PIQF - Day 3

Today's class with Sue was the most fun ever! I'm serious! I, along with a whole bunch of women who, like myself, were many years past school age, spent the entire day behaving like first-graders, as we discovered the joy of sloshing paint about and making a grand mess. We put on our aprons, some donned latex gloves, while others, like myself, let the paint fly where it would, getting it all over our hands and under our fingernails and on our aprons and generally not giving a rat's ass where it went. Before class, some clipped leaves from plants in their front yards, others sniped leaves from trees and plants in gas stations and rest stops along the way, while others (who will remain nameless) crept out early in the morning, and clipped leaves from the lush gardens surrounding the hotel. We then brought those leaves to class, where we painted them and rolled them, and created beautiful salutes to nature. It was total and absolute fun, and I can hardly wait to get home to some of the beautiful plants in my own yard, and start making magic with them. Here are two of the pieces I created today:



And here are some created by my classmates...





Only half of us stayed on our feet to the end of the class - too much fun just wears one out! Here we are... the diehard hold-outs!

Here are some more of my favorites from the show...


The "Judges Choice" Award

Yosemite

Woodland Critters

Pandora about to open the fateful box

Tomorrow (Sunday) is my day to see the show. Up until now, I've only been able to enjoy snippets of it, due to the fact that my classes have taken up most of my time. I'll probably take hundreds of pictures tomorrow, and will then try to figure out a way to make them available for viewing.

I want to thank Sue from my heart, for one of my best PIQF experiences ever. I feel as though I've elevated my Surface Design education to a new level, and am very excited as I anticipate a new rush of creativity on my immediate horizon. In the meantime, it's way after midnight at the end of three days of exhilarating creativity. I'm totally bushwhacked and have never in my life been more ready to hit the sack!

PIQF - Day 2

Today's class was called "Divide & Conquer", and was focused on design and fusing. I've done lots of fusing in the past, thanks to my job as liturgical artist at a local church, but nearly all of it has been based on designing and creating church banners. I've never done a fused quilt or quiltlet, so today was new in that respect, and was, most definitely fun and different. The morning half of the class was given over to a discussion of design elements - line, shape, color, value, texture, pattern, proportion, balance, unity, variety, perspective, etc. All quite interesting and logical... and stuff about which I've never given much thought. So now, I have lots to think about! Whether that's good or bad, only time will tell. During the afternoon we all worked on putting that wealth of information into action. Here's the raw beginnings of my piece - it's about 45x20 inches, and will have lots more stuff on it by the time I'm finished... more leaves and flowers, stitching, and plenty of embellishments.


The class was blessedly smaller than Day 1, so we were able to get lots of personal attention from Sue. Here we are, tired, but proud!

Here's another quilt from the show... Sorry, I only have time for one... gotta get to class. More later.

First Runner-Up:

Look at some of the detail... awesome, eh?

PIQF 2010

I'm in Santa Clara this week at the Pacific International Quilt Festival, and am enjoying myself immensely, as usual. I arrived yesterday afternoon, checked into my room with it's fantastic view of the Santa Clara Valley (smog and all), spent the evening at the private preview of the show and vendors, open only to registered participants, and was able to view the show at a leisurely pace without the usual mob scene of the rest of the week. The show is quite impressive this year, with over 800 quilts and pieces of wearable art on exhibit, along with more vendors than I've ever seen before. As usual, the quilts were impressive, with the Best of Show being, in my opinion, one of the most stunning quilts I've ever seen. This picture doesn't remotely do it justice... while the design, colors and workmanship were fabulous, the quilting was absolutely breathtaking. It must be seen up close and personal to be truly appreciated.


This is the winner of the Judges' Choice award, which I particularly like. Again, the workmanship is exceptional, and this style of quilt appeals to me more than the traditional pieces.

This year my classes are with Australian quilter Sue Dennis. Today we spent the entire day working with Paint Sticks, exploring the wealth of possibilities for producing interesting, fun, and wonderful work. Here's a shot of us all hard at work...

...and here we are at day's end, tired, but filled with good mojo from a wonderful experience.

Here are three of the pieces I created using some of the incredible array of techniques Sue explained to us...





These are a few of the quilts in the show that have caught my attention so far...

Latino glitz and bling. I love this stuff!!

Bugs!!

More fun stuff...

Fur Kids...

Domenico - Cat of the Week

Twenty+ pounds of feline pulchritude - that's our Domenico. I love orange cats, especially BIG orange cats, and when this guy showed up on my radar, I just had to have him. Joyce, a serious cat rescuer here in town, had retrieved his mother from the side of an I-80 onramp, and, a week later, Mama Cat rewarded Joyce's efforts by presenting her with six kittens. I ran into Joyce at the vet six weeks later, and she told me she had a cat for me. When I went to pick him up, I discovered he had an orange and white brother. Wow! A two-fer! I happily packed the two of them into the carrier and was on my way, when I noticed a tiny little tortie sitting in the corner of the cage. A long time ago, I made a horrible mistake in adopting two kittens, and leaving a little sister behind. I learned later she'd been dumped at the pound because no one adopted her. I've never forgiven myself for that. So, this time, I scooped up baby sister, and off we went. DH, expecting one new kitten when he arrived home from work that evening, was flummoxed to find three, but he got over it when he heard my story, as he'd never forgiven my earlier mistake, either. Now, five years later, they're our most familial unit - hanging out together and scrapping like true siblings. Brother Alessandro has maintained at a sensible thirteen pounds, while sister Lucia is practically a miniature cat at only six pounds. You might think, considering his bulk, that Domenico would be somewhat of a hazard around the house, but he's as lithe and agile as a cheetah as he barrels over, under, around, and through the house and garage, usually with Lucia in hot pursuit, presenting a ludicrous picture. He's playful, loving, intensely curious, and a wonderful lap cat, though he's been known to cut off the circulation in one's legs when lapping it up. The only thing about him that doesn't "fit" is his voice - a high-pitched chirpy squeak that makes us howl with laughter every time we hear it.

At six months - already over ten pounds...

Hanging with his buddy, Ralph...

Helping fold the laundry...

Every cat's favorite plaything...

Just being cozy...

Setting myself a challenge...

This winter I'm determined to enter the art exhibit at the annual San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival, held on beautiful, wild Mare Island in Vallejo. I've been threatening to enter this show for a decade, and always flake out before I get started, but, this year I think I have plenty of time to get my act together. To that end, I went for a walk on the Benicia waterfront this weekend and took a few pictures for inspiration. I think this one will be my subject of choice - it'll give me plenty of opportunity to work with my newly acquired machine quilting chops, and make use of all of the fusing techniques I'm going to learn from Sue Dennis at PIQF next week...

While I love these beautiful rocks, I think there's too much water here - maybe for another time...

Definitely too much water in this one, but I love the expansiveness. It makes the channel look so vast. True, enormous oil tankers and auto carriers chug through here on a daily basis, but they always dwarf everything in sight, including the hills on either side, and the Carquinez bridges in the distance... not to mention looking somewhat obscene to me... invading this pristine beauty with their huge, ugly, smoke-belching bulk.

SAQA Auction Revisited...

Alison Schwabe - "Timetracks 20"


I first saw Alison's work in one of my books for the Quilt National Show. I'm in the process of trying to buy all of the books from previous QN shows, because the quilts selected for their exhibit are absolutely fabulous. Much of the work is wonderfully innovative and exciting and really talks to me. In the intro of one of the books, it mentious receiving 1,151 entries which had to be narrowed down to 83. In my book, that's pretty treacherous odds! Over the years, Alison has been juried into four QN shows (as well as dozens of other prestigious shows), so when I saw her quilt in the auction, I watched it like a hawk, and, when it finally got into my price range, I nabbed it at one minute into the bidding time. It'll be here on Monday, and I can hardly wait!

Carol Watkins - "Bloomin'"


I was unfamiliar with Carol's work until I saw her piece in the auction. I was impressed by the wonderful free-motion stitching on the piece, and wasn't surprised, when I visited her website, to discover she's quite an expert at thread work. She blends digital art with the stitching and, most definitely, gives us the best of both worlds. This quilt will certainly brighten up my SAQA auction quilt wall!

The 2010 SAQA Auction is on!

"Neopolitan" by Rose Rushbrooke

I await the SAQA auction each year with enormous excitement. Even if I never bought a single piece, I'd get immense pleasure just out of seeing so much wonderful art work on one website. It's pure eye candy - better than a 100 pound box of See's! Of course, I never don't buy something, and this year is no exception. I love Rose's work - it's imaginative, free spirited, and totally beautiful. Based on fractals, her work draws me into it as though I were being led into a magic cavern! I can look at it for hours, and never get my fill. I discovered Rose and her work earlier this year, and find myself visiting her gallery pages again and again. Each time, my spirit is lifted and my heart soars. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach, William Byrd, and Ralph Vaughn Williams affect me in the same manner. It's something I'll never be able to explain, but I don't really desire an explanation. Let's just leave it at, "It sends me!"

Martina - Cat of the Week

Martina is a fun cat - she's tiny, cute, affectionate, incredibly curious, has an impish personality, does cool cat stuff with every move, is a great lap cat, and has a beautiful, chirping voice - most of the time. When pissed off or frightened, she can utter a gawd-awful shriek that's enough to raise the dead. I guess she can be called a "rescue" of sorts... one day my gardener drove up with Martina in her truck, and pleaded with me to take her because she (the cat) had been hanging out in the back yard, and she (the gardner) was afraid her husband was going to damage the cat. Now, my unfortunate gardener happens to be married to the world's biggest jerk, and whether or not the cat was in danger, I'll never know, but I was unwilling to take the chance, knowing some of the capabilities of said jerk. On that day, I happened to be ghastly sick with the flu, so I asked the gardener to take the cat directly to the vet and leave her in their hands. I called and explained the situation to the vet, and requested they clean the poor baby up, test her for FIV, give her the necessary shots, and "fix" her, and my husband would pick her up when she was ready to come home.

Several days later, with me still sick out of my skull and nursing the most gruesome fever-induced headache I've ever experienced, she came home and we got our first taste of her vocal capabilities. At the sight of 20-some other cats, she propelled herself, shrieking, out of the cat carrier, did a complete over, under, around, and through circuit of the house, then rocketed up onto the top of the highest kitchen cabinet, whencefrom she proceeded to issue that blood-curdling noise for a solid fifteen minutes, until she got hoarse and her voice gave out and she finally stopped. She then stayed on top of the cabinet for the next 24 hours, refusing to come down to eat or pee, steadily glowering over the edge and starting up with the screaming again any time one of the resident inmates came over to check her out. All of the others were, of course, extremely curious, and filed past her at regular intervals, day and night, and caused one and all a totally strung-out earth orbit.

Finally, the next day, she came down and we immediately grabbed her and shut her up in a bathroom with a couple of litter boxes and a bowl of food. Several hours later, when we opened the door, she walked calmly out as though nothing had happened. Whenever she saw another cat, though, she gave a loud, calculated scream, accompanied by a vicious swipe of the paw, and the other cat backed off. She headed for the top of the cabinet again, and stayed up there for a week or so, coming down only to eat and use the litter box.

After what seemed like forever, she finally adapted, and things are much more pleasant around here these days.

Favorite place to snooze...

Nosy, snoopy, always into something...



Loves to pose for the camera...

Yom Kippur 5771 / 2010

May your fast be easy...

Beading 101

I love big, bold pieces of jewelry, especially necklaces, so it's not surprising I adore Iris Apfel and her stupendous jewelry (see my post of July 17, 2010). I've always dreamed of creating such pieces, so when a new beading store appeared on the Downtown Vallejo horizon (see August 6 post), I decided the time had come for me to learn. I've been buying beads for years, and, like a lot of my fabric, I spend a great deal of time admiring and playing with my beads, but have never been brave enough to jump in and make something. Silly, because it's a lot "safer" to play with beads than with fabric - if you don't like what you've done with your beads, you can just snip the beading cord and start stringing all over again. On the other hand, just TRY "uncutting" fabric!

Anyway, last night I took my first beading class, and this is what I made...


Its' big, bulky, and weighs a ton, which is exactly how I like my necklaces to be! The first friend who saw it offered to buy it on the spot. Hmmmm... this is something to think about...!

29 Years...WOW!!!

In spite of misgivings from more than a few family members and friends, WE knew this marriage would last... and it has! It's been exciting, fun, wondrous, silly, wild, mostly smooth, definitely interesting, and, each year, we're more and more glad we did it!

Ralph - Cat of the Week

Am I permitted to have a "Favorite" child? I think most parents do, whether or not they wish to admit it. Though I try to love and treat all of my kids equally, This One stands out on personality alone! Smart, entertaining, outgoing, sociable, elegant, good-natured... this guy has it all! Actually, the word that applies best to him is "Neat". In fact, he's a Medically Certified Neat Cat. Every time we take him to the vet, whichever vet or tech handles him, always returns him to us with the words, "This is a really neat cat!"

He got off to a rough start in life, and pure chance led me to him. I was on my way home from a crushingly boring board meeting late one night (the one night the vet happened to be open until 10:00 pm) when I realized I'd forgotten to pick up some meds for one of the other cats. I was tired and pissed and totally fed up with Boards, and had a brief argument with myself as to whether to drive over to the vet hospital before hitting the freeway, or waiting until the next day to make the trip. "Do It Now" won the argument and I headed for the vet. In the lobby I saw two young women crying as they hugged one another and peered anxiously into a shoe box that held a limp little grey furball, almost too small to be believed. They said their kitten was sick and they couldn't afford to take care of him, and the vet had said he would have to be put to sleep. Those words always send a red flag up in my brain, so I asked if I could speak with the vet. Turns out, the young ladies had just gotten their first jobs, first apartment and first car, and, of course, wanted their first kitten to go along with everything else. At four weeks old, he was way too young to be taken away from mom, to which was added the problem that these well-meaning ladies had no idea what to do with a kitten. They pretty much expected him to be a self-functioning, maintenance-free unit, so they didn't feed him right, didn't clean up after him right, didn't know how to deal with the fleas, didn't keep him warm enough, and on and on. He was literally hanging on by a thread of life. I told the vet I'd intervene, but, if I did, he would become my cat. Long story short... I won custody, he stayed at the vet hospital for a week while they repaired him, and then came home to join our family. He truly is a Neat Cat - there's just no other way to describe him. I've never known such a personable creature, and will be eternally grateful to whatever made me turn around and drive to the vet's that night!

First day home, fearlessly exploring his new life...

Up close and personal...

Always into something...

Knows how to relax...

Displays just the right amount of "attitude" about what's his vs what's ours...

Very well read...

You Go, Ralpher!!

Wind!

Our home is on a hill above the north end of San Francisco Bay, and it's one of the windiest areas I've ever lived in. Usually, I enjoy the wind because it keeps things cool... but I do have my limits! Last night the wind was fierce and non-stop, and rattled the windows until they made the most unearthly whining noise... it was spooky and chilling, and totally unnerved both me and the cats. True to form, DH slept through it (my guess is, he would have slept through Katrina.) This morning I found my bean tower doing a Tower of Pisa imitation:


The hummingbirds were having a terrible time zeroing in on the feeders, and had to hang on for dear life once they did land as the feeders were buffeted about. Several other birds (lower left) got blown into the fence. They finally stopped trying to fly and just sat and ate, no doubt in an attempt to gain more ballast...


The following is a dicy picture thanks to my cheesy camera, but the whole thing was so amazing to me, I had to try to capture it...


The flat area in the center of the picture is the southernmost tip of Mare Island. Directly behind it, there's a short breakwater extending out into the bay, and it's a popular place for people to fish. If anyone had been fishing today, they would have gone to visit Davy Jones. Here, the breakwater is almost totally submerged, with a couple of giant waves crashing over it near the shore.
Everything finally calmed down a couple of hours ago, but I'm sure things will get rough again soon...

Yoda - Cat of the Week

It's difficult to write this week's "bio" because there's a very strong possibility Yoda won't be with us much longer. He was recently discovered to have substantial cancer growing in his liver and kidneys, and it's quite obvious to us he's going downhill quickly. In the meantime, he's acting his usual self, and doesn't show much evidence of being sick, except that he's lost a frightening amount of weight. These pictures are from his more "beefy" days.

For years, Yoda was the neighborhood thug, as in, this was HIS neighborhood. He was mean, fearless and BIG. He pounded every male cat that crossed his path, and impregnated every female. People tried to trap him, a few shot at him (he still carries around a BB in his chest), and just about everyone hated the sight of him. At the time he wasn't our cat - supposedly he belonged to the neighbors next door (though I seriously doubt he ever "belonged" to anyone.) Said neighbors fed him (occasionally) and their dysfunctional/psychotic son claimed ownership and carried him around like a sack of potatoes. He was always getting injured in fights, or picking up some upper-respiratory crud, whereupon we'd scoop him up and patch him up, only to have him return a few weeks later with something else wrong with him. Finally, he showed up on our doorstep late one night, staggering, bleeding from the nose and groaning with each breath. Enough! We took him to the vet and left him there until they got him completely repaired, including shots, dental work and neutering. In the meantime the neighbors had been evicted (no surprise there) and spent the week Yoda was in hospital moving out of their house. When they asked, we denied any knowledge of his whereabouts, so they left without him. After nearly two weeks in the hospital, we brought him home and explained to him that he was going to be an indoor cat from now on. He quickly decided he'd landed in Cat Heaven, and settled in easily to regular meals of good food, cushy cat beds all over the place, zillions of cat toys, lots of windowsills in the sun, plenty of bathroom sinks (his favorite place in which to lounge), and regular petting and brushing. He's become a wonderful pet over the years - affectionate, playful, mellow, and always, but always, eats everything put in front of him. He's still a bit of a bully, but old habits die hard, and the other cats have accepted him, for the most part, with only an occasional swat or hiss when he tries to push them around.

Here he is a few days into the "indoor" life - still looking every bit the thug he was...

If you happen to be where Yoda wants to be, you can either move, or he'll sit on top of you...

It's a good thing there are plenty of sinks in this house!

Over the years, we've determined the only bad thing about having pets is that you always outlive them. We'll miss Yoda terribly when he's gone, but, in the meantime, we'll give him the best of everything we can, and promise to help him transition with dignity when the time comes.