Recipe for a Happy Day:

Tuesday is generally my "work day", when I plan to stay at home and do what makes my heart sing the very most...and that doesn't include vacuuming!!
Last night I downloaded a ton of NPR podcasts so that I would be entertained while I sewed:




My ever-present and loyal partner was by my side:

It is still a bit too cold to go out to my dyeing studio early in the mornings this time of year - unless I crank up the heat, but I hate to waste the energy when it will be plenty warm later in the day. So here's what I was sewing away on this morning:

In the lower left is a postcard of our Lake Lanier. The picture was painted by my friend Anne Brodie Hill. I use the postcard to help me cut when I'm paper piecing...plus, this one makes me happy because it reminds me of Anne.

After Barker and I had our walk and I had my lunch, I headed out to the studio. It was a lovely afternoon with temps in the high 60's. WooHoo!! So, first I washed a much needed load of dye rags. They are rather pretty colorful, aren't they?

There was my kitty cat Elsie, supervising:

I fiddled around with a little printing of some ferns on a piece of fabric from my Sue Beevers class at Campbell. Looks better here than it does in person!!

I did a bunch of batiking, but that won't be ready for viewing for another day or two, then I "worked" on another piece of silk fusion. I had thought that that photo was included here, but it wasn't. Here is what remained on my table when I hung up the fusion to dry:

Wish I could capture that on cloth!

And here are a few more ingredients in this happy day. My Daphne along the walkway to our front door. The fragrance is very intense this year! MMMMMMMM

My daffodils:

We have planted hundreds of daffodils in the gardens of every house we've lived in. I just love them!!! And last but not least, my Hellebores by our front door:

Tell me your recipe for your happy days.

Held Captive!!

The plan was to spend Thursday and Friday nights in Atlanta, departing for home on Saturday just after a MetroFreshual lunch. Having enjoyed a wonderfully yummy breakfast Saturday morning at Java Jive, we were on our way back to the condo when my cell rang. It was John asking where he and Troy were to meet us to go to the new Horizon Theater play on Sunday. We thought our tickets were for next Sunday!! Duhhhhhhhh! So we have had a slight change of plans and here we are still in Atlanta. Sheesh, I hate it when that happens!!!! Ha!!!! It didn't take me long to readjust my plans. I called Kristin and we spent a bit of time shoe shopping at AbbaDabbas in Little Five Points.

I got a pair of these Earth Shoes. They are sooooo comfy!

.........sorry for the blurrs, but my poor camera remains battery-challenged, so I've uploaded this pic from the 'net. I love the feel of these shoes and their look, not to mention the very chique design on the insole. When I told Kristin that one of the reasons I was buying this shoe was because of the insole, she said, "Well, don't you enjoy wearing nice undies too?" Good thinkin'....I knew I brought her up right!!!

We spent the evening "in", watching the second half of "The DaVinci Code" which we had started the night before. I am knitting away on two different socks...the orange-multi that I showed you last week and another variegated blue/green/white which may be for my Mom. SHHHHHH, don't tell her!

Here is a site that you need to check out:
http://haha.nu/creative/creative-photos-by-chema-madoz

Janet Thompson referred to it in a post on the QA site, and I was just blown away, as I am sure you will be too! Which one is your favorite? I'll tell you mine if you share yours!

Here's a shot of the "King and Queen" in one of the northern Atlanta suburbs. C and I can't quite agree on whether they're in Sandy Springs or Dunwoody. I say the latter. Anyway, our friend Bobbie works in one of those buildings...aren't they great!

Later......................!

Sushi Anyone???

We are back in Midtown for a couple of days of city fun. Today we decided to head back to our favorite RuSans for a sushi lunch. They have the most incredible sushi buffet. Here's my first plate:


The YellowTail (at about 4:00 on my plate) was so yummy...just like eating butter! Can you tell that I absolutely adore pickled ginger (a little after 12:00) and wasabi (3:00)??
Here's C's plate...he's more into the tempura, but surprised me by going back for seconds on the sushi!

There are so many restaurants that we absolutely adore in Atlanta and we could happily return to them week after week, like visiting good friends, but we have vowed that we will try a new eating establishment just as often as we possibly can. So last night, a very rainy night in Georgia, we went to Redfish for the first time. Kristin and Dave had been there and raved about it, but we had yet to try it. WOW!!! The portions are huge and the food is outstanding. I started off with a bowl of seafood gumbo (which was to die for) and then had fried oysters on a Caesar Salad...most of which came home in a to-go box, and I will enjoy for this evening's dinner.


We decided to walk up to the High Museum this morning and see some more of the Louvre exhibit. We got rather upclose and personal with my alltime favorite Midtown structure:


We never got close enough for me to catch its name, but I will soon! I just love that wonderful building.

My favorite piece in the High's Louvre exhibit has to be Rembrandt's "St. Matthew and the Angel". This is part of the "Kings as Collectors" show, featuring Louis XIV - XVI. We also mosied on down to the lower level and viewed the amazing works of Louis Monza. Unable to work after a spinal cord injury, Mr. Monza did a lot of linoleum woodcut prints, monoprints and pencil drawings. I am ready to go home and do some printing!!

We walked further north on Peachtree Street to The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, to view their new exhibit. That is always a fun place to visit and today was no exception! The piece you see below is by Sang-Wook Lee:


While at first this looks like nothing, look a bit more closely...perhaps you cannot see it, so I'll tell you. This semi-circular wall is composed of almost 20,000 bricks of ramen noodles and measures 136" tall by 218" long. It is 101" deep!! Mr. Lee, an Asst. professor of fiber at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, GA received inspiration for this piece from the arhitectural ruins of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. It is really something. C and I also enjoyed the Martha Whittington "piece" which there was no way to photograph...you just have to see and hear it. It is terrific!!!

After our Sushi Lunch, we headed north on Piedmont, making a stop at my favorite thrift store, run by The Cathedral of St. Phillip. What a place!! I got a gorgeous beaded vest in there for $5.99! There's no photo because there was no opportunity, and now my batteries are dead!! Sorry!!

As we pulled out of the thrift shop, this car just happened to be in front of us, and the center bumper sticker reminded me of Kristin and her latest quilt series, so I snapped a picture!


I hope you can make it out...it's for Pace Academy, with three buildings with pointy-type roofs.

As many of you have read, "our" Trader Joe's still isn't open, so today we couldn't wait any longer and we drove up to the one in Sandy Springs, just to gird our loins. We LOVED it and feel sure that our Midtown store will be even bigger. It was so much fun just browsing through all of the new stuff! OK Gerrie, I'm ready for the shopping list!!! Here is the back of a Mini Cooper parked in front of Trader Joe's. I just love the bumper stickers!!




Well, that's it for today folks. It is after 9:20 PM and C is telling me we need to eat dinner before settling in for a movie. I've yet to read emails or check my favorite blogs, so I guess I'd better say good night.

xo!!

Got Ballz?????

I was intrigued by an ad in Gaiam Living's Harmony catalogue for some Dryer Balls. It said that they are not only eco friendly (no more dryer sheets in the landfill) but also are kinder to your skin and reduce the time needed to dry clothes. So, I found some at the Bed Bath and Beyond that has opened up near us in Gainesville. Here they are:

I'm takin' them for a spin today and the results thus far: clothes do feel invitingly soft, there is no static cling and I actually think that the drying time may be reduced a bit. My appliance repair man will be so proud of me! On his last couple of visits, he has checked out my lint screen and said that although lint-free, it had a very large build up of residue from the dryer sheet chemicals and he would spend quite a bit of time scrubbing that junk off. He reminded me that I too could do that, thus decreasing drying time. But, ya know, I never remember to do the screen scrubbing. Now perhaps I have found the perfect solution for a number of problems!

On another fiber note, I was busy last night making more silk fusion. The first sheet is from some pre-dyed soy silk roving that I purchased from Joggles. I added some Lion's Mane glitter to the medium and it really made the fusion sparkle.
This second piece is one that I dyed myself with some turquoise and chartreuse...also adding a bit of the Lion's Mane.

This stuff is so addicting!!!!

It's another lovely day here in the Southland, and I may even get out to do some weeding and fertilizing in my flower beds. Waaaay to pretty to stay inside...even if to dye!

Have a great day.

Weekend in Review

C and I had a wonderful couple of days in Atlanta! We were having so much fun on Saturday that I thought I had actually persuaded him to spend one more night at the condo and drive home early for church on Sunday. However, "Mr Sensible" got a grip of his senses, and we left the city at about 6 last night, which made for a very late dinner at home. But Elsie, our kitty cat, was most appreciative of our return.

Saw this bumper sticker in Midtown yesterday, and thought you might enjoy it:


We waddled on over to MetroFresh to pick up soup for lunch yesterday noon. Here's the view from outside, as Barker and I waited for C to appear with our lunches:

We got tired of waiting so walked on over to the site of the soon-to-open Midtown Trader Joes. While he was buying soups, Craig learned from Mitchel at MetroFresh, that the target opening date is actually March 24th....not even a month!! WooHoo!!!! I leaned up against the window and was tres excited when I spotted this sign:

OK now, use your imagination and squint with all your might, and you may just be able to pick out the red shopping carts all lined up and ready for use...neat reflection in the window, huh?!!!


After lunch, we walked up to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to catch the "Orchid Daze" exhibit. It was really fabulous. This year's addition of all of the sculpture by Frabel adds a whole new dimension. I've uploaded a bunch of my pics to Flickr. Let's see if I can show you just one here:



Now I really must go................we got halfway through "Half Nelson" last night, and C is waiting for me so that we can finish it! Bye Bye!!

24 Hours in the City

For some strange reason my beloved Blogger has decided that tonight is not the night to post photos with captions to JudyintheDyes, but bear with me and I'll see what I can do to get through this minor techno-crisis!
C and I (and Barker the ever watchful watchdoggy)departed "home" in Gainesville just about 24 hours ago and headed for our second lovely home in Midtown, Atlanta. I had taken my very first sock-knitting class from my friend Angie and was well on my way to One Sock Heaven. Somewhere below you can see the photo of my partially knitted sock....don't ask me where since all I can see is computer gibberish (my son-in-law would just cringe at my lack of techno knowledge here, but bear with me, Dave!).

Last night we enjoyed a terrific dinner at Einstein's, just down the road from the condo. It's so great here because we can walk everywhere...enabling us to even enjoy a glass of wine with dinner if we so desire!

Today our Silk Artists of Atlanta group met at the Chastain Art Center. Forgive me now, as I don't know what pieces are appearing where, so I can't give credit where credit is certainly due. I love this group! We have the most awesome "show and tell" and every month there is so much sharing that goes on!!!

The piece with the feathers is a wonderful silk scarf that was created by Katy Fenlon, who drives all the way down from Clemson, SC to meet with us.

I'm also showing a beautiful silk painted piece by Sue Wierzba...this one is of ocean
life. Sue is new to silk painting, but has been a water color artist for many years. Isn't her piece gorgeous!!

There is also a bamboo scarf by my good friend Martha Andreatos...another gorgeous piece by Martha!

Gail Racy presented our program on painting on treated silk. She had even gone so far as to record her various results of painting on treated silk at different humidity levels, using different ratios of gutta to naptha. She also brought along several treated pieces of silk so that we could try out the technique. I have included one photo of Gail painting on a piece of treated silk.

I apologize for this huge techno glitch, but Blogger has really let me down here! This is just seat-of-the-pants blogging!

After our Silk Painters meeting, I mosied on over to Fiber On A Whim for about an hour of bliss as I shopped around Jan Girot's wonderful shop, picking up various and sundry embellishments. Then I battled the ungodly gridlock from from Sandy Springs over to Decatur in Friday afternoon Atlanta traffic...what was I thinking???? I arrived at Creative Spirit and spent a wonderful hour with my friend Becky Sizemore. She is showing several of my silk scarves and silk pieces mounted on canvas. WooHoo!

So that's my 24 Hours in the City!! Thanks for bearing with this techno-disablon!!

Silk Fusion Synchronicity

As I think I wrote in one of my last posts that I'm taking a silk fusion class via Joggles and Sue Bleiweiss. I am having THE BEST time!! Yesterday I finally had enough time to play with the soy silk roving. After laying it all out, fusing it, and ironing it, here is how it looked:

Isn't it yummy!!! Sue instructed us to do a bit of embellishing with machine stitches, so I decided to put some batting underneath and free motion quilt it with slither. Then I added a few of those wonderful Swarovski crystals...just happened to have some in that pretty red violet that is in my batch of silk fusion.

I found some remaining red violet silk cording that I had dyed last year for another project that worked wonderfully as a little tie around some lovely little red orange antique buttons that I came across in my button stash. There was a bit of remaining prefused deep red charmeuse in my silk draw to use for lining, and then I added some gold and red violet beads to the tie. I left the edge of the top flap, which is difficult to view in my photo, raw-edged and rather wispy...it appears blurry, but isn't. Here she is:

It's bright in my sewing room this morning, so the photos look a bit washed out, but you get the idea. Here is the inside:

A couple of things I would do differently next time: cut the batting about a half inch smaller all the way around, so that it wouldn't peek through at the sides, and make my piece of silk fusion the exact finished size that I wanted it, so that the side edges would be wispy like the top flap is. I love that wispy-edged look!

Last night C and I enjoyed our romantic Valentine Dinner, which had been postponed for several days due to various and sundry events. He had purchased a very nice bottle of Champagne and a lovely tenderloin of beef, from which he sliced two yummy filets. Delish! That and candlelight with the man you've adored for 36 years....what more is there to life?

Afterwards, we watched "Hotel Rwanda", which is a rather disturbing movie, but necessary for us all to see. If you haven't seen it, do! Where was I and what was I doing in 1994 that caused me to turn my back on the 100 days of hell suffered by the people of Rwanda? It is a truly moving film.

On a brighter note, the day has dawned cold but sunny here. When we walked Barker at 7:30 it was a cool 27 with a windchill of -500, so my husband the weather prognosticator says! We are off to Atlanta this afternoon, for a bit of recreating!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Red Roving, Red Roving

Actually this is called "flame" but it is soy silk roving and it arrived in the mail today from Joggles. WooHoo!!! I can hardly wait until tomorrow when I get to play with it!! Life is definitely good!!I am slowly but surely emerging from the deep, dark, depths of my cold and feel about 100% better. My nose is still stuffy but I don't feel like someone has injected my head with thick wads of soy silk roving!!! While I was miserable, I did some mindless paper pieceing (I'll show you a pic in a few days when the top is put together, but I'm waiting for more fabric to arrive..."measure twice, cut once" my Mama used to say, but whoever listened to her????) and was entertained by Mary Higgins Clark's "Remember Me". Since it takes place in Chatham on Cape Cod, the town where much of my family has lived for over 50 years, I found it very interesting. I finished the last cd at almost exactly the same time that my fabric ran out....timing is everything, so they say!

C and I watched a very interesting documentary the other night, and it has really stuck with me. The title is My Architect: A Son's Journey, and it is about Louis Kahn. Some of you, especially anyone who has lived in the Philadelphia area, may recognize his name and recall some of the buildings he designed. (Diane, I'll be you are familiar with him.) The documentary is about Nathanial Kahn's search for information about his father and his life. Kahn had three families at the same time, and none really knew about the others. It wasn't until his death that all three families were together at his funeral, but only his legal wife and their one daughter were listed in the obituary. Fascinating story.

OK, the heat is on in the studio so I'm off to do a bit of dyeing before it is too late! Enjoy your day!!

Red..............

seems to be the "color of the day"!

Here is a pot of lovely tulips from our friends Dick and Rosemary Freeman. Aren't they gorgeous...and such a welcome on a cold and blustery February day.

And below are the lovely roses from my Sweetie:

However, what's given me the most pleasure today is this:

Rayna whet my appetite with gelatin plate printing at John C. Campbell Folk School last Fall, and I've had time to tinker a bit and ponder a lot, so this book came at just the right time!

Happy Valentines Day Everybody!

Lake Views

It was incredibly warm for February today! When we walked Barker early this morning it was in the high 40s. This afternoon it rained, the harbinger of our next cold front, and then take a peak at how serene the lake looked:

You can see the bank of clouds coming in from the west, bringing our colder air. I love the reflection on the water. I was sewing away and just happened to look up to catch these views, and knew that I wanted to share them with you. It is quite foggy in the top photo, and then the breeze picked up and blew the fog away. When I took the second pic, the sun was just beginning to come through the clouds, but it was also almost 6:00 PM, so it was setting.

I have a miserable cold, so I puttered around most of the day, sewing away on a long overdue project. I have mixed feelings about it at present, but if I grow fond of it, I'll show it to you. It has been waking me up at night, so it is time to put a lid on it!!

After snapping the pics of the lake, I wandered on over to my flower garden by the pool to check on a few things. Asters, floxgloves, rose campion, Russian sage, and a few others are beginning to poke through. And look, here are the very first of the iris to bloom:

They look like dwarf crested iris, but they're not. I got them free with some other bulbs one year, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing them....but they only bloom for one day, so if you miss them, forget about it! Many of my daffodils are in bloom, as are my snowdrops and the wonderfully fragrant Daphne Odora. It is too early for Spring....our cold weather returns tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Eat'N'Run

Well, we are surely making up for the few meals that we served at home over the weekend! Last night we ate at Sala, a Mexican dining establishment in Virginia Highlands. It was great...the Margaritas were excellent and the food was terrific. I had a sore throat, so the very spicy Tortilla Soup went down nicely...as did the Tequila!

We gave Barker a short walk around Midtown this morning and then walked across the street from the condo to The Flying Biscuit for a yummy breakfast. We don't think that the biscuits are quite as light as the name implies, but the food is definitely very tastey! On weekends, the line goes a long way around the corner pretty much all day, with folks waiting to be seated, but this morning we just walked on in and had our pick of tables at about 8:30. I love their decor:
And here's what I had:
turkey bacon, a flying biscuit, two eggs over easy (only ate one, I swear!) and the yummiest of grits! MMMMMMM I was reading the newspaper and celebrating the fact that my Dixie Chicks did so very well at the Grammy's last night! WooHoo!!!!

We headed home late morning and found it necessary to once again stop to eat. Here we are at:

There seems to be a Chipotle around every corner in Atlanta and its burbs now, and the nice thing is they have little outdoor eating areas where we can take Barker. Here he is being ever so patient while C is inside ordering our burrito bowls:

and here's lunch:It was 65 degrees outside....another lovely day! My weather forecast says that the high here on Thursday will be 38, with the low a chilly 19, so we are enjoying this weather while it lasts.

One of our last stops was for this:

I wish I could have included the lovely aroma of these roses. They totally perfumed the car. Isn't C just as sweet as can be!!!!