Olives; and Away at Collage Salon

I am not here. I am in Davis at Hannah Klaus Hunter's Collage Salon in her art studio with a small group of local artists I am meeting for the first time. I will of course have taken my camera with me and will bring back photos (I hope) of the studio, the art made, and artists. I feel very honored to have been included in this invitation. Just another indication of how my chutzpah is paying off. It's fun! I share it with you to encourage you to do the same. Be willing to stick your neck out there, extend a hand shake, make a call, email, connect up, network, meet others doing similar art to yours and get together to make art with each other. I'll let you know how it went tomorrow. The quilt square is part of my NYP and one of seven species of Israel. On Saturday I made labels of Hebrew words sewn on describing the fruit on each square. This is the square without the label.

You Know It's An Addiction When...

You know it's an addiction when you come home from the thrift store and find two other bags you bought there in the past few weeks still not opened or put away... Bag #1" four bundles of fabrics: teen green print, cute plaid, lace and hearts...when to use them?To be determined... Star earrings, just cuz; two awesome heavy metal picture frames for small photos; a ceramic stamp for clay that says "home" in a heart; a baggie of little rectangle plastic strips of what looks like needlepoint substrate??? Why? saw it as stamp for painting over paper or cloth; Did I need fifty of them? LOL A book called Live and Learn and Pass it On...with quotes to perhaps use on traveling books, postcards and/or ATCs. Bag #2: An outfit for grand daughter, hooded zip top and pants in soft fleece, good condition; two sets of animal earrings for a certain someone who likes wild animals, a bit wild herself; magnetic picture frames to be used in art work maybe; Dazzlers: rhinestones etc. and tool to put on fabric art; 2 pkts. of strung beaded embellishments for art; 4 pkts of multicolored tissue paper for lots of art and/or gift wrapping.

Bag #3: Today's score! Three brightly colored beaded gift bags; A huge page of Dilbert stickers; A set of cool words/expressions magnets for art use; a book on dream interpretation; Two books to read: by J. Gresham and A. Shreve two favs; a book about understanding money for kids; a box of flash card words for grand kids learning to read; a cobalt blue dye square to add color to wax for art making; a belt with $$$ worth of brightly colored wooden beads to take apart and use in art making; a cute box filled with small colorful paper clips shaped like dogs and cats. A little book of birthday quotes. Everything in this bag was between 50 cents and $1.50 each max.

Total: $7. (books were FREE). 13 items.

belt for the beads!

dog and cat paper clips

It's Friday! My Weekend Begins...

I will be spending most of today working on my NYP. This is one small part of it. DH had so many bad guesses as to what it was: Something with a crown, a Christian religious object, he went on and on no where near what my intent was...only to learn he'd never ever seen one before. I sure hope YOU know what it is! Wishing you all a peaceful day. Our weather person has promised us a big wind and rain storm today, this weekend, but so far its a bit overcast, but still and dry. Time will tell.

Okay, my sewing machine is calling me...gotta go.

The fabrics here are raw silk, cotton, and a plush velvet like trim.

Grateful Thursday

This Thursday I have much to be grateful for. My back is healing from it's very minor surgery (cyst removal). No more doctor visits needed, no more wick to pull out and put back; just down to one little bandage to be changed daily. My new blog friend, Becky, sent me these wonderful lino woodcuts she does in the form of this bookmark called "Aging Woman" I had admired... and these wonderful ATCS are " healing art cards"...she made for me...

Thank you Becky!

***

And then I received this beautiful collaged post card in the mail (naked)

from Lisa. To hear the story about it and my reaction

go to our Global Greetings Blog site to see it and

many other lovely postcards made and shared.

Love it, thanks Lisa.

***

So I am grateful for good health again

Good friends who send caring thoughts, words and gifts

Grateful that I have a job,

A roof over my head,

food on the table,

A caring, loving husband, who continues to change

bandages even when he is suffering from a yucky cold.

*** I hope this finds you feeling well and happy too!

;-)

Animal Wednesday and A Tad More King Tut

DH bought this Egyptian Cat at the gift shop on Sunday for his students in his classroom where he teaches history of this country and era. How fitting for Animal Wednesday! You might be surprised to learn that on my third day of posting photos from our visit to the King Tut exhibit on Sunday that I did not particularly want to go to this exhibit. I often drag my feet when DH, the historian extraordinaire, wants to drag me off to some adventure of his choosing.

I really felt like I was going to be bored silly so when I saw they also had the Amish Quilt exhibit I figured something for him and something for me...

Little did I know that I would get caught up in the awesomeness of it all. The discovery of these buried treasures; the amount of them, the age of them and then learning the history of this 9 yr old King who lived to a mere 20 years of age and all his family. I was hooked.

Not to mention how much art was involved, from gold leaf, to beads, to interesting costume/dress; and ART!

Thanks DH for doing the dragging. I am almost always happy I went and this time I was enraptured!

More Museum Day Photos at Cris' Request

I actually took these next two photos for Soulbrush. These lovely African animals were on display in the gift shop to coordinate with the African Exhibit going on in the museum. as were these beaded African dolls. I know she will love them as I did. A shot of folks standing in the rain outside waiting to get into the museum. there were so many visitors they had to be lined up in groups and allowed in to the exhibit so many at a time. We arrived at nine and were put in the 10:30 group! Not a bad wait. Lots of time to check out the gift shops. This piece of art was in the waiting area.

as was this timeline history...for the King Tut exhibit.

More gift shop goods...

this was the view out the door where we ate lunch at the museum lots of rain

a few more shots from the pier by the bridge of fishermen at the end of their day

More??? ****

I saw my doctor today and she took the wick out of my wound

from the cyst removal last week.

No more need to go back to her she said.

Now we let it heal...keep taking antibiotics,

apply antibiotic cream and bandage daily.

I am on the mend!

Thanks for all your concern, caring and good thoughts.

****

and Henry V is fit as a fiddle again too!

De Young Museum; King Tut; Amish Quilts!

Sunday: What a Day we had. The plan was to get up VERY EARLY in the morning to get to San Francisco to be first (well almost first) in line at the de Young Museum for the King Tut Exhibit that was to be FREE this weekend! The day was overcast, foggy and City sat in grayness as seen in this photo from the Bay Bridge. It was raining when we got there. The good news was the recent museum renovation added in- house parking so we took advantage of that as there was no street parking we could see. And then we went out front to get in line. It was raining gently... and the line of people, we sure weren't anywhere near going to be first in line, was snaking around and around...

and down the street and around farther than we could see...for the end of the line.

Fortunately for us someone came along saying that museum members could go right in. We were not yet members, but I asked if we could become members NOW and get right in?

And was told YES we could. Membership for seniors was $50. Only one of us had to be a member and the other would be the guest of that member at no cost.

So in we went, signed up for 15 months of membership that gave us FREE entry to this show (King Tut; the Amish Quilt show also on now; and anything else we wanted to see today or in the next fifteen months!) We are stoked! As there will be an Impressionists show including Van Gogh in March, and other shows we are very interested in. We see our $50 paying for a lot of art and culture now and more very very soon. We were NOT allowed to photograph in the exhibits for course. But it was okay to capture some things in the hallways and gift shops...

For instance, if you'd like a gold throne this one is on sale!

And these statues were memory triggers for the absolutely awesome works of art we saw in the exhibit. The history is something DH teaches his sixth graders...And I realized I was seeing things with new eyes used to seeking out details now in art, jewelry...I don't have room enough here to describe my feelings, reactions, sense of awe I felt seeing these uncovered (1922) treasures of 3200 years ago!

Talk about being inspired...look out for bird wings in thread painting coming to this blog sometime soon.

Replica jewelry in the gift shop was very pretty indeed.

And getting into the Amish Quilt show was just icing on the cake.

Their hand stitched quilts from blue men's work shirts, pink girls dresses and trimmed in black from the women's dresses from the late 1800's -1942 was just breathtaking.

All those tiny stitches done by hand.

These are not Amish work but some tidbits found in the gift shop.

The T-shirts and cups did have pictures taken from the collection.

And we were were finally saturated in art and beauty

and got ready to leave we saw that the lines of people were still pouring in,

as the rain continued to pour down on them.

I wanted to tell them it was worth the wait!

We went from the museum to our favorite spot near the Golden Gate Bridge, The Warming Hut for coffees and cookies...The Fort Mason Used Book Store... the fishing pier...

enjoying the barking and diving sea lions...

It was worth getting up so early in the morning...

Such a good good day!

Fun Meet Up results in Quilted Business Card Holder

Yesterday I drove to Davis to meet Hannah Klaus Hunter and her sister, A. I carried a copy of Quilting Arts magazine as my carnation of identification. No need, I recognized Hannah from behind at the coffee line from her blog photo.

I realize I don't get out a lot to meet new people and wondered what I'd talk about. I am laughing now, and if Hannah is reading this she is near hysterical I imagine, as I talked and talked and talked. I imagine I told them more about myself than they ever wanted to know or cared about. But I had fun. My energy level had returned after my little health break and I was "happily high" on life.

It was delightful for me to meet these interesting women and to share our interests in our work, art and lives. Since they are way more "private persons" than myself, I'll let you meet Hannah through her blog. She is new at blogging, so I invite you to go there and liven it up with your energy and art sharing, become a follower, bring your friends and enjoy learning more about her and her wonderful art. HERE. You can say Lynn sent you! ;-)

We shared business cards, and Hannah mentioned that she'd love to have a quilted fabric card holder. So what do I do? I come home, find a pattern on line and make her one. Shown above.

I hope you like it Hannah.

Now it won't be a surprise next Sunday when I go to her home for a Collage Salon! I can hardly wait!!!!

Work Done Today on NYP; Henry Back to Vets!

I had fun today at home at my sewing machine working on my NYP! Sewing words free motion style on silk from India!A pasha from the Hebrew Bible on cotton cloth on silk on linen. Thread painting a butterfly on muslin with silk bits and purple thread.

Almost done with this part of the process...

I love the way the silk circles pop up when sewn around.

******* Henry V came in limping this morning.

Put him immediately in his carrier and took him to the vet to get checked out.

All the vets were in the parking lot???

Turns out the business had been robbed the night before...so glad I didn't call first

as they may have turned me away. All their computers were stolen, stuff all over the floor...

But the vets took pity on me and Henry and agreed to examine him.

No broken bones found. In fact he stopped limping in the office.

Vet said he was masking it like a animal in the wild protecting itself from predators.

She decided it might well be a pulled muscle and put him on bed rest for two days.

Henry agreed and slept all day long in the art studio

while I was busy at my sewing machine.

Hopefully he'll feel better in the morning. He did continue to limp once home again.