anyone looking for a little project?

...I know you are thinkin' soooo many people on my holiday list and so little time...here is the perfect project!

Guess what?

It's going to be a granddaughter!

Home again...home again

Not counting hotel time, I figure it is a 17 hour drive to Cortez, CO. We had good traffic both ways.
Earl drove so Jill and I just relaxed...if you know how bad a passeger I am you know that is quite an acomplishment.This was LE's idea. She and Jon flew in to Durango from Seattle. It was good to be there with them. I just did not get a good pic of them. The first morning there we had snow but not enough for a snowman.

It was really good to see Earl's family. Julie, I had not seen in 4 years or met her new, really sweet husband, Bob. All the kids had grown, of course.
The dinner was in the honey house ( where they work on their bee hives etc.) at Earleen and John's. Cherrie had fixed it up so cute with a doily, she had collected, under each glass plate, cute signs, photos, arrangments of all kinds and much much more. It was so fun and cozy.
All the food was perfect. Cherrie is also the family pie maker....are we all lucky! It was so hard to choose. But I have to say that the highlight for our little part of the family was the surprise baby shower for Jill! It was soooo cute the way she planned it. She got all the gifts and had each person present the gift to Jill along with thier suggestion for a girl and boy name. My favorite boy name suggestions were: Optimus Prime, Walker Texas Ranger, Frank the Tank and Winston Samuel...Nobel Prize winner....there were also many names after themselves... My fav girl names were: Princess, JoeJoe, "not this time", Temperence, Pearl, Xena and more names after themselves...We all laughed alot. The thoughtful gifts were so fun too....cute little oneies, soft blanket, lots of things that an experienced mother like Cherrie would know about...like "butt cream" ....who knew?
Then Cherrie had arranged for a photographer to come and get lots of family photos...to top it all off! We were sent on our way with home produced Elk jerky, canned salsa and honey.

Jill went through her basket of baby treasures on the way home, holding small garments up and trying to imagine her baby in them. We all have warm memories that will be with us for awhile.

Isn't this the cutest thing?

LE made it and she made a little bit bigger one for Jill. Jill has designed next year's Halloween outfit around it.

We are anxious to all be together this Thanksgiving. We are meeting in Cortez, CO at Earl's family stomping grounds. LE and Jon are flying from Seattle and we are driving with Jill. Have to have Jill back to work by Mon....so it will be a fast trip.

Hope everyone has a good turkey day!!!

Here are the latest ATCs

We had a great ATC trading section. Some new people came by to see what it is all about. A couple of these are left over from the ATC show we had at Art from Scrap in Santa Barbara.

For anyone following the Jill saga. No baby news. Next apt. the 26th.

I am the luckiest girl in the world.....

Now that I have my camera unloaded I can get photos of my special treasures. Through some hic up in a parallel universe....I was given a birthday gift from Tracie Lynn 4 months early! I LOOOOOVE it!!!! Is it not way cool? And so sweet of her too....

I also wanted to share the fabric I got in Ashland, OR at the Fabric of Vision. This is such a cool shop.....and look at the cool way they folded it!

This is a doll from a street vendor in Oaxaca.


This is a way cool ATC from Tara....I love it! Sorry I did not find it sooner. It was buried in my mail that I am just getting to now...Thank you Tara. It was so good to see you at FiberFest.....!

This is the square that Teesha showed us how to do at ArtFiberFest....

Here are some of my purchases at Queen of Arts...
This is a card pack by Shari....

This is my choice of the dolls Mary made I picked. It is me and my 2 girls.

Queen of Arts

......and this is my last big hurdle in the "race".....

All 24 of the artists did a great job. Esther the director at the Elverhoj Museum where we have this event now, took on more of the resposibility so it was pretty easy on me for a change. I have not got the final numbers yet but Friday night and Saturday was good for everyone. I like getting to see everyone again and see and hear what they have been up to. The event brings by old friends and some family came too. Thanks everyone for the support.

Here is a write up from Carol that tells what the Queen of Arts is for those who don't know:
Queen of Arts is an Art Show and
Sale syd started so her and her friends could sell all the stuff they
make. The show has been going on for the past 9 years and started at
Syd's house in Ballard, which by the way, was worth stopping by at
just to see all her cool collections of stuff besides all the art and
crafts for sale. After the first year she made it into a benefit for
Domestic Violence Women's Shelter in Lompoc, and patrons are asked to
bring something to donate to the Shelter such as socks, underwear,
toiletries, and general stuff a woman and her kids might need if they
had to leave home for awhile. Most of the participating artists'
donated a portion of their proceeds to the Shelter as well. The show
has grown and grown until last year the Elverhoy Museum of Solvang
took it over and the sales were the better the first Friday night
then they had been any of the past years. This year we expect even
more with new artists showing their wares. If you are looking for
unusual stuff for holiday gifts at a good range of prices, it is
worth a trip to the Santa Ynez Valley.

Thanks Carol you summed it up so nicely!

OK.... NOW Oaxaca

Take my advise. Never do what I did at this age. I did back to back to back events......I was lucky enough to not run into any major snags.....but I repeat I was so lucky.

Oaxaca is my favorite place in Mexico. It has wonderful people that make you feel welcome, inspiring art and food that makes you anxious to be hungry enough to eat again as soon as possible.....the cheese only....so add to this all a Michael de Meng cigar box shrine workshop, great shopping and a Colleen tour of local markets, ancient sites and festivals. Mix in a Lila Downs concert and Day of the Dead and you can see why it was a have-to-do-it thing. The added cherry to the top was the students. They were an amazing group of smart, adventurous ( but not tooo adventurous) like minded artists that I hope I will get to spend time with again. We all had such a good time with lots of laughing and sharing of stories.
This is Michael at the shooting game outside the cemetery. Worth the trip to just see these dancing diaramas.

SOME OF THE OFRENDAS




MARKETS




CEMETERIES






OUR WORKSHOP





This is Colleen's "shrine". She was so busy waiting on us all she did not get to far on her shrine. It reminds me of the "Littlest Angel's" box from under her bed....

MITLA


MISC. This was a tricker treater ...Fidel Castro. They say "Halloween" or "pesos" rather than "trick or treat" here.

Was I kiddin' ?

We had to leave the stuff for the art assylum, blow up bed and a bag of fabric behind! We still managed to get some shopping items in on the way.....and we got used to our knees being under our chins about Portland..hehehehe

Lots a cool places on the way to see. I think Castles in the Air in Berkley was the biggest surprise. It had stuff I had never seen. Everything was magical to look at.



We just scratched the surface in Portland. But still saw some fun stuff. deMeng clued me in where to get a voo-do donut next trip. Mary's blog has a good overveiw of out trip. She took notes.

I am always amazed when I get to Port Townsend. I feel like I have traveled to the ends of the Earth and yet here you find amazing art, food and abundant and exciting supplies of all kinds. Edge to Edge and Summer House are my favs. But that is from a lists of many cool runner ups. The noodle place across the street from Edge to Edge and Elevated Ice Cream were my favs for food this time. I had Marionberry and ginger ice cream that was amazing!


We had many late night gab and giggle sessions with OC girl, Pam.

I had an amazing Scissor Maiden class. I was so inspired by what my students made. I had a ball. Can hardly wait until next year. Thank you Teesha and Tracy for making it all happen.