually started editing and decided to work with the blue strips on the right (slow design).

 She just sent me a picture of her quilt, finished and quilted!! Another overachiever:-).

The strip sets on the wall with the yellow and red stripes are the starting point for another piece. Way to go, Lori!

'Nuff for now.  I was up till 3:am last night reading and I don't think I will make it that late tonight. nite!

quickie post

Ten hours on Route 95 and we are in Winterville, N.C., where we are enjoying the hospitality of our hosts, Lori and Dennis.  Tomorrow, the first of a two-day class in Washington, NC and I'm really looking forward to it. 

Tonight we had a lovely dinner that Lori prepared and then sat out in the backyard near the fire, while we listened to the frogs, watched the fish in the pond jumping for their dinner, and heard tales of wildlife adventures.  Oh, and we roasted marshmallows, which I have not done since I was a kid at camp.

Hopefully, more tomorrow night.
R.

ha ha - it's been so long that even Blogger doesn't know me

Where to begin? Maybe I should work backwards.

Right now, I am taking a break from packing for tomorrow's teaching trip to North Carolina. Dinner won't be for another hour so I am eating a small bowl of cold cucumber yogurt dill soup, which I made this morning. VERY low in calories and divine.

2 cups 1% yogurt (200 calories)
2 cukes (free)
2 cloves garlic (ditto)
bunch of dill
bunch of mint
1 tsp olive oil (why? -- but it's about 30 cal)
salt, pepper, lemon juice to taste


Tonight's dinner will be low fat shrimp scampi on a minimum of pasta and homemade coconut ice cream for dessert. (hey, you gotta have dessert).

It has been an interesting few weeks.
Yesterday morning, my beloved brother Jon left for home (Pittsburgh) after having been here to help me TRY and make a dent in our mother's apartment. We were there every day (almost) and it was by turns frustrating, exhausting, stressful, and hilarious.

Ma was truly a hoarder and we are dealing with the aftermath.  But she was a neat hoarder: all the STUFF was hidden away in drawers, closets, and her storage area in the building. We found an almost full case of bathroom tissue that she brought over in 1992 when she moved (and did not touch since).
Our father was in the wholesale contractors' supply business and since he also sold paper towels, kleenex, and t.p.to the contractors , we always had a carton of each (i.e. 96 rolls) in the basement.  Uh - the business closed 25 years ago.  This is the tip of the iceberg.

It isn't all bad: we found my grandparents engagement certificate, their ketubah (marriage certificate) from 1913, my great-grandparents' passports and green cards, and other wonderful papers, postcards in Polish and German from Europe in the early 20th C before they exterminated all our relatives who had sent them.

We know a lot about my mother's side of he family.  Our father's side is a mystery.  Our grandmother died when our father was five and we're not even sure what her maiden name was.  Ellis island records and other genealogy sites yield nothing because on her 4 childrens' birth certificates, her last name was spelled 4 different ways.  And there is a fifth spelling on my aunt's wedding certificate. We can find no record of her on the boat with any of those spellings.  We know when she was born and when she died -- but there is no record of anything else. We don't know whether our father's parents were married in NY or NJ, but eventually we will have to check NY's records.

On Sunday, Jon and I went to the cemetery to find our grandmother's grave.We found it, discovered her Hebrew first name, and were still clueless about anything else. Here we are, happy to be together.

 

I think I should get back to packing for tomorrow's 10 hour drive to the South.  I'm looking forward to teaching on Friday and Saturday.  After that, we go to Durham and on Sunday will pick up my quilts on exhibit in Chapel Hill.  Monday, we head for home.

blogging along

Honestly, don't know where the time has gone.  Oh, yes I do.  Spent the end of last week in The Apartment, throwing out STUFF.  Todd Gillman stopped by after he had been in NY covering a political event and we went out to lunch before he headed back to D.C.  We did not go to this restaurant. I sent the photo to Jessica for her "can you spot the error?" posts on Facebook.  LOL

Saturday we went to Princeton in the afternoon and discovered that it was reunion weekend at the university.  I wish I had photographed the often hilarious orange and black getups that people were wearing, but I didn't want to be rude.  Instead, I had to photograph this sculpture and one building that wasn't mobbed with tiger-garbed people.  We did have time to go to the Princeton art museum, which was a treat.

 Sunday we went to Brooklyn to see Miss Emma and the progress on Jess and Tommy's renovation.The afternoon included a horrible trip to an even worse Home Depot in Red Hook, where we didn't find the advertised product.  Afterwards, we headed to the famous Red Hook Lobster Pound for lobster rolls. The eatery has finally reopened after it was destroyed in Hurricane Sandy.  The Red Hook section of Brooklyn was under water for quite a while but is pretty much back to normal now.  Afterwards, headed to Baked, where Miss Emma enjoyed a cupcake -- or at least, the frosting.

My brother arrived from Pittsburgh on Monday to give me a hand or two with all of this stuff for the next week. I am so happy to have him here!!

This week has been taken up with doctors' appointments, attorney meetings, real estate people interviews, and more sorting/cleaning/clearing out.  Today we hit pay dirt in my mother's storage unit in the building:  an almost full carton of paper towels that she had brought from her house when she moved to the apartment in 1992, stored and forgotten. My back seat runneth over.

Tomorrow, bank stuff and more sorting.  Saturday, the kids come and tag what they want and next week, more meetings and appointments.   I have been sleeping well.

Wednesday, but not wordless

It has been cold and rainy here for what seems like a month.  We had one beautiful day on Monday and today, it was back to rain (although not cold).

All this rain has been great for my little garden in the front of the house.  I took this last week when the azaleas were still in bloom.  All that pink and purple made me crazy, so I bought a couple of orange and yellow things and stuck the pots in front of the azaleas.  Better, even though you can't really see them very well in this photo.

Unfortunately, most of the orange and yellow flowers are annuals, which I don't plant.  I bought a new kind of deer spray this year and it is not supposed to wash off in the rain.  We shall see.  I'm not sure I trust it.

When I left the house for NY on Tuesday morning, the sun was out. By the time I arrived at City Quilter to meet my friend Bella Kaplan and a new friend, Shoshi Rimer.  Both were on their way home from an Israeli quilt show in Canada and stopped in NY for a few days before they head back to Israel.
We met at City Quilter to see the show at their gallery - quilts by Deb Hyde. They are pretty amazing -- art quilts done completely in the sunshine and shadow traditional pattern.  She does not use a computer, but sketches out her work by hand.

 Well, this is the best I could do with my iPhone.  Bella, Shoshi, and me enjoying ourselves today.

 

I opted to walk from the Port Authority bus terminal on 40th and 8th to the gallery on 25th between 7th and 6th Aves.  On the way, I encountered a giant black movie cameras and a crowd on the 7th Ave sidewalk.

 They were looking up at this building across the street. Uh? Yes?

I chatted with a guy in a suit who was an extra in the film and he pointed up. Huh?  My eyes are not so good and my phone camera is even worse -- but if you look really closely at the inner circle, you will see a black speck that might resemble a human form.  You can't tell from here, but it was Spiderman.

The guy in the suit was an extra in the movie and he told me they were going to clear the sidewalk as soon as they got the lighting set. Most New Yorkers didn't even bother stopping to see what was going on; they are used to this kind of thing. I went on my way.

 By the time I was on my way back uptown to the bus terminal, it was raining lightly. Of course, no umbrella -- but I didn't care. It was very freeing not to have an umbrella.  Short time in the city, but it was fun!