Some Recent Books I Read

I left my job last summer at a very large bookstore, now I finality have time to read. I do miss the opportunity to get the used books before they go out on the shelves but that has made me use the library more often. Though to be honest the bookstore had a larger selection than my local library, which is very sad. The good news is after 24 years at the bookstore I still get advanced readers. Sometimes the books are bad but every now and then I get some gems. Recently I received a couple of good books. 

The first one is "Eight Hundred Grapes" by Laura Dave. I had not heard of Laura Dave before, apparently she has a couple other books out that I had never seen or read. This book is set in wine country, in Sonoma to be exact, and eight hundred grapes refers to the amount of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine. This is the story of Georgia who is to be married in a week on her parents vineyard. While trying on her wedding dress a week before the wedding she sees her fiancé Ben with a famous starlet and the starlets daughter. Georgia panics and runs...from LA back to her family in Sonoma...in her wedding dress. This is a story of family secrets, the type of secrets that you keep from others so you do not hurt their feelings. But the problem with these secrets is when they finally do come out they hurt more than ever. As Georgia spends the week before her wedding finding out family secrets,  she tries to come to terms with the impending approach of her marriage to Ben. This book has some great ups and downs, family coming together only to be pulled apart and put back together again. We all know that family relationships are not easy, they are very complicated even for the most loving family. But when all is said and done, family is what brings us together. I enjoyed reading this book, the characters are interesting and the writing was engaging enough to keep me interested (I often do not finish books because the writing doesn't hold my attention).

The second book I recently received is "The Art of Crash Landing" by Melissa DeCarlo. This is a debut novel and if it's any indication of future books keep your eyes out for Melissa. I loved this book so much I read it in less than a week (which is very fast for me). I could not put it down. It's the story of Mattie Wallace a true screw up. As the story starts Mattie is putting all her belongings in her Malibu, leaving Nick the asshole. She is broke, pregnant and has nowhere to go. She ends up at her step fathers only to learn of a possible inheritance from a grandmother she never knew in Oklahoma. To say Mattie's up bringing was messed up is an understatement. Living with an alcoholic mother is just one of Mattie's many issues. She is a smart ass with a chip on her shoulder and she makes poor choices on a regular basis. When she arrives in Gandy Oklahoma to receive her inheritance she meets people in the small town that knew her mother. She learns of her mothers past and tries to make sense of what happened, why her Mother left Gandy and never looked back. This is a well written book, very descriptive and compelling story. Again it's the story of family relations, mother daughter relationships and how they can be very frustrating. I know this because I have a very difficult relationship with my mother. That does not mean I do not love her, but it's complex. 

Signs

I have a love of signs, especially religious signs. These are a few that I have collected over the years and used as decoration on the fence in our back yard.  

This sign came from a house around the corner from me in North Portland.  I never met the gentleman that lived in the house, I use to walk my dog past the house and look at all the interesting signs that he had painted and had up in front. Often there was a sign that said "No Visitors Today", so I did not disturb the occupant.  I never found out what happened to the gentleman that lived in the house, there are rumors that his brother moved him, that he was taken away by social services, that he had so much stuff in the house that he moved out of the house and lived in a tree in the back yard. One neighbor told me they called him Smiley, they could not remember if they called him that because he always smiled or because his last name was Smiley. One neighbor said Smiley had a wife, the other said he was not married but had a room mate. Smiley did have some sort of tree fort that he often sat in during the evening, I believe that is why some people think he was living in the tree. Once a day Smiley would go into the back yard and ring a bell that he had hanging from the tree while yelling something that was often incoherent. One neighbor said Smiley was yelling earthquake. Not sure how many of these tales are true and how many are just rumors. I don't know if Smiley is still alive today. I wish I had taken the time to meet the Smiley, he sounds like a very interesting man. When the house sold all the signs were just put in a dumpster, my neighbor Jessie saved the sign above. Jessie eventually gave me the sign because his wife thought it was weird. It's about 4'x4' sign on a thin piece of wood. The sign has some damage to the upper left corner most likely from when it was tossed out. It has a nice green patina from being out in the weather for several year. 

When I met my husband, he had moved to Portland to buy a building up on 42nd and NE Sumner. The building was once used as a Hare Krishna Temple. The Krishna's had remodeled the building opening the walls between the apartments. Only problem is they never closed out the permits and that caused a lot of issues for us when we started to remodel the building...but that is another story. The old Hare Krishna sign was still hanging on the building when we bought it. Rumor has it that Steve Jobs use to go to this temple to eat the free rice on sundays while he was attending Reed College. Steve Jobs also took a calligraphy class at Reed and some people think that he painted the sign for the Krishna's.  

These two signs were give to me by a friend. He picked them up on a couple different trips to Mexico and thought I would like them.The top sign says that Costa Rica needs to prepare because Christ is coming soon. For the longest time I thought the second sign was a religious sign too. But it says something along the lines of "no food or drinks allowed because it disagrees with our business". 

Of course everyone has seen this sign on the side of the road...Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I changed the sign to say "Believe in the Lord Chris and thou shalt be saved" because my husbands name is Chris. I put the sign up on the fence and my husband did not notice the sign till our neighbors came over and asked us to move the sign because everyone that looked at the house to rent found the sign disturbing. 

An Art Show, some more bags and a book

My neighbor is very talented. She has a show up in the gallery at Powell's Bookstore. She does some amazing detailed drawings. Her theme often has cats in what looks like underground environments. The show is called Curious Nature and is up till the end of April. Check out her cute tote bags, the cat is wearing a backpack and carrying a map. She details the bags with puff paint on the cat's eyes and the map. They are very cute and only $15, which is quite inexpensive for an original piece of art.   

 Yes, I'm hooked on making these bags. I made 3 bags using Violet Craft's fabric line called Waterfront Park.  One of the fabrics is line drawings of Portland Bridges. I really loved the fabric and because my husband & his best friend like to climb bridges I bought several yards of the bridges. I made a shirt for my husband but he thought it was too uptight...so he gave it to his best friend John Law who is a bridge tender down in San Francisco. Since I have scrap of the fabric I made several of these cute little triangle pouches. I added a Portland Oregon specific crushed penny to the zipper. Now that's a cute souvenir of your trip to Portland. 

Last week I received my copy of the latest Alabama Chanin book "Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns". This book includes all of the previous patterns published in Natalie Chanin's books as well as 4 more garments. The thing I like about this book is all the patterns are on a CD, I can take it to my local printer and have the patterns printed out. There are also great suggestions for variations on her patterns. Things like adding pockets, adding pipping, altering waist lines & busts, adding a color strips to hem lines as well as several other great tips. There are also new stencil patterns, one of my favorite is called New Leaves. I can't wait to get that stencil made so I can make a skirt or dress made for the summer. 

One of my favorite craft thrift store is Scrap. They recently moved from my neighborhood to the other side of the river. The good thing is they have expanded.  Last week I finally went to see the new store. It's a lot larger then the old space and it looks like it's more organized, thought that may be because they just moved...so it's still clean and new looking. The fabric area is well kept there is room to walk around the shelves and there is a nice area for you to sort through all the things you have picked up, you know when you get excited at all the cool things and pick up a lot more then you need..then you need to filter it all..because you really don't need all the stuff..but you might!. I bought some really nice Hawaiian fabric, though it was printed in China. I also found some large interesting wool scraps with ice skaters and trees, some nice checkered fabric and a cute little wash board. I came home with about 6 yards of fabric and a few knick knacks all for less then $30. 

My lilac tree is in bloom, I have 4 lilac trees in the yard. This is the only purple one, all the rest are white. This purple lilac has some really large blooms and it smells wonderful. SPRING IS HERE!!!!

PDX Carpet, Howard Finster & some 

new bags

It's been a very busy week for us. We attended a meeting to discuss the prospects to get some of the PDX carpet that is being removed from the Airport. They are giving away 4 lots of 1000 sq yards (yes that is sq yards which is about 9000 sq feet). We need to write a 3 page letter detailing what we plan to do with the carpet, how we intend to distribute the rug to the community and how we plan on storing the carpet. The prospects will be read by a committee and the person or company that the committee feels will do the best job will get their choice of lots, you can bid on the however many lots you think you can use or distribute. We hope to use the carpet to raise money for the Pittman Addition HydroPark and the North Portland Tool Library. We also want to carpet one of our apartments up on 45th. How cool would that be to live in an apartment that has PDX carpet? 

Last saturday a friend called and asked me if I wanted to go to a Howard Finster show. I could not believe it, I love Howard Finster and was surprised that there is a show up for the next couple of months at the Portland Museum of Modern Art. This museum is in the basement of Mississippi Records. They have about 10 Finster pieced on display including a couple of shadow boxes. I understand the shadow boxes are rare pieces as he did not make very many. I have always loved folk environments and fell in love with Finster when I first read about him & his Paradise Garden back in the mid 80's. 

I also received my new bags this week. I upgraded my book bags to a heavy canvas that looks and feels like a much stronger bag. I have a couple of new designs that I'm shopping around. The fish are actual fish that I inked and printed several years ago. I want to print the inside of the fish in different colors. I used the yellow and blue because I was wanted the blend of the yellow and blue for a third color of green on the fish. I'm still testing this image, but so far the reaction has been positive. The hedgehog is an illustration I asked my niece to draw for me. I asked for a hedgehog wearing glasses reading a book in the tub. I think she did a really good job, but when I blew it up I lost some detail. I'm working on cleaning up the image, but I like it...it's really cute. I hope to get some of the hedgehog bags printed this week, just a couple more tweaks to the image (I think the water ripples need to be a little more recognizable). I also start a new job this week, it's just a part time job that will get me out of the house for about 10-12 hours a week. 

A Quilt, some Tea Towels & my Bags

I have one quilt that really got me to love quilting. In the early 90's I was taking a printmaking class and decided to start printing on fabric, it was cheap and I had access to a lot of cheap fabric at the thrift store. Paper was getting too expensive so I figured that fabric was better because I could use the printed pieces in a quilt. This red & pink quilt was what I made in that class. I screen printed some images that I found in various clip art books as well as printing actual clothing such as the bra and the  teddy. I have had this quilt on display in my house some place since I made the thing, I used it often to stay warm while watching movies. It reminds me that all you have to do is sew scraps of fabric together in ways that appeal to you and you have a quilt. I did not follow a pattern, I did not match up corners, I squared some of the blocks after I made them only to make them all fit together. I love this quilt. Three years ago my husband took this quilt with him when he went to San Francisco to help built a living space in a warehouse for a friend, it kept him warm. I always think of this quilt as my crazy quilt because I mixed so many pieces of fabric together, wool, velvet and cotton,  I stitched some cute ribbon and did some little embroidery on this quilt.  
My tea towels from Spoonflower arrived. When they arrived they were a little stiff and I was afraid that they would not be absorbent. I hemmed the edges with a simple double fold hem and washed the fabric, the fabric softens up nicely. The test of how absorbent they are will come tomorrow on Thanksgiving when we cook, eat and clean up.  I think over time the linen cotton canvas will soften up quite a but and make this wonderful kitchen towels. I'm thinking that a nice fat quarter of a kitchen themed fabric would make a nice tea towel as a Christmas gift. 
I also saw my bags for sale in a bookstore in downtown portland. I was down there buying a used copy of Fabric Surface Design. I can't praise this book enough, it's full of all types of printing, dying, stenciling and stamping techniques on fabric. It's a great reference book for any one that works with textiles. I'm looking forward to trying several of the processes in the book. I had the book checked it out from the library and after 2 months they wanted the book back...I had to buy my own copy.