A Golden Party

We just returned home from a Southern California vacation which all came about because we were invited to a 50th Golden Wedding Anniversary party for some long time and close family friends. They live in a small town south of San Luis Obispo and held the party at their really amazing house on top of a hill overlooking the ocean. This is the view out of the dining room. And a close-up of the very yummy cake. It was a chocolate cake with a port wine filling, the sides were slabs of white chocolate. Most Definitely not a CakeWreck!

The view as the sun goes down off the patio, we ate a many course meal that the anniversary couple's friends and relatives prepared and served, all paired with wines from their winery. It was a really amazing feast and hard to pick just one favorite dish!

The sunset view from the top of the hill as the fog rolls in.

The garden around their house was fun to look around in, they can grow so many plants that I can't as they don't get hard frosts as I normally do. So of course I had to take some pictures..

Oh So Blue!

Looks a little alien-ish, but I so love the color combination here.

This might be my favorite garden sculpture ever!

Here are my dear husband Marc and I walking the garden and checking out the wine grapes. We really enjoyed ourselves at the party, and took great joy in participating in this celebration of fifty married years together for two very dear people. I told them they were a great example to us on how to get to the Golden Anniversary mark which we think would be a fabulous thing to achieve.

The magic hour of sunset really does make for great photos. Here are Zach (taking a photo) and Alex in the garden.

Tune in tomorrow for San Diego pictures! And then I'll get back to some fibery goodness after this summer hiatus...

Hair Happy

Happy that I finally got my hair cut! I don't know why I was putting it off for so long, but the stars aligned or something. Got a shaggy layered kind of deal with about 4" off the ends. My only requirement was that I still be able to pony-tail it. Just barely, but that works. What a weight off my head and neck.

This is how it looked all blow dried (which I never bother to do). Looks strange to have it straight, usually it is curly and wavy.
In this picture you can also see the red climbing roses on our deck are still pumping out those blossoms.

A Short Trip to the Big City

The boys and I recently wanted to get out of the house so we decided to go to San Francisco. We ended up staying at this great historic hotel The Hotel Whitcomb that I found on Hotels.com. It had a really impressive lobby, all marble and wood and fancy chandeliers. It was right by a BART station, a streetcar stop, a bu stop and lots of walkable stuff too. We were going to experiment with being car-less in a big city.

The historic streetcars were a lot of fun, kind of retro looking, but still very functional. Apparently they are from other cities which is kind of nice. There's Zach, in a single seat, pretending he didn't know us. Standard teenager behavior I know. Good thing he didn't know I was taking a picture.

We had really beautiful weather, which was nice since we spent most of the time outdoors. It wasn't too hot or cold or foggy or windy, perfect!

This is a street scene of the Hearst Building and a Muni bus and lots of pedestrians. I decided to not be embarrassed about taking touristy pictures, because hey! I'm a tourist...

The first night the boys requested seafood, so we went out to Fisherman's Wharf around sunset and ended up eating at the Franciscan Crab Restaurant.

It was beautiful, we could see Alcatraz, one of the ferries, the sunset, lots of shipping traffic and sailboats zipping around.

They had some really interesting art glass and this very cool mermaid lantern.

Even the silverware was cool with a fishy shape to it.

I like taking pictures of neon when it isn't quite full dark.

This was always my favorite sign in San Francisco as a kid. I don't know if we ate here, but I remembered I liked how the #9 shimmered and moved.

The Musee Mecanique moved from the Cliff House out here to the Fisherman's Wharf area, so we got to check out all the cool old coin-op games and music devices. Including the terrifying Laughing Sal and the most worried fortune-telling wizard you've ever seen.Back in the hotel, I pointed out the mail slot right outside our door and explained how it all worked (forgot to take a picture of the beautiful and ornate drop box down in the lobby!), so we mailed ourselves a letter on hotel stationery to prove that it still worked. Alex thought it was A#1 Thumbs Up!The room was smallish, and the ceiling was quite high, which is about normal for an older hotel.The hallway was really cool with lots of wood and many mirrors.
One of the main reasons we went to San Francisco was to go see the Treasures of King Tut exhibit at the DeYoung Museum out in Golden Gate Park. No photos were allowed of course, so we went up in the new tower and took some panoramic shots.

Right across the way is the amazing California Academy of Sciences which I posted about when we visited last year. We really need to go back soon!

You could walk right into the corner of the windows as you see Zach doing here.

It really is quite a view from up there.

The size of Golden Gate Park always amazes me, right there plopped in the middle of a big bustling city.

An enforced brotherly shot with the Beethoven statue in the park.

It really is a beautiful city with so much to see and do, I always feel energized from being there, but super exhausted too. It is different being in a big city when you're used to the rural life. So many people, and so much noise.

Here is the City Hall dome surrounded by the electric bus lines.

This picture cracks me up so much. I told them this should be their album cover photo or at least on the liner notes. I may even use it for our holiday card! I love how they are sharing their ipod headphones.

Poor Alex tripped and cracked his elbow so we bought a scarf at Goodwill and he wore a colorful sling.

One of the last things we did was to take a bus ride down to the Mission District to check out a really neat world music store Lark in the Morning, which we discovered had moved there across town. Zach fell in love with and almost bought a dobro. We popped into a fish market store and checked out what all was on offer, saw some fish I'd never heard of.

I'll leave you here with this last picture of a whole bunch of craw fish in a beautiful orange bucket.

R.I.P. Studio Moth

When I came across this big moth, there by the lamp in my workroom, I was so hopeful that it was still alive. Maybe just resting, or napping after a long night of bashing into light fixtures. But alas, no.

Death has arrived for Mr. or Ms. Moth.

But first I had to take a picture. The wavy stripes, the soft texture, the sheen of the wings, the colors you don't ever notice when they are flying around outdoors near the porchlight, all there on display once the creature has died.

No more frantic flying and motion to blur the details.

This insight made me ask myself: "What are you missing by not slowing down to notice?"

R.I.P. Studio Moth, now buried in my rose planter.

Eat Your Vegies

One last and final book in the Altered Board Book Round Robin has come and gone. Vivian Montre's was one of my favorites which she had entitled "Eat Your Vegies!" She included a selection of vintage photos to use in our spread.


A background of a Dover wrapping paper of historic designs. Several artichokes along the right edge. And then three quotes that had to do with vegetables printed out on vellum.


"Let My words, Like Vegetables, Be Tender and Sweet, For Tomorrow I May Have to Eat Them" - Author Unknown



"Did You Ever Stop To Taste A Carrot? Not Just Eat It, But Taste It? You Can't Tast The Beauty And Energy Of The Earth In A Twinkie" - Astrid Alauda

"Life Is Like Eating Artichokes, You Have Got To Go Through So Much To Get So Little." - Thomas Aloysius Dorgan

I used several shades of green acrylic paint including metallic and some gold for the background. Round motifs were cut out of the wrapping paper used on the other page.
I cut the hand and arm out so she could be grasping the bunch of carrots. I thought her expression looked slightly exasperated like "Man, why did I plant SO many carrots this year?"

That was a fun project to participate in, I'm really looking forward to seeing what my book looks like when it is returned to me.

The Final Corpse

A fifth and final Exquisite Corpse has arrived home out of our group, so here is the story of how I finished this one off. Here is what the piece looked like when it arrived, almost a cool look just like that, based on the interesting covering-up fabrics the other artists had used. The background fabric is a Crate&Barrel table runner out of a heavy cotton toweling. I was last up, so I got to do legs and feet.

There was a border of a fancy kind of sheer/silky fabric and vertical beading as my clue at the uncovered edge. Obviously the bottom of a skirt right? I placed two pieces of lace to bring the kind of harsh stripes to the background and then some satin for legs and metallic shot cotton for shoes. I thought that fancy fabrics were warranted based on the clue I had going, this figure was obviously "dressed up".

I used Steam a Seam to fuse the shapes down then did a satin stitch around the shapes. I was going for a " kicking up her heels and dancing" kind of look to what the legs and feet were doing.

I thought the shoes needed a bit more of something, so I used a couple of heart charms anchored down with some white glass beads.
The green looked good with the green of the background.

Here's a closer look at one of the feet.

And then I added the word "heart" as the final step.

For more on the Exquisite Corpse project be sure and check out our group blog where more of these great projects can be seen.

Tumbled Over

What a nice surprise!
Friend Jaye recently sent me a small mysterious Rechiutti box. Nope, no chocolate, even better...more Tumblers! Well, wait, I know that Rechiutti is Jaye's favorite chocolate, so it is entirely conceivable that the chocolate *in this case* would possibly be better than pre-cut fabulous fabric pieces for my Tumbler quilt project.
But I'm pleased beyond measure at these happy fabrics up on my wall cheering me up every time I pass by them. Thanks Jaye!

And who knows I may get the Tumbler cutting bug once again and add to the 18.25 completed strips for my eventual bed sized quilt. I haven't done a danged thing on it since January when I last posted about it. This is one of those slow-cooked quilt projects, not a race-to-the-finish deal.
But hopefully well-worth it in the end.

Tango Lady

Yet another of the Exquisite Corpse projects has arrived home. This time it is Linda's, you can see the whole figure over at her blog TangoMusings. So this first picture shows my original fabric choices.

I first started in with some heavy satin stitching on the edges of each piece.
But that purple triangle wanted to stay, but it just didn't look right after the stitching. So it was jettisoned in favor of....

Beads! Of course beads, always with the beads. A strange necklace of beads stitched along the neckline.A closeup shot so you can see the bone beads a little better, along with the supporting cast of round glass beads.

Oh, and don't forget to add the words: BELL SWEETLY, this time embroidered on. Made me think of Laverne and her script "L".

For even more Exquisite Corpse action, be sure and check out our group blog.