from the sketchbook: August 2005

katrina continued

thanks to all of y'all for your good wishes.... even tho we're relatively unscathed here it's still a huge loss. we have lots of friends and family in new orleans and north of the lake ....adn do business, have doctors there etc as well... some we've heard from, some not//. i grew up in new orleans a block from the river (in one of the few neighborhoods that's actually above sea level) and it's still a big part of me... it's one of those places that gets in your soul and stays forever.
it is immensely painful to watch whats going on. i've already started makgin work about it.
it looks like there will be a fund raiser on quilt art so stay tuned.....

katrina

well luckily we are ok. we spent the night in alexandria with patty gamburg. we were able to get in touch with a neighbor yesterday afternoon and learn that our neighbor hood was ok and the electricity woudl be back on soon so we came on home...we were joined on the road by convoys of utility trucks and national guard vehicles...
we have electricity obviously..and only some missing shingles and tree limbs down...
my camera battery has gone missing .....when i find it i'll take photos.
the news out of new orleans is grim
http://www.nola.com/ is a site that has info.
i had moved my machine etc away from the windows up here not knowing what to expect so will need to put everythign back..... not since 911 have i felt so compelled to make art aroudn an event......

emtpy nesters

well its finally official.... at least till one of them comes back...!
wemoved my 18 year old into the dorm over the weekend. lock stock and everythign
but a barrel. even with all the shopping we did in the weeks before, we still had
a 2-3 hour wally world mega cart loading trip on saturday. made even more fun by the fact that everyone in hammond mustve been doing the same thing! it was practically claustrophic in there. the only thing we didnt get was a microwave and as it turns out her roomie brought one the next day. there were soem anxious moments when it was time to leave saturday night. she was bound and determined to go to a school where she didnt know anyone.....and since she;s a veyr outgoing social butterfly, will do fine. but that first night alone was a little daunting. you know things are gettign better when you get the *i;m too busy to talk but i need this info* phone calls. ;-)
and i guess if this has to be quilt related i can say that the rag quilt i made her
several years ago looked wonderful at the end of the bed and was a nice cozy familiar touch of home for her.....(that and her mega teddy bear from her boyfriend). AND she gathered togetherall of her high school tshirts into a nice big pile in my studio b4 she left so i coudl (in my *spare time*) make her a quilt with them.
so now all i need to do is get home form work at a reasonable hour with a little bit of energy left adn get back to fiber work.

from the sketchbook

from the sketchbook

a few new ones:
have had these fnisihed...just haven't had time to post them.....enjoyed a weekend
visit from my sister adn her family last weekend...they;re in bakersfield ca now so we
dont get a chance to visit very often....and have been busy getting my 18 yr old,
molly. ready to go away to college. as this was a fairly last minute switch to another school
we;re doign this last minute as usual!!
i do have several more started....just havent had time to finish them.....
i did have a little artistic inpsiration via a trip to whole food last night....
am i the only one who buys produce because it looks or sounds appealing or interesting????
i easily could have bought every single eggplant in the place ...the variety of shapes adn colors
and pattern were very seductive...(i refrained) ...then there was the dragon fruit that was
particulalry visually appealing.....and the monster fruit that was so bizarre it was wonderful!
sort of a cross between a cucumber adn a baseball bat with a *tiled* surface..very interesting
what i did end up buying was a pluot. not particulalry visually attractive but with a name like
that i just had to try it.....and soem black plums because they were packaged in a very cool
purple mesh bag...
havnet tried teh pluot yet. will save that for tomrrow...
anyone out there ever heard of it???
(obvisluy i;m eaily amused soemtimes.....)
off to bed......