I was mulling over what to do as a giftie for my Frayed Edges friends, when Mom and I ended up at my favorite diner for lunch:  Marriner’s.  It has been a fixture on Main Street in downtown Camden (all two blocks of downtown) since 1942 (isn’t that cool!).  Here’s the menu:

If the waitress and I guessed the spelling correctly, the artist who did the artwork inside and outside the restaurant and responsible for some of the cool design elements is Jens Johansen (alas I have no further info).  That includes the graphics on the menu (which also appear on the staff’s shirts).  Well, he did the coolest thing… painted buoys (as in the things that are attached to the rope that is attached to the lobster trap)!  Here is one from the front part of the restaurant:

And here are some photos of other cool things… from old photos, to paintings by Jens based on old photos, starting with the Galley (kitchen) sign:

Here’s a shot of the harbor from the back of the restaurant; before the fire in the kitchen a few years back, the kitchen was across the back of the building.  When they renovated after the fire (the restaurant was closed for the first time in 40 years!  for several months as they rebuilt), they moved the kitchen and opened up booths toward the back and added a deck (heavenly in summer) with a view of the harbor:

Here’s a photo from the days of yore when the schooners actually carried merchandise, not just tourists in summer:

Here’s another view of the harbor, back towards where the library now stands (well, I think that’s what it is):

And a painting by Jens based on an old photo.  Loved how he made the plywood ship’s wheel “frame” for it!

Here is another of Jens’ buoys:

And this view of the back side of the Main St. Buildings and the falls will give you an idea of what he was painting–the one in the center with the peaked roof is Marriner’s, the one with the outside narrow deck:

And more of the buoys over the booths at the rear of the restaurant (can you tell I LOVED them?!)–this one with lobster boat:

And yet another, with a rigged sailing ship:

SO…… my painting skills aren’t equal to his.  And I was plumb out of fresh ideas, so I swiped from a triptych I painted on canvas-covered boards last year or the year before and went for snowy valley and snug houses…..here’s the five I showed you before (in the post about the Frayed Edges, Dec. 2008)–since I was short on time, I used floats instead of buoys, and didn’t have time to buy fake greens to decorate….

And here’s mine, which is hanging  on the antique brass ladels my dad bought in Spain in the late 50s (when I was a toddler!):

And a close-up (yes…my painting is…ummm….rudimentary?):

I’d like to buy some mistletoe next year to tuck in the knot at the bottom and use it as a kissing ball!  And,  I need to add a ribbon or something at the top… if you’re not careful the rope can come out the bottom and it’s a bear to get the folded end through the middle…. I also bought two buoys proper, and Eli and I will paint them for next year…..

Happy mistletoe everyone!

If you’re like me, you’ll hear Bing Crosby’s voice as he sings to Rosemary Clooney on that one…. For those of you who don’t love the old movie White Christmas, Bing and Rosemary are the older of a pair of war buddies (that would be Bing, to Danny Kaye’s younger corporal) and sisters (with actress Vera Ellen of the impossibly tiny waist and very fast dancing feet).   Theirs is a somewhat rocky courtship, aided and abetted by Danny and Vera’s characters.   Rosemary goes to get a sandwich at the inn, and Bing shows up to make her a liverwurst sandwich with buttermilk (BLEAH…how could anyone think that tastes good?????).  She says she can’t sleep, so of course Bing breaks into song about counting your besslings instead of sheep, and the refrain ends “you’ll fall asleep counting your bleeeeeeesssssss-iiiiiinnnnnnngggggggggs”.

So I decided I should count some of my blessings:

1.  My family is alive and well, and we are blessed to be together.

2.  Mom agreed to move to Maine, and now lives 5 minutes instead of a continent (or more as it has been in years past) away.  Best of all, she has become nice again, and I have my mommy back.  The dementia is getting worse, but she is much kinder,  she gets my sense of humor, and best of all she seems to be happier!

3.  Joshua is alive, well, fully recovered, and seems to have (we think/hope/pray) passed through some of the more tumultuous moments of the teen years.  He is a responsible employee at his job, and is bright and learning.

4.  Eli is a stupendous student, cool kid, devoted son and brother, and great dog-parent to Pigwidgeon.   He is (hooray!, we’ve bred two of them) an inveterate reader, curious, polite, kind, interesting… OK I’ll stop now.  I know I’m biased.  That’s my job.

5.  Paul and I celebrated 25 years of marriage, and we’re still bubbling along. As in all marriages that last, we are always there for each other, and he is my best friend and the first person I go to for most anything (well, except for quilting advice!).

6.  Pigwidgeon (the pug) and Thumper (the 26-toed calico cat) follow me around the house and bring furry love, joy and hair to my life.

7.  Pigwidgeon makes EVERYone, and I mean EVERYONE, smile.  Just last night, when I took him out for nighttime walkies, he had me laughing out loud as he cavorted and chased a snow clod!

8.  Joyce came to visit; my late half-brother’s wife, Joyce is like a sister to me.  I remember her from when my family and I returned to the US when I was six, and she has been a part of my life ever since.  T.J. gets major bonus points for bringing the best person in the family into it.

9.  The Frayed Edges:  Kathy, Kate, Deborah and Hannah make my life and Maine a better place to be (even tho Deborah  is currently in the wilds of Texas).  They are friends, artists, confidants, and just plain FUN and interesting and wonderful.

10.  Marie is one of those friends that will last through the ages… you know how maybe six or seven times in your life you meet someone and you know you will be friends forever, no matter where you are?  Well, Marie is one of those!   Even tho she is still in Washington State, and I am in Maine,  we are still close….and even tho we can sometimes only keep up by visiting each others’ blogs (hers is here), we are always in each other’s hearts.

11.  The Coastal Quilters:  my local quilt chapter is filled with wonderful, fun, diverse, interesting women (no men yet in the group).

12.  QuiltArt ( click here for the website) is the most wonderful online group (like an extended family spread ’round the world) of kindred (and not so kindred) souls, all of whom love art quilts.   QA was my door into art quilting, my master’s degree, my continuing education, the source of untold friendships and inspiration and ideas…. it’s a great place to be.  Thanks to List Mom Judy for creating such a home, to all who make it the best place in cyber-space….

13.  Kit Robinson, on both the QuiltArt and Janome 6500/6600 groups (the latter is a yahoo group), who invited me to write an article for Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine.  In talking over the proposed subject, tension, I mused that really I needed to write about needles first, because you need the correct needle to get the correct tension.  One article turned into two, then….

14.  Vicki Anderson, publisher of MQU and the sister-magazine for long-arm quilters, Unlimited Possibilities, asked me to be a regular columnist for them… WOOOOHOO!!!! For the first time since 1997, I have predictable income with each quarterly article.  Best of all, I get to write about quilting AND get paid for it… life is truly wonderful.

15.  Quilting Arts magazine accepted two of my ideas for short lessons in their e-Newsletter, Embellishments; not only was I paid a modest sum, but they put my name under theirs and in front of something like 50,000 subscribers!  WOW…. THANK YOU Pokey Bolton (top editor and big kahuna, even tho she is a tiny little thing!) and Cate Prato (editor) . For info on how to subscribe to the e-Newsletter, click here.

16.  Quilting Arts / Cloth Paper Scissors  invited folks to submit ideas to participate in Open Studio, where you get to demonstrate a technique, at the large Quilting Arts zone at quilt festival in Houston; they invited me to participate!!!!   I am thrilled at their confidence in me, and I had a blast.  I hope to be able to do it again.

17.  Festival in Houston:  I get to see great quilts, meet old and new friends, see folks I have originally “met” online mostly on the Quiltart list.   Thanks to Karey Bresenhan and her hard-working cast and crew for all they do for all quilters…. Karey is truly in the business of making dreams come true for so many of us!

18.  Iris Karp of Misty Fuse has been so kind and generous, and I had a ball demonstrating in her booth in Houston….. would LOVE to do it again!   Thanks Iris!

19.  SAQA, the Studio Art Quilt Association. Despite the somewhat steep annual dues, I decided a while back that I needed to join.  Boy was I right!  I’ve had at least one exhibit opportunity thanks to being on their site, and think that at least a couple of the work opportunities that have come my way have been due to being in SAQA (and on their website).  Then, last Christmas Marie (see #10) sent me a copy of Portfolio 14, a SAQA publication that is aimed at galleries, museums and collectors.  I knew within about 20 seconds of seeing it that I needed to upgrade to Professional Artist Member status (if they’d take me) and be in the next one.  Well…. I was accepted as a PAM, and got into Portfolio 15 (now available for sale here) and (drum roll) a thumbnail of my quilt even made the back cover!

20. As a result of adding some information to the SAQA wiki (an online information data base for members), I came to Lisa Chipetine’s attention, and she very kindly invited me to be the fifth person in an online Critique session with quiltartist Sandra Sider.  WOW!   I can’t believe how much I learned, perhaps even more so from listening to the comments and discussion about other quilts being critiqued.  If you’re interested in learning more about the upcoming critique sessions, click here.

21.  The manuscript is nearing completion!  More on that when I can!

22.  I was FLOORED when I pulled up Creative Quilting with Beads early this year on Amazon.com  looking for a publication date…as longtime readers know, I have two projects in the book, and Kate (1), Kathy (1) and Deborah (3!) also have projects.  The COVER was MY pomegranate notebook! Talk about a pipe dream come true!

23.  About this time last year, I wrote a quick note to Bonnie Browning, who is a big kahuna at the AQS quilt shows, related to a posting she had made on the QuiltArt list.  She must have clicked on my signature links and visited my website, and she invited me to apply to TEACH for AQS!  The kicker:  this was Sunday, and applications needed to be in her office Monday.  I quickly turned my brochure into a PDF and e-mailed her all the info.  The result:  Bonnie and AQS took a chance and hired me to teach in PADUCAH (Paducah and Houston are the two biggest, most prestigious quilt shows in the US and honestly, in the world!).  I had a ball, student reviews were good, and I did it….hoooray!

24.  Lowell Quilt Festival (Massachusetts) also hired me to teach, and I had a ball there, too.   That show is only about 4 hours from me, so I was able to take LOTS of extra goodies since I could drive.  I had the most amazing time, and they treated the teachers like royalty!  I learned so much from so many amazing teachers…. Nancy Prince and Joanie Zeier Poole were incredibly generous in sharing tips and tricks of teaching on the road…. all of us who ate dinner together… totally fantastic!

25.  Blogging and the internet and all of you!  One of the joys of my mornings is checking flags…. I use a couple of sitemeters, and I LOVE looking at where people are who visit my blog… the sitemeters don’t tell me your e-mail, but they do give a location (more or less… depending on the company, my address in Camden shows up as Camden, Rockland, Tenant’s Harbor….at least it is a general location).  I’ve now had visitors from over 129 nations and every state in the US and almost every province in Canada.  WAY COOL!   I love how the internet has brought us closer, how I can e-mail my friend Lisa in Sydney (literally almost halfway ’round the world), hear back a moment later, reply, and carry on an instant conversation.  I love how those of us who worked in isolated splendor can now share and learn, so THANK YOU for being out there and surfing in to here!

I could go on, but I will stop here, or I really will put all of you to sleep.

Thank you and blessings and peace to you and all of yours,

Sarah

Deborah and Hannah…do not look!!!! to the bottom of the post until all packages have arrived in Texas!  There are mid-stream warnings….

Yes, I am still alive, just really busy!  Between (among) Thanksgiving, Mom’s birthday, getting ready for Christmas and whatnot, I’ve been too busy to read let alone write let alone thing.  Sleep?  I remember it fondly.  I’d like more.  LOTS more!

But I did have a wonderful Monday.  Alas, the ice storm that hit the northeast got Hannah….she had been without power for three days, with FOUR daughters ages 3 to 12 or so…. then to add insult to injury, on our meeting day the elementary school in her area closed because (drum roll, sob) there was still no electricity!   So it was just Kate, Kathy and me, and Deborah by phone!  Hannah we missed you! You were certainly there in spirit.

AND, thanks to Kathy, we remembered to take pictures (that cue used to always come from Deborah…now we sometimes forget!).  Here is Kathy’s tree:

and the prezzies under the tree:

And the lovely table Kathy prepared, including critters and a fun plate for Hannah’s youngest daughter, who also didn’t make it since she and mom were home with the three older sisters (wahn! but we understand…been there, done that! and if the power had been out in Camden, I would have been home, too)

Kate’s mother-in-law has a recipe for a fabulous peanut curry soup, and I’d been hankering for it, so Kath made it:

I made scones (didn’t turn out so great…rosemary salt, but they were too close to the bottom of the over and got tough on the bottoms…tasted good, but…), and Kate made Deborah’s steamed cranberry pudding for dessert (sorry, no pics)…..

We opened gifties before and after… we started with Deborah’s (Hannah… you need to stop here!); her bag was so cute, sewed shut with little felt leaves, that I opened mine from the bottom:

It’s such a hoot… Deborah made Judy Coates Perez’s ornaments from this years Quilting Arts Gifts magazine, and Kate and I had planned to make Judy’s ornaments from LAST year’s issue, but didn’t have the time or couldn’t get the materials in time! I’ll take a picture of my new Frayed Edges ornaments on the tree and post later…..  Here is Kathy looking at the zine Deborah made for a swap;…. I totally love it and am planning an indulgent hour alone with it later this week:

We took a lunch break, and I spotted Kathy’s photo holder:  a string of beads with clips interspersed.  Since we have one of those AWFUL stainless steel fridges that don’t hold magnets but DO hold every fingerprint that ever passed through the house, I think I shall make one of these hangers for next to the fridge:

DEBORAH:  you need to stop here!

After lunch, I fell off the photo wagon and forgot to take pics of Kate’s gift, and mine… so you’ll have to do with a photo of the ornaments I made … took the photo (obviously) before gift wrapping… they are inspired by some cool lobster buoys I saw at Marriner’s (a local diner)…will try to get photos of them, too… but for now here you go:

That’s it for now!

Well, we really need Deborah here to remind us to TAKE PICTURES!  Sigh……   I remembered about the lunch food photo… AFTER we ate, so alas this is all you get:

Kate has this beautiful hand crafted silverware (hand wash only!) which she brings out for our visits, with the matching scroll napkin rings.  Her son H. did the artwork on the trivet; his school does an (expensive) annual fundraiser where you can pick the product onto which your child’s 8 1/2 x 11 artwork is printed (size is reduced but proportions stay the same I think).  Kate chose the tile, then had a friend make the wooden holder to turn it into a trivet.  Wonderful!

The lunch menu:  Corn chowder (me, recipe from Martha Stewart’s Sept. 2007 issue of Living….I’d skip the cayenne, cumin and coriander next time, but loved the cheddar and the bacon –I added the latter), baby organic spinach greens (which we picked from the field next door…the farmers had already harvested, so neighbors can now go in and cull from the still-growing roots…..yum…but why didn’t I take a picture???? where was my head?), and Kathy brought these delectable (Sorry Deborah….we ate them with you in mind…since she introduced us to them) molten lava cakes…chocolate, with a gooey, yummy hot “lava” center of chocolate (if you have a Hannaford store, look for the On The Go Bistro or Hannaford Inspirations line in the frozen food section).  Best of all, they are only 300 or so calories, so it is a decadent treat that doesn’t use up an entire day’s worth of calories.

We shared a few things… my loot from Houston, Kathy’s in progress piece (glorious as always, for the Art Quilts Maine black-white-plus one other color challenge…. Kath picked blue), and some Ikea fabric Kate bought to make cushions for the Bowdoinham library kids’ area:

Kate had been to NYC on business, and she and her business partner in Adoption Day Cards snuck in a stop at the Ikea south of Boston (about 6 hours away from me! boohooo….. I wish it were closer).  I think Bowdoinham is very lucky to have Kate as their new librarian!   Here’s the other fabric… Kate has a totebag made from this one that I have loved… it would do well in the black-white-plus one challenge… Kate of course thought leaf green, I thought vivid cranberry……(and sorry about that triangle of bright sunlight in the center bottom!)

And on the way home, I got gas for 2.15 a gallon.  This guy was perched on the top of the building as the sun began to set:

He stood there on one foot the entire time I was filling my tank…

That’s it for now….. off to Boston as soon as I finish writing this, and by the time it “publishes” I’ll be on my way home.  Giving a lecture for the Bead Designers International group… gonna be fun!

So am I the only one, or are other folks trying to get their holiday shopping done EARLY!?   I have two new pieces that I’ve just (finally!) uploaded onto my website, but wanted to share them here, also.  The first is a modestly priced art quilt postcard mounted on a mixed media canvas, Bird in the Woods:

The price is $60 (includes shipping by US Mail, within the US, write for other shipping options).  This began as just a canvas…at one of our Frayed Edges meetings.   Rather than simply create a silhouette of something and paint over a plain piece of cloth (Hannah was jazzed by a project on Martha Stewart), I decided to get clever and stretch strips of multicolored cloth over the canvas frame before slathering with Mod Podge (or was it Gel Medium?  same result….), letting it dry, then using torn masking tape to make the trees.  Well… I wasn’t so thrilled with the result:

It’s OK, but no great shakes.  So I thought I’d just cover it all up with batting, fabric, and mount a postcard.  I tossed a lovely card Deborah Boschert had sent to me a few years back–yellow with a red bird, and Presto…. I  decided I’d make my OWN (very different) bird in fabrics because it looked great (except for the fact that her bird was red and the fabric is magenta…shudder!  color change necessary, but the idea worked).  SO, I rooted through my stash, made up a quick bird postcard (inspired by my Batiki bird, which you can read about here), and got to work.  I hope you like it!

I’ll share the next piece in a few days… I also want to blog about Houston before it is ancient memories.  AND, I need to dash out, walk the dog, and meet Mom for lunch…. toodles, and back soon, Sarah