Birthday

I had the most wonderful celebration on the day of my 40th birthday.

Several friends and I had lunch at Samar in the Arts District in downtown Dallas.
Fancy teas, hand selected by the chef all over the world displayed in a fancy little box. Oh la la!
Our waiter suggested we order a "chef's tasting" menu. It was just perfect. He brought several dishes and we all shared. We started with flatbread, hummus, Baba ghanous and a delicious yogurt spread.
The first courses were inspired by Spanish cuisine. Samar's menu is made up of "international small plates" meant to be shared. These roasted peppers were delicious. Kind of like Spanish edamame.

It was a lovely setting -- modern, international, sleek. I made a set of fabric ATC's with this image for each of my lunch-mates as a thank you for sharing my celebration.
We had a great table in a little alcove. You can see the Tres Vasos dish in the foreground on the table. (This dish received lots of buzz in local press.)
Here is our charming waiter telling us how the chef recommends we enjoy the Tres Vasos.
Karen and I had particularly high hopes for the Tres Vasos since we had read several reviews lauding the sublime culinary experience. We were utterly disappointed. But, the surprising disappointment and the wildly contrived flavors made for lots of interesting conversation.

We finished Spain with egg, potatoes, and foie gras. Divine.

The other dishes came from the eastern Mediterraian and India. I'm not sure I can remember exactly which is which and what came first... it was all so wonderful.

Little pumpkin fritters topped with crab.This must be India... shrimp with fried okra, excellent chicken curry and something with lamb. Or was it veal?
And then there was dessert....
(By the way, do you recognize my face in that shot?)

In addition to the empanadas and rice pudding above, we also had ginger fritters and an amazing Turkish chocolate coffee pot de creme. My friends each made a lovely ATC for me. So wonderful.
Later, Claire and Benjamin and I enjoyed some birthday brownies and ice cream!
Jeff was out of town and I really missed him, but we are planning a pretty amazing celebration trip in February.

Forty is all good.

12x12 Stats

This week I have been working on my chapter for our 12x12 quilt with Lark Books. Each of the twelves will have one of her quilts as the focus of a chapter, one chapter for each of our original 12 themes. She will also write the chapter including thoughts about her inspiration and technique for that theme and any number of other ideas about the project that she wishes to share. It's going to be so interesting!As part of my writing process, I compiled these statistics about my 12 collection.

Hand embroidery: 10
Stamped Circles: 7
Sequin Waste as a stencil: 3
"Traditional binding" (meaning a separate piece of fabric somehow encasing the edge): 6
Words: 3
Free motion quilting: 9
My beloved landscape compositions: 3
My beloved shrine compositions: 2, maybe 3
Beads or other three dimensional embellishments: 6
Surprisingly least used color: purple
Surprisingly most used color: black
Use of sheer fabrics: 7
Paint: 11

We'll be revealing our "blue, white and a bit of black" quilts on March 1. Thankfully, that's a few weeks away.

Workshop

I had a great time taking a workshop from Sue Benner yesterday. The workshop was called "Self Portrait: The Artist as Quilt." It was refreshing to work on something totally new with no particular requirements or deadlines. Just for the sake of doing it. I have doubts about self-portraits in general. And self-portraits in fabric, especially. I know it's a classic form, but I was never much interested in doing one myself. But, I'm glad I did.

Again with the green and purple. I didn't neccessary intend to work in this color palette, but those are the fabrics I brought without even really thinking about it. Surprised? Maybe you remember this fabric too.

Speaking of green, see my new iron as recommended by Sarah Smith? It's great.

My friend Jo took this picture. I'm very hard at work apparently.I have plans to finish it today and/or tomorrow so I can bring it to show at tell at the Dallas Area Fiber Artists meeting on Monday. Sue will be giving a program about her experience jurying Quilt National. I think it's going to be very interesting. Join us if you're in the area.

Zine Swap

You remember I joined Alma's fabulous zine swap last fall? Here are all the treasures I received. There is something about zines... I just love the hand-made, self-published arty expression of these mini-books.

How to recognize and sketch a few native Australian birdies by Anne Nicholson
I love this size, style and design of this zine, especially the images of typed bird descriptions on yellow index cards. It feels like a library. (I love libraries!)

Multicolored Inspirations by Marilyn Butler
Wow, it was colorful and so full of great ideas. I especially loved the page with color translations into different languages.

Sew It Seams by Jeane Walker-Sliney
There is so much color and energy here! This zine is constructed of mostly fabric -- wonderful. I had never thought of using big colorful clips for binding and closures. Very clever.

Zine by Victoria
Victoria shares images and ideas about round-robin books in this zine. I love that explores lots of techniques in her art.

Z is for Zine by Sarah
Can you tell that the cover is made from fused plastic candy packaging?! So fun. I learned so much from this little zine including some great iPhone apps for artists. A CD of studio tunes was included too!
Angels on Fire by Stephanee
This zine is full of interesting prompts and questions for living a creative life. Lots of cool collages mix type, fashion, and funky glitz.

Manual Dexterity Zine by Lelainia Lloyd
I just love the cover of this zine. And can you see the packaging too? It's sealed with a stamp that says "subversive material." Aha! Recipes, ideas, music, Ikea shopping list, new ideas. So subversive.

Art Journals by Kara Klein
I got one of Kara's zines in the 2008 swap also. So very lucky. Her work is so thoughtful and dynamic. It's a great mix of photographs, tutorials, art and goodies!

Aging Artiste by Samantha Blythe
Well, my goodness... she lives in near-by Fort Worth! I hope our paths cross sometime soon. The picture above is from the inside of the zine -- an image of Anne Lamott. I adore Anne Lamott and this zine! Lots of thoughtful, creative soul searching is shared within.

Faerie Acres by Penney Klaproth
So many great ideas for creating mixed-media books! I especially love her technique for melting organza to create texture. How about sewing a page full of straight lines, then scanning and copying the page for journaling?

Here is the zine I created for the swap. It's called "Shape" and explores images, idea and art.
For the 2008 swap, I created a zine called Personal Symbols.
Both are available in my Etsy shop. Or, do you have a stash of zines you created? Let me know, I'd love to swap.

Are you inspired? Go create your own little zine. I'm already thinking about my next edition.

Today...

...is my birthday. I'm starting with some of my favorite things.Fun, food, friends and family will follow later. All good for celebrating *forty* years!

Frayed Edges Book Pages

The Frayed Edges are doing another round of book pages for our round robin books. I finished these pages months ago and exchanged them when I visited Maine in October. But I'm just now getting around to posting them.

I used the same format and technique for all the pages -- fused background and improvisational hand embroidery. They were really fun to create and everyone was pleased with the results. I think you can click on all these pictures if you really must see the details.

Here is the front of Hannah's page. Her theme is motherhood.
I made the back sides less detailed. Just some solid fabrics with surface design in colors that coordinated with the front -- and a cute little flap......under which is hidden some cute little symbol.

Here is Sarah's page. Her theme is aphrodisiac foods. Who knew a carrot was an aphrodisiac? Not I. I was looking through her list of foods for something that had a strong color reference. Carrot = green and orange. Don't you think?


The back side is created with sequin waste, a jar and a lego.
And a peek under the flap.
Kate's theme is hearts. I included a word on most of the pages. Here we are reminded to "listen" to your heart.

On the back I found a perfect use for a bit of ribbon that said "explore."
A little house and four hearts for Kate's family.
Kathy's theme is the sea. I was almost evoking a sea scape with the blues for the water and the browns for the sand.

Again with the explore ribbon.
The Frayed Edges all love the house symbol. You just can't go wrong.
These little quilts (book pages) are very similar to the quilts from my article in the most recent issue of Art Quilting Studio. I blogged about them here. And I just posted a couple of them in my etsy shop.

Island

The mangrove tree reaches out its roots into the water --- stabilizes the shore, provides habitat for little creatures and becomes an essential part of the ecosystem. I took this picture during our vacation in Antigua this summer.

I am just stunned by the tragedy in Haiti. I'm praying there are still roots reaching out to help, to stabilize, to provide shelter.

blooming

I don't really make New Year's Resolutions, at least not at New Year's. With holiday guests and school vacation, January 1 is wrapped up with other stuff and doesn't really feel like a kick off moment. My birthday is coming up, so that's a more logical "new start." I have been thinking about where to put my energy and focus. It could be an interesting year. Lots of potential for "blooming."

Yum!

I love the traditional foods that we enjoy during the holidays. In fact, I have a separate envelope in my recipe binder that is full of the family favorites.

Of course we had cranberry pudding. I've blogged about it many times in the past (including way back to 2005).

Benjamin made a special dinner for Lincoln one evening. It was a big hit!
The kids gave Jeff a fondue pot for Christmas. We tested it out with a delicious cheese fondue. This new electric pot is a huge improvement over the sterno one we had when we lived in Florida and nearly burned the house down.

We celebrated Jeff's mom's birthday on New Year's Eve with lobster! We've done this a few times before -- so I guess it's also a tradition. A good one, I think!