…or is it the other way around? When I go outside in the morning with peanuts, the Bird-On-Watch quickly sends out the alert. Soon I’m riddled with blue jays, waiting for their peanuts and/or corn.
We don’t have a lot of birds that spend the winter in Sunriver, but we have a few: quail, doves, nuthatches, junkos, chicadees, and my personal favorite, the noisy blue jay.
The deer have left- they wander over to eastern Oregon for the winter. Soon we’ll have snow that doesn’t melt off. All the better to stay home and sew!
I’ve been collecting yellow fabric and yellow “stuff” for my yellow quilt. It’s part of a challenge with 18 other people and 18 different colors. When we started the random drawing, most people said, “I don’t want yellow”. Of course, I withdrew…YELLOW. But that’s okay, since I’ve never met a color I didn’t like.
Now that yellow has come into my life, I see it everywhere. Yellow vacuum cleaners, yellow towels, yellow teapots, and lots of yellow bits and pieces to embellish on the quilt.
A few days ago, I took a photograph of our yellow aspen leaves. The leaves are already gone, shriveled up on the ground. I’m going to need all this yellow to get through another winter in Sunriver!
When my husband’s parents (April and Bob) moved to Medford, Oregon, April and I decided to work collaboratively on a series of projects.
DIVA Gallery* in Eugene, Oregon exhibited our most successful project, “String Things at the Multi-Plex”, January & February 2009. With 500 painted/embellished slide covers (by Wendy) and 1000 mini-paintings (by April), paper mache spheres and straws (April), we attached the string-things to acrylic disks with assorted nuts, bolts and beads (Wendy). Installed it takes up a space 6’ by 7’ by 7’, so most of the time, it lives in a set of five boxes.
April and I started another project, a sort of cross between a quilt and a collage with boxes. Unfortunately, I kept falling behind, so April (rightly so) took the project back and started over. She did a beautiful job. “Improv” took First Place in Collage at the Coos Art Museum*, in Coos Bay, Oregon. Way to go, April!
DIVA: Downtown Initiative for the Visual Arts, http://divacenter.org/
Bay Area Artists Association Regional Juried Exhibition 2009, http://www.coosart.org
I love “QuiltMania, The Quilt Magazine”, published in France, in both English and French versions (since issue #50). This glossy, over-sized magazine is filled with photographs of quilts from exhibits and homes around the world and a half-dozen or so project articles. If you love seeing quilts, you’ll enjoy page after page after page of quilts from around the world. And the projects are really good too!
I subscribe through Storehouse Publications (http://store.stonehouse-publications.com/), but you can buy single copies online or at bookstores or at some local quilt shops (ask for it).
I’m happy to announce that I have a project article in QuiltMania, Issue #73 (available in the USA now). It’s a project article for my quilt, “Out Far, In Deep”, using my bias covered curve technique. This quilt is not in my book, but it would have been included in project chapter #4 for quarter circles (Easy Bias Covered Curves, c.2006, C&T Publishing, Concord, California, ctpub.com).
The five-page project article is really well done, but sometimes a magazine will make changes. I would like to make two points: 1) I do not use a fusible interfacing to build the blocks. I do use Sulky Soft ‘n Sheer, a nonwoven nylon flexible stabilizer found online and in shops AND 2) I use a narrow but open zigzag setting to stitch along the raw edges. This goes fast, and keeps the fabrics in place.
Check it out- QuiltMania is a great magazine.
Almost ten years ago I promised a home-made stuffed monkey birthday present for my friend Lila. Previously, on a trip to Portland, we saw a pair of cute monkeys for $200. Of course, I could make an even cuter monkey for a fraction of the cost. But multiply ten years of inflation and add the wait time…maybe the $200 monkeys were a better deal…
But now, Lila has her monkey and I have one more thing crossed off my list. We had to take photos of each other because there was no one else home to take a photo of both of us with The Monkey.
Worth the wait, I hope!
