The View from Here:

This is our coldest morning of the season, thus far. Our weather radio said it was a brisk 39 here in Gainesville at 7:00 AM, but we are a bit north of the city and also lower, so it is cooler. There was frost all over the golf course as Barker and I took our morning walk.
Here's the view of our lake from our patio at 9:30 AM:

The American Boychoir from Princeton, New Jersey will be performing at our church this evening, and C and I have offered to host two of the boys for the next two nights. I'm eager to hear them in concert, and to get to know our young guests! So, now I need to go straighten things up around here!!

PEACE

T'Would Be A Pity...........

not to visit the city!!!

After taking Barker for his nice, long walk through our Atlanta Midtown neighborhood this morning, we headed off to the Highland Bakery/Cafe in the Old Fourth Ward for breakfast:

Kristin and Dave introduced us to this wonderful eatery three weeks ago, and we haven't missed a Sunday since! This building originally housed the "Old Highland Bakery" in the early 1900s. Many of the elderly in this neighborhood recall enjoying the wonderful cinnamon rolls served here when they were youngsters. When neighborhood supermarkets opened, the bakery closed, and eventually the building housed artists' studios. Recently the old bakery was purchased by Stacey Eames and it has returned to its original use, plus the advent of the cafe. Thanks be to God!!! MMMMMMMMMM!!! As you walk through the front doors, here's what you observe on a normal Sunday morning:


And then you spy this little bakery case with all of the dilectable sweets offered for you to take home and devour:


You give your name, wait for a table and glance around at the bar and some of the fresh pastries that have just been loaded into yet another pastry case while you get yourself a cup of the Highland Bakery coffee:

These sweet potato biscuits, fresh out of the oven, greeted us at our table:

We enjoyed our coffee and biscuits, and then our breakfast arrived. C got this gorgeous plate of "Cowboy Benedict":

and I truly enjoyed the Highland Breakfast with fruit rather than meat:

I had to chuckle over the grits. My Mother and I had been discussing breakfasts the other day and she, being born and bred a Yankee cannot abide by "those corn things", which we Southerners fondly call grits. The grits at the Highland Bakery are so sweet and creamy...what's not to like???? Ok, ok, so I enjoyed half of a sweet potato biscuit, ALL of the grits, just one egg, and ALL of the fruit....isn't that acceptable??? Oh, it was so good!!!

Here's another view of the bakery crowd on a typical Sunday morning:



Next, we went to Ikea to make a few purchases for the condo. I love having Ikea so closeby!







Early in the afternoon we walked up to the Botanical Gardens to view the Fall flowers. Little did we know that it was "Goblins in the Garden" Sunday and our visit would be accompanied by literally hundreds of little ghosts and goblins! Here's a cute little peacock toddling off from her parents:

and here's a Monarch Butterfly trying to escape from her doting Grandmother:


There were Scarecrows galore, and I was particularly attracted to this knitting scarecrow:

We sought refuge from many of the ghosts and goblins in the Orchid House, and then we went on to the Water Garden where I spotted these beautiful water lilies:


This evening we attended Evensong at All Saints Episcopal Church, which is within walking distance of our condo. The Rev'd Noelle York-Simmons, who is one of our favorites, was preaching the Homily this evening, so we felt truly blessed.

Dinner tonight was again within walking distance at Pasta da Pulcinella. We feel it our bounden duty to conduct a tasting of the local Midtown calamari offerings, and tonight's was truly delightful! We also shared a mixed field green salad with a balsamic vinaigrette dressing. C enjoyed the Tortelli de Mele (ravioli stuffed with Granny Smith Apples, sausage and parmigiano), while I just had to have the Gnocchi special, topped with sun-dried tomatoes and roasted walnuts.

What a terrific day!!! When I sit in my wheelchair in the old folks home, I will have very pleasant memories of this day in Midtown Atlanta!!!

So many of our Gainesville friends will not put up with the traffic to drive into Atlanta, and are frightened by the "dangers" in the big city. I embrace the people and the places of Atlanta, and am so thankful that C does the same!

PEACE

Atlanta Deja Vu

Yesterday was the regularly scheduled meeting of the Silk Painters of Atlanta (SPA), and I have been unable to attend for the past few months, so I was bound and determined to be there this time! Quite often the meetings coincide with our weekend visits to the condo, but due to scheduling conflicts, this one did not. Our church dinner group was meeting "at home" last night, so I made a round trip visit to Atlanta for the meeting, then we went to dinner with our church friends last evening, and this morning we got up bright and early and headed back down to the city. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! How can it be that this country mouse adores the city so very much?

As always the SPA meeting was loads of fun and very informative! This group of ladies truly feeds my soul and I am so thankful for the privilege of meeting with them. I am going to post pictures on our SPA blog, but I will post just a few here too:

This is Martha telling about her technique of applying the painted silk to her stretched canvases. Aren't her figures just incredible!!

Above is Gail's wonderful piece. Gail has been trained in Japanese Brush painting and she has adapted that technique (which she teaches regularly in the Atlanta area) to silk. What a knockout piece she has done. You may find her work offered for sale all over the city, and most recently at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

The above piece is one done by Inez. Her incredible work really speaks to my soul! She brought along many pieces to share, and she uses so many different techniques. I was in awe.

This last wonderful piece was done by Sue. In a past life, she was a watercolorist...well, she still paints watercolors, but now she also works in silk. Isn't this piece magnificent?!!

When we got to Midtown this morning, we headed for Piedmont Park in hopes of buying our last pastry of the Green Market season from our friend Brooke at Breadgarden...but she wasn't there! We "settled" for an incredibly yummy hummingbird muffin from the Sweet Auburn Bakery, and then headed down the street for coffee and people watching at Caribou. Afterwards we hit the neighborhood yard sales. Here's my only find for the day:

not much, but Rayna will be proud!

This afternoon we enjoyed a lunch of mussels, French bread, and a salade Nicoise on the patio at Apres Diem, and then saw Sean Penn's heart wrenching "Into the Wild" at Midtown Arts cinema. I don't recall reading John Krakauer's book upon which the movie is based but I know we read the excerpts in "Outside" magazine. Even though I knew the outcome, I still wasn't prepared for the movie's end. The photography is beautiful, but I fervently hope that Christopher McCandless found peace, love and understanding before his life ended....and I think he did.

I have one minor rant before I close. I was mailing several small packages at our local post office yesterday afternoon, and decided to use my credit card for payment. Well, I do not sign my credit cards, mainly because I like store clerks to be on their toes and ask for further identification when accepting my credit card payment. The postal clerk informed me that she could not accept my credit card unless I signed it! "That's the law", she told me! right!!! I explained my reason for not signing the card and she said it didn't matter. I showed her my id, and she handed me a pen saying, "sign your card, or give me cash, or don't mail your packages". I am wondering if the Postmaster General has worried his little head over this bureaucratic detail or if this clerk just decided to be ornery at 5:00 PM on a Friday afternoon. I mean really!!! Let me know if you sign your credit cards and why. I'm just curious.

PEACE

BiCoastal Best Wishes

I really don't recall how I first became acquainted with Lisa Congdon (this is truly like "which came first the chicken or the egg?" since I can't remember if I started reading Lisa's blog first or her Mother Gerrie's!), but I know that I've had her/my wonderful Mod Bird for at least two years, maybe three? Here she is:

So, today Lisa and her business partner Rena are opening Rare Device, their new shop/gallery in San Francisco! WooHoo!!! I am so thrilled and excited for Lisa, as I know this has been a long time in the making! I can't wait until our next trip to SF, so that we can go take a peak, but until then I'll have to be content with its website. And Gerrie, I wish you were pouring me a little glass of wine right about now!

For my most recent birthday, Lisa's Mom, Gerrie, made me an incredible Fiber Art cruciform in my favorite colors: chartreuse and red. Accompanying that was this lovely card:

also made by Lisa!

So, if you're in the SF area, stop by Rare Device and check it out!

Congrats and BIG hugs to Lisa on her dream come true and a new chapter in her young life!!

PEACE

Solvy, Part Deux

So, I went to bed last night with visions of Solvy dancing in my head! I could hardly wait to get up this morning and get started.........but wait, Wednesday is the day that I am out of the house running errands, going to the gym, having lunch with friends, visiting with my Mom and taking a class in the Architecture of Paris. Not to mention dinner at Church and an after dinner program! What to do? Well.......I was late getting out of the house because I just had to play with Solvy!

Here are the first pieces that I made this morning. I used a very pale blue chiffon scarf that I had had for eons, and some gold metallic thread. I stitched all of the leaves, but only rinsed the Solvy out of a couple and pressed them before I left the house. I was late and I had miles (literally) to swim!

While swimming, I began to think of lots more possibilities...hey, I had lots of time and not much else to do but move my arms, kick, and breath! I remembered that I had this brownish chiffon"dog scarf" (that's what my friend Diane and I call the ones that don't sell) that was begging for a new life. So after church tonight, I made these two:


Here's a close-up of the one on the left. I haven't done the fine line cutting on them yet, but you get the general idea.

What's great about this mindless stitching is that I can crank up "Eat Pray Love" on my ipod and catch up on Liz Gordon's life........"we've" just left India!

Now for those of you who don't "get" the whole Solvy thing, here's a recent cartoon out of the New Yorker that you might enjoy:



Oh, I hope you can read it!

Now I'm off to watch the World Series. I am so torn in this one. I cut my baseball teeth on the Red Sox and I'm so glad that they've made it back into the Series again, but now as an adult living in the Atlanta area, I feel major, major obligations to the National League and the Rockies. What's a girl to do? I think I'll just enjoy the last of the season, watch this year's creme de la creme play and not worry about rooting for either team!

PEACE

Solvy

Among the blogs that I check daily, Karen's always proves to be interesting. She recently purchased a new Pfaff sewing machine and has had a lot of fun playing around with it. Yesterday she posted a lovely picture of a piece of fiber that she had made using water soluble fabric. I have always wanted to play around with Solvy, but just hadn't taken the time...until tonight, that is. While this isn't nearly as elegant as Karen's piece, I achieved what I had hoped to accomplish:

I realize that this just looks like one big glob of threads to you, but it is actually a sheet of fabric and it thrills me to no end!!!! I don't know if you can see the metallic threads that are shimmering away in that mess, but they are there. Most of the fibers are trimmings from my drapery lining fabric from last week, but there are also a lot of trimmed threads from previous machine embroidered pieces. I'm thrilled with my first little venture with Solvy and can't wait to do more....and to put this little piece to use!!

Good Night! and:

PEACE

and no, Karen, I won't bother to © this picture because who would want to copy it?

Toyz

Last week I enjoyed several very profitable shopping trips! I normal detest shopping (yes, that is stronger than hate!), but I did so well last week that I may just have to go out and try it again sometime! It's not agorraphobia mind you, I'd just prefer to be home playing with fabric.

What did I find, you are begging me to tell you? Let me begin with the most wonderful Yard Sale find I've ever had!! Here is my brand-new-to me (but never before been used by anyone) ipod docking station with am/fm radio, alarm clock, recharger, yada, yada, yada! $5.00...in case you missed my last post!!! I am so thrilled!! I already had a very simple dock in my sewing room, but this little baby is in my dyeing studio, so now I can listen to my audio books while I'm dyeing! Yayyy!!

Here is another incredible find:
This is a 2-burner hot plate that actually accomodates my two stainless bowls that I am using to make up my Japanese dyes! Isn't it lovely?!!!!

And here below I have:

my third, and I might hastily add, my largest thermostatically controlled electric fry pan for heating up my wax. This baby is the family sized edition and will be used exclusively for beeswax and parrafin.

Here are two of my dye solutions happily simmering away:



I suppose most women would be happiest with a new item of clothing, but that seems to take a back burner, so to speak, to me. I'd much rather have a few more toyz!!

Hope you had a playful day with your toyz!

PEACE

Weekend Happenings

Yesterday morning I attached the lining to my dressing room drapery, under the careful supervision of my ever-present companion, Barker:



When you last viewed the lining, I had ironed it but not washed it. The funny thing was that a lot of the blue dye that I sprayed onto the lining washed out!! HMMMMM! At first I was a bit dismayed...and I still can't figure out why that happened....but then I liked the effect that remained. Even I've gotta admit that this is a bit wild for a drapery lining (I know, I know: what was she smokin??) but it was purely for practice, right??



Here's a bit of a closeup to show you just where the sprayed blue dye remained:

Every so often I can see evidence of it on the background, but mostly it remained on the stamped portions and the brayered leaves. Can anyone tell me why????

The main drapery fabric is a lovely satin devore with a morning glory pattern that I purchased last year from Thai Silks. I dyed it blue, but now when you look out through that drapery covered window, it appears to be stained glass! I am so pleased with the outcome!

We headed for Atlanta yesterday afternoon and enjoyed a wonderful Italian dinner in Virginia Highlands at Figo and then walked next door to Paolo's for Gelato. MMMMMMM! I had the riso (rice) and C enjoyed the Dulce de leche. As I wrote the other day, we are both listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love" on our ipods, so Italian just seemed like the cuisine of choice!

It's a beautiful weekend here, and the neighborhood was chock full of yard sales when we walked Barker this morning. Two of our friends were selling these wonderful old books:

I just couldn't resist! Check out the title of the book on the right, and look at one of the many wonderful illustrations inside "The Swan and her Crew":

We also found a brand new ipod docking station with AM/FM radio and alarm clock for $5!! So now we have two: one for him and one for me! Breakfast featured fresh pastries purchased from the Breadgarden's table at Piedmont Park's Green Market, plus coffee at Caribou's outside tables, where another customer asked if she could photograph Barker (of course he obliged!). She explained that she had just returned from France and hadn't seen one French Poodle worth photographing...but Barker was the dog she wanted to show her friends!! I just hope she didn't catch the Caribou logo in her pic!!

We closed out the afternoon by going to see the newly released documentary "For the Bible tells me so", which I have to say so embraces our sentiments concerning homosexuality, the so-called Christian element which preaches that homosexuality is an "abomination", and my pride in my Episcopal church for electing Gene Robinson as its first gay Bishop and openly welcoming ALL to worship. We had read several reviews before going to see the movie, and most felt that it was aesthetically unpleasing although the subject matter was well presented. Both C and I like documentaries and we found this to be extremely well done..........we give it a TEN!

Tonight we are dining in on Shrimp and Sausage Gumbo from MetroFresh, San Francisco Sourdough Bread from Trader Joes, Aurugula from Trader Joes, and perhaps, just perhaps, a few dark chocolate covered Edamame from the aforementioned TJs!....but first, a spot of gin!

PEACE

All in a Day's Work

I began work on the lining of draperies for my dressing room window the other day. Actually, this is a practice piece for something that I intend to create over the next few months, so rather than put a piece of blah white fabric on the lining, I decided it was a blank canvas that was begging for some work. Here are some of the results....actually, more complex cloth:

I cut this fabric up into sections (only a quilter would cut up perfectly good fabric and then sew it back together again!), pleated it, painted it with Procion MX dyes, washed it, removed the gathering threads, ironed it, sewed the sections back together, stamped it with thickened Procion MX dyes (first with leaves and then with the square-in-a-square stamp), and then sprayed it with a fine mist of the blue dye.
I really like how it turned out....certainly not your mother's drapery lining!! LOL

Remember that volunteer tomato plant that showed up in my daylily garden in August? Well, look what I added to my salad this noon:

If you think you see water droplets on the tomato plant, you are correct! Yes, it rained again today!! Yehaw!!!!! And as you can see, we should have plenty more little grape tomatoes before Thanksgiving:

Here are just a few of the many shots I snapped of our Sleepytime Boy last night:

As you can see in the first Barker shot, he never totally lost the scar from his Springtime fling with the Copperhead. But he's still just as sweet as can be, and we love him dearly!!

PEACE

Ketchup, Catsup, CatchUP Day

Here are a few pics from last Saturday's Art Festival at St. Bart's Episcopal Church in Atlanta.

Our friends Durwood and Jim were there with us, and we were lucky enough to set up next to eachother:







Durwood's colorful folk art work, made from recycled tin was a huge hit. The show was in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, and clever Durwood made a lot of Episcopal shields and other memorabilia.



Here is my table, flanked by my neighbors' tents: the soap lady pictured to my left and Durwood, to my right.


This was not a scarfy kind of crowd, but they did like my framed quilted pieces, batik tees and silk notecards. I find it interesting how different things sell at various venues.

I've been tagged by Karen.....sigh.......so now I must turn around and do the dirty deed to seven of my cyber buddies. As Karen said, it is indeed a double-edged sword because it is nice to know that folks are reading my blog, but then again, I hate going out and tagging others. Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself: some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).

4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.

So here are my 7 random and/or weird facts:

1.I hate to watch TV.

2.I love to dye fabric.

3.I am very shy.

4.I love RED

5. I am currently listening to "Eat, Pray, Love" on my ipod

6.I hated drinking coffee until last year when we went to Costa Rica and I was introduced to the very best coffee in the world...now I'm addicted!

7.I broke both baby fingers my sophomore year in high school while playing field hockey.

So now here comes the dirty deed of tagging...and please forgive me! I shall tag Anita, Deb R., Karoda, Kathleen, Vicki, Patsy, and Deb L. I apologize if you didn't want to be tagged and got tagged, and I also apologize if you wanted to be tagged and were spared! Life's just like that sometimes!

PEACE

Blog Action Day

Today is Blog Action Day and I wanted to write about not only the environement but specifically about our water, its quality and here in the southeast, its present scarcity.

We are fortunate enough to spend a week or two most summers on lovely and pristine Squam Lake in New Hampshire. It is a beautiful spot, but that doesn't just happen all on its own. The people around Squam work at it, and they work at it with great diligence. The Squam Lakes Association is a tireless group of folks whose sole goal is to "preserve the natural beauty, peaceful character and unique resource values of the lakes and their surrounding area". Why can't we all be more motivated to do the same for the bodies of water near our homes?

Here's a picture I took this past summer from our little boat dock looking down onto the lake floor:



unbelievably clear, isn't it? MMMMMMM, and the water is so cool and sweet!

Another view of lovely Squam:

And here it is in the evening:

Notice anything different about this lake? Well, I for one, appreciate that there isn't cabin-upon-cabin on top of eachother on the lake's edge. The folks on Squam are careful about how closely they build to one another, and where their drainage goes. Preserve and Protect!!!

Just one more shot and I'm off of my soap box:


Monitor your water usage...turn the tap off when you're not using the water. Turn off the shower when you're shaving your legs - you don't need to keep the water running. And for heaven's sake, take a shorter shower....or better yet, shower with a friend!!!

PEACE

WAY TO GO AL!!!