The Silk Painters of Atlanta met today at Chastain Art Center. This is one of my favorite groups and I try my darnedest to attend the meetings. Our group "Mom" Martha couldn't attend because she is in the hospital (some folks will go to no lengths to skip a meeting!), and we missed her terribly and send along our best wishes for her speedy recovery, but we managed to get through the tortures of the meeting...only kidding!
Hellene was wearing a lovely silk scarf that she had dyed, and so we asked her to take it off and explain her processes:
Isnt' it great!!!! I wish I had a full length pic of it so you could see all of the colors that she used. Well done Hellene!!
It was a treat (especially for me!) to have Julie Jennings join us today. I had met Julie just once before when she was exhibiting her beautiful works at the Flower Show in Atlanta. Here is a portion of one of the scarves that she brought along for our 'show and tell':
I showed a few of the tees that I have been dyeing plus the kimono jacket that I shared with you yesterday. I will post more pics on the Silk Painters of Atlanta blog spot tomorrow.
Atlanta's Rush hour traffic back to Midtown was already going strong at 3:00 PM when I left Chastain to head back to Midtown. C, Barker and I loaded up the car and headed north to our 'real' home.
Tonight I've had the pleasure of completing sock numero uno in pair tres of my knitting journey:
As you can plainly see, this sock has a ruffled cuff......I thought it would be "cute" and also an increase in my learning curve, but alas, I do not like it! So: that is the end of the ruffled cuff for moi! Sock numero dos in pair tres will have a traditional cuff, ergo: no ruffle!!!
Look for more about today tomorrow at the SPA blog!PEACE
I have spent the better part of the last two days assembling this little kimono jacket. My mother and both grandmothers, not to mention at least one Home Ec teacher, spent countless hours teaching me to sew, and I always thought that I was a better-than-average seamstress, but both this pattern and this yummy silk charmeuse put me through my paces!
That said, I am pleased with the outcome of my little kimono jacket. The charmeuse is buttery soft and the color is equally as enticing! When I took this picture, there was a slight breeze blowing on the patio, and although I thought that my "grey lady" was sufficiently covered, she came a bit undone!
Tomorrow is our Silk Painters of Atlanta meeting. I'm looking forward to seeing friends that I only get to see a few times a year. We will miss Martha, who is recuperating from Shingles. Be well Martha!!PEACE
As promised, the electricians showed up bright and early this morning to finish installing our new lights. I love these pendants, and it is really nice to have the halogen cans up in the ceiling, rather than hanging down with all their glare.
Here's a little closer look at the pendants:
C has been keeping the guys busy rebuilding the old patio arbor. We have decreased its size from I believe 9 uprights to 3, added a little "roof" (to keep C and the grill dry when he is grilling in rainy weather), and may leave it natural, to match the new pool fencing. The men hadn't added the "roof" when I snapped this picture:
That is Pat, our contractor, on the left. I am so pleased with all of the work that he and his crew have done for us. They were great to work with, and even though both C and I treasure our privacy, I think we may actually miss having those guys around!
I had a few this afternoon to play with the silk charmeuse yardage that I showed you yesterday. I hope that I'll have a finished piece to display tomorrow..........so, stay tuned!!!PEACE
Before I get started, I want to give a special shout out to my new friend Debra, a fellow Georgian whom I have yet to meet. She left the sweetest comment after my last post. I think a lot of other bloggers will agree that when posting, we are really hanging ourselves out there, exposing both ourselves and our families, not to mention the highs, lows, and mediocres in our lives. It is always nice to receive comments (yes, even the negative ones), so that we know who is reading us. I also want to say hello to Ineke, the lovely lady from whom we purchased our beautiful home over ten years ago. We had been next door neighbors and friends for quite a long time, and I still miss her and her husband, Martin, as they have moved away and we never get to see them now. Ineke purchased a scarf from me the other day......one that I had posted a pic of on the blog a week or so ago! What fun!!!!
My friend Roberta (aka Dr. Sock) came over yesterday and gave me a great lesson in yarn dyeing. We had the most fun playing in the studio, and I really wish that she would have stayed longer. Maybe next time Roberta??
I didn't have my camera with me for the first couple of skeins of yarn that she dyed in pink gradations, but I ran back into the house and got it so that I could take a few pics as we did round two:
She had brought along her Jacquard acid dyes, and had mixed up some lilac and some chartreuse (YUMM!) and I offered up some of my blue Japanese acid dye. Here's how the skein looked after applying the dye:
Then Roberta carefully wrapped it all up in the plastic wrap which she had placed underneath before dyeing:
Isn't that just yummy looking? Sort of reminds me of an Easter egg! Here are her four skeins of yarn ready to go into the steamer. (She uses an old pot with a steamer basket in the bottom, and they steamed for only 20 minutes.)
Roberta went home shortly after lunch and washed and dried the yarn. She sent me pics this morning, and I am just in awe of how beautiful they all came out:
I'm in love with this last one, and have to tell you that I'm ordering some yarn to dye! Oh Lord!!
Last week I set out to dye my first silk yardage, stretching it on some saw horses that I had found discarded by the side of the road (hmmmm: sounds like Virginia Spiegel's Tuesday Garbage Day Project, doesn't it?). You may recall this photo, or one similar to it with Barker guarding the silk!
I wasn't too terribly excited with round 1 of my process, but photographed it anyway:
The next day, I came back in and added more red and also lots more salt, as I just love the salting effect on silk:
It looked good then while it was still wet, but after it dried, the silk was quite blah and I was pretty darned depressed about it. So yesterday after Roberta left, I did some discharging on it, and then stamped some thickened purple dye on top of that:
At that point I figured I had nothing to lose and just tinkered away with it until there was no more silk to tinker with! Because this silk is 45" wide, I had to add the "top floor" to my rocket steamer (this was a first for me) and had to climb up onto the top of my stepstool in order to load the silk package down into the steamer:
I was thrilled almost to tears three hours later when this gorgeous piece of silk emerged from the steamer! You've come a loooooong way baby!!!
I'll bet you're wondering what I'm going to do with it. Any guesses?????PEACE!
Good Friday? Well, it is more than good for me...it was more like WONDERFUL!
Mickey and Wanda, our lady painters, arrived midmorning to paint our kitchen ceiling. Thanks be to God! Now the rest of our lights can be hung, and the can lights can go up into their little sockets.
Our daughter Kristin drove from Atlanta and she, C, and I took my Mom out to lunch at Red Lobster, Mom's favorite local restaurant. We had a great time, and she ate her fair share of lobster, shrimp and scallops!
Kristin headed back to Atlanta, and we packed our bags and left for the condo. It was a gorgeous afternoon and I kind of hated to leave home, but the city was calling.
I am finally getting a little more at ease going out onto our 14th floor balcony. Here is the view straight down:
Do the chaises remind you of piano keys? They do me! The pool is actually on the 7th floor, but the street that you see to the right is 14 floors below our little balcony.
Back inside, Barker has settled down for a bit of a nap.
And the moon rising was pretty incredible!
This morning's sunrise wasn't too shabby either:
We had a fun day: I spent some time knitting at Knitch, one of my new favorite haunts, the cableguy showed up and got us all hooked up, and C and I had a nice early dinner at Ted's Montana Grill downtown before taking in "Pure Confidence" at the Theatrical Outfit. Our tickets had originally been for last weekend, but with the tornado striking that part of downtown, last Saturday night's performance was cancelled and we had to reschedule. It was our first trip downtown since the tornado, and both C and I were horrified at the destruction just a few miles from our condo. So many windows were blown out of the Westin Hotel and other buildings in the area, the roof of the Tabernacle (where we saw Norah Jones in concert just last summer) is gone, and much damage to Grady Hospital, just to name a few things that we saw. Our waiter at Ted's said that he was tending bar when the storm hit, and the next thing he knew glass was flying everywhere. He ended up huddled with patrons and employees alike in the booths in the back of the restaurant. It is a wonder that no lives were lost.
C brought me this lovely orchid plant this afternoon, and it brought back memories of the orchid corsages that my Dad used to bring my Mom to adorn her Easter attire.
HAPPY EASTER
PEACE
First off, thanks to all of you for your emails, kind thoughts, and prayers during the hellacous tornadic weather that we in Atlanta experienced over the weekend.
My family and I were all very lucky and escaped unscathed. I feel like we dodged a huge bullet, and I am most thankful. C and I were preparing to move into our new (to us) condo in Midtown and were ending our day with a celebratory toddy in our as yet-to-be-furnished digs. We had purchased two leather chairs earlier in the evening and were just beginning to enjoy the city night lights when the thunder and lightening began. Without the aid of radio, tv or internet, we were peacefully sitting facing northeast, so never saw the action that was going on no more than a mile or two to the southeast of us. Our daughter and son-in-law (who live about 10 miles south of our condo) were out on their second story porch watching the storm as it approached their home from the west. They did see the flashes of electrical transformer lights and explosions, and also heard the "freight train" sound just before they sought shelter indoors. Thankfully the tornado also eluded them! It wasn't until later that evening that C and I returned to our "old" condo and turned on the TV and then realized that there had been a tornado in downtown Atlanta, and so many were without homes and power. We are all so thankful that so many lives were spared. It could have been so much worse!
Our movers arrived bright and early Saturday morning and C, Barker and I were moved out of our old digs and into our new condo by noon time. Unfortunately we had no cable and no internet, so I was unable to email or blog until this afternoon when we got back to "home/home".
I think both C and I are smitten with our new Midtown digs.....the condo couldn't suit us better, and the view is just phenomenal! I am enjoying everything about it: our neighbors, the management, the layout of our condo, etc. I cooked every meal after we moved in, as the kitchen is so handy and accomodating......not to mention the fact that I have really missed cooking, with our home kitchen being renovated!
On Sunday afternoon we were supposed to go to a play at the Balzer Theater, but it was cancelled due to the tornado, which ripped right through that part of town. (Thankfully the theater did not sustain any damage, but the area was littered with debris.) So C and I had a leisurely morning of reading the paper, organizing our master closet, hanging pictures, and other odds and ends. After lunch, we went shopping for fresh produce at the Dekalb Farmers' Market, purchasing some lovely sea scallops, brussels sprouts, an artichoke, some smoked cheese, and a bushel of Texas Rio Star grapefruit. (After listening to Barbara Kingsolver's "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" I almost feel guilty about this trip!) Our dinner last night was a fabulous feast!
I got up early this morning, not wanting to miss the sunrise. How is it that our bodies seem to snap to the wishes of our brains? At some point yesterday I had thought that it would be nice to get up early and watch the sunrise, and voila!!! It was still very dark when Barker and I first toddled out into the livingroom, but I could see a slight rosey tinge at the horizon. I snapped a few pics, but they were all blurry (need to get a tripod!). Here are a few of the better shots between about 7:15 and 7:45:
the "mound" just to the left of center is Stone Mountain
We came home late this morning to find our new kitchen in "move in" condition, with all appliances in working order! WooHoo! So I began unpacking boxes (again!) and trying to find good homes for all of the kitchen tools I have been collecting over the past 37+ years of marital bliss. I am more than ecstatic about how everything seems to work! Months, and actually years, of planning have all paid off!
Thanks again for all of your kind thoughts over the past hellacous weather weekend! It means more than you will ever know!PEACE
My own very personal "Christmas" arrived this morning at about 8:30. This was the day that I had been waiting for: how were the countertops and backsplashes going to tie in with everything else we had chosen? I've laid awake at night thinking this all out and, quite honestly, agonizing over a few of our decisions. I cannot imagine ever building a house, so my hat is off to all of you who have done so.
The first piece of granite that was installed was our little table/dining area at the end of the island:
My eyes welled up with tears when I saw this lovely piece in my new kitchen!
And then the island piece arrived on the scene:
I was getting a bit used to it then, so I just snapped pictures, and the two installers really thought I was nutso!
Unfortuantely, (or fortunately for the installers!) I had a teeth cleaning appointment at 2:00 PM, so I missed the grand finale! There were errands begging to be run, a much-needed visit to the gym, and then a good visit with my Mom. Barbara Brown Taylor was speaking at our church this evening (now she deserves a blog posting all on her own, but not tonight dear Barbara!), and then we had made plans to dine with friends after the program. Soooooo, it wasn't until almost 10:00 PM that I got to see the countertops and backsplashes all in place. So here they are:
This is the "bar area" looking towards the diningroom. We have Hannestone countertops there, with my favorite granite as the backsplash and the little bar top:
(Hannestone is like Silestone: heat resistant and nonporous.)
This is the Hannestone countertop on the area to the left of the wall oven:
There is now the granite backsplash in back of this area too...but I guess I took this pic before I went to visit the dentist.
Here is the island, finished:
I cannot help but recalling almost a year ago when my sister-in-law Molly and my good friend Bobbie and I stood around one morning planning this whole deal. I love my island!
This is the area behind the island where my range will be slid in and the hood will go above it. It's kind of a shame that some of that granite will be covered by the hood, but it will work! The reeded glass doors on the cabinets are also favorite features of mine. I've got to thank my good friend Shiela for suggesting the reeded glass!
While the countertops were being installed, I spent a couple of hours out in my studio discharging a couple of silk scarves that I had dyed yesterday. Here is the first one, a long, rectangular crepe de chine:
It is actually a lot more coral colored, with bits of grape infused. I just love how it came out!
The scarf below is a large square crepe de chine that I just loved even before the discharging. It reminded me of a tropical storm sky with varying shades of blue, pink, magenta. When I discharged it, the affected areas turned a lovely gold tone:
I discharged a hibiscus-like image on one of the corners:
And look who was waiting in the wings to have his picture snapped:
So, it has been a lovely, lovely day! Any one event (well, perhaps not the trip to have my teeth cleaned!) would have been enough for this gal, but all of them together made it truly spectacular!PEACE
As you can plainly see, this sock has a ruffled cuff......I thought it would be "cute" and also an increase in my learning curve, but alas, I do not like it! So: that is the end of the ruffled cuff for moi! Sock numero dos in pair tres will have a traditional cuff, ergo: no ruffle!!!
