current creations in progress

this will be a bag when finished (soon, i hope).  bought the yarn from Teresa (Skeins in John Day)

it's Kudo by Plymouth and is cotton, rayon, silk in fabulous colors which i love!!  the first photo is the front, the other is the back in progress.  it will have a knitted strap... and will make lots more sense when it's finished!  aren't the colors gorgeous?

and this will be a little quilt for Zylie to wrap her plush critter/friends in.  everwhere she goes, one of the animals gets to go with her.... at least one!  when she comes to visit, she usually fills her backpack with them!

the last couple of days of 100 degree plus weather, i've been inside sewing, knitting and watching MSNBC, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.... between short excursions to the garden to gas the gophers and water plants and pray that the FSM will keep the plants alive.  it is hotter than the hinges at high noon in hell, as my dear mom would say.

it's official!!

made my flight reservations to go back to Crete end of september and stay til first week of november!  it's just a tiny bit more than 2 months til i leave... maybe i should start packing?  and now i can give myself permission to be getting excited for the trip.  well, maybe not excited about the ~20 hour flight, but SO happy to be going back.  SIL, Judy will go with me and stay 2 weeks, and Kate and my grandkids will go, too, for some portion of the time i'll be there.  and Jim?  he's not going this time because he wants to stay here to keep the deer from eating his ripening grapes and then harvest, crush and start the wine fermentation.  who knows... maybe he'll have the raki made, too, before i get back.  i'm not quite sure how i pulled it off, but i got tickets on Lufthansa for about $200 less than our last trip... and that's my fave airlines, too.  bravo and wheeeee

it's been too hot here... 90+ for the past few days and expected to continue.  the beastly rodents in the garden have been my focus lately as they have found one of the veggie beds which isn't lined with chicken wire, so they have full access and have been taking advantage by first eating the roots (beans and tomatoes), then pulling the plant down into their tunnel and devouring the rest of it.  i've been fighting back with sulfur flares, but imagine them backfilling their tunnel just in time, then sittin' back and laughing at me!  paranoid??  maybe.  but i'll be beyond pissed off if i don't get tomatoes! 

 there are not many i would stand in line to see... for an hour... in the sun... in 90+ degree weather.  Neil DeGrasse Tyson is one of the few (plus there was that vision of a tall cold McMenamin's beer at the end of the wait!!)).  OMSI  with PBS held a Science Pub at the Bagdad Theater and Dr Tyson was the feature.  The Bagdad is a very old movie theater in SE Portland, renovated by the McMenamin brothers in a pretty ingenious manner... the inside is just as it was, except that every other row of seats has been removed and replaced with tables, so you can have beer and pizza (or whatever) while you watch the feature presentation or movie!  i like it!  and i'm goofy for this astrophysicist and his PBS Nova science NOW show.  he's interesting, intelligent, humorous, personable... and i really really enjoyed the evening.  to add to the perfection, we walked down the street afterward to Ben and Jerry's and indulged in the perfect ice cream cone!

beer, pizza and ice cream... pretty damn perfect!

road trip wrap-up

that was a whole bunch of traveling and doing for a 5-day road trip.  Linda, Denise (her SIL) and i left friday a.m. for the cabin on the Metolius River at Camp Sherman.  before we even got to the cabin we almost passed up a small local quilt show, but not wanting to miss anything, Linda pulled into the parking lot in time!  there may have been 50 quilts there... some really inspiring. then on to the cabin, which was absolutely perfect!  the Metolius River is at the edge of the front yard.  huge old trees around the house.  did you know that if you put your nose up to the bark of a ponderosa tree, in a groove in the bark, and take a deep sniff, you can smell vanilla??  yep.. really!  just a bit of trivia... 

The really big and fabulous quilt show experience began Sat. a.m. when we drove to Sisters, finally found a parking place and started the walking.  the main street, plus 2 others and the cross streets were closed to traffic and there was a huge muddle of people walking and looking at the 1300 or so quilts displayed outside and on the walls in the businesses and eateries.  it was quite overwhelming.  and some truly lovely art quilts and examples of all types of quilts.  we were so lucky that it was a clear, sunny day and did not get uncomfortably hot til mid-afternoon, by which time we'd been there for 5 or 6 hours just walkin' and gawkin', along with thousands of other people, and decided we could go back to the cabin.  i'm not sure i could see all the quilts even if the show went for 2 days.  so, back at the cabin we recovered from the day with a nice dinner and wine... also, spinning, knitting and Denise quilting.  and more wine...

On Sunday, we left Denise at the cabin, picked up Jane in Sisters and headed for Teresa and Jack Southworth's cattle ranch near Seneca, which is near John Day and Burns.  besides the cattle, Teresa has a flock of sheep and a bunch of llamas.... and if that wasn't enough... she also has a yarn shop in John Day... Skeins.(on Canyon Blvd).  it really was a wonderful evening we spent there... tour of the place, photo ops, Teresa's workshop where she processes her wool and makes felted saddle blankets, dinner, "black eyed susans"  ... could be deadly or at least make for a short night if not handled with care.  contains vodka, rum, triple-sec, orange juice, pineapple juice, a bit of lime and ice... sure does taste healthy with all that juice, but we were warned.  we stayed up late telling stories and laughing like lunatics.  especially loved Teresa's stories about ground squirrels!! on monday we got a tour of the headquarters of the ranch and really fascinating info about what happens there.  and we even saw a real cowboy... wearing a cowboy hat and boots and riding a horse.  i just wish i had the time and energy to go into all the details of what we saw and learned there.  after that, we got a tour of Teresa's yarn shop which has an amazing selection of yarn and books and fibers for spinners.  and then we got on the road again and went back to the cabin, had dinner, mojitas, more talking and laughing, some sleep and on tuesday made the 3 hour drive back to portland!  it was a fabulous road trip... and Linda did ALL the driving.  yeah, we all offered to do some of it... but ...

this is Teresa's trophy wall/gun rack.  

for Soren

for my semi-son, Soren, in Denmark.  this quilt was on display at the huge and wonderful quilt show in Sisters, OR.

I thought of you!

some highlights from the road trip!!

the day after the huge outdoor quilt show in Sisters, (rumored to have 1300 quilts on display), Jane, Linda and I drove over to Seneca to visit Teresa and Jack Southworth.

                                                                                              

a view of the cattle ranch from the house.  wish i'd gotten some photos around the house of all the flowers and the veg. garden.

here's some of their sheep.

a quilted car cozy... not exactly the hit of the show for me... but certainly interesting!  i can't even imagine anything that would get me interested in doing a project like this!

humming quietly to myself

"on the road again... can't wait to be on the road again..." (quiet humming due to inability to carry a tune!)  Leaving friday a.m. with Linda and her SIL, Denise, to go to their cabin on the Metolius River close to Sisters, OR.  There is a yearly huge and fabulous quilt show in Sisters, which was our original destination... then since we'd be so "close" (a relative term) to Burns, we decided to go over there on sunday to visit Teresa,  see her yarn shop (Skeins in John Day), and then spend the night with them on their cattle/sheep/alpaca ranch.  Back to the cabin on monday and drive home on tuesday!  whew!!  i'll be taking camera, Garmin, spinning wheel, knitting project(s), lots of grazing items and adult beverages!  doesn't get any better than this..... will come back with lots of photos, we won't get lost, i'll have some fiber zen, hope to get some quilting inspiration, and will definitely have a marvelous time!  hummmmmm ... more quiet humming.  it's become an ear worm... ack

morning in the garden...

when i went to the garden this morning to water the veggies, i took my camera along .. hoping i'd see yesterday's dragonfly and could get a photo of it.  that was without doubt the most awesome dragonfly i've seen!... its body was a luminescent mid-blue, with a head that was Mediterranean turquoise and transparent wings with a black dot on each, like WOW!   today i saw this beauty.  i wonder why they so often perch on sticks...

and then there is the Taboo rose, which is usually so dark it is almost black.  maybe all this sun is bleaching it?  anyway, it's one of my faves.
and since a temp of 93 or so is expected today, i'm just hanging out indoors sippin' tea and getting ready to do some knitting on an entrelac piece which could become the front of a vest... or maybe a wrap/shawl... at this point it is an unknown.