I did delay my departure a day - Wednesday, last week, there were 108 mph winds on the coast!! So I left Thursday, which looked promising. I stopped 2 hours up the coast to check in at the Bandon quilt store. Thank goodness I did. She immediately looked up tripcheck.com and advised me on my route to avoid all the road closings due to mud and rock slides thru the mountains![3 of the 5 passes!] If I had checked that site before leaving - I probably would have chickened out!! But going across the mountains on 42 got me to the interstate easily. I did have to backtrack - the road goes generally south, but I made it without problems.
Got the royal welcome from Mr M and Miss P - "Nana, Nana!! [big hugs] Where's Papa???" LOL! As long as I get big hugs - who cares if I'm second best!! I got to take J's volunteer shift at the co-op preschool on Friday. Preschools are very loud these days!! But, of course, I loved it - especially the parachute games. There was drawing in our 'journals' and Miss P drew me along with her - I had gun-metal grey marker hair!! It was obvious who was pictured!! We came home happy and all took long naps!
Saturday I was off to the quilt class. New technique for me - textile coloring and painting from a photo. Our teacher was wonderful - very calm, very informative and answered all questions easily and fully. I was going to withhold this project until I was done .... but figured I'd forget all the details by then!
We started with a picture.
She photo-shopped them for us and printed them on fabric - backed it with freezer paper. That helped it print AND kept it in good shape for our coloring. Here's the class's fabric portraits and then mine.
While holding the phtoto, we carefully colored the fabric. Changing any colors we wanted to - she showed us an example with a baby in a stark white bow. The fabric picture's bow was a soft pink. Shading the faces especially to let them come to life. Once I got over being afraid to screw something up - it was kind-of a mixture of coloring in coloring books and the colored pencils class I took in Newport.
After coloring everything, we painted the whole project with a 50/50 mixture of textile medium and water. The colors blended together and brightened. As you can see in Mr M's hair as I was painting. Sometimes exactly what you'd hoped, sometimes not!! My grandkids don't have red hair - but they'd look good if they did!! LOL! (PS - the fabric portrait's hair is not that red in person!!)
Now we need to add borders and quilt. I'm trying out some batiks here. I'll let you see the finished project - when it happens! It's hanging on the design wall here - I just have to decide on the quilting - to quilt the faces heavily or not!!
If you want to see the other portraits in the class - and they are all wonderful - here is the link. Enjoy!!
My plans after the class changed. Hiway 20 was open, but oh-so-slow, so I didn't stay with a friend in Newport. I headed down the I-5 and stayed in Eugene at Holiday Inn Express. I explored Eugene's shopping center and even went to a movie Saturday night. I saw "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". Very good. Granted the violence is extremely violent - but it's a small percent of the movie!?! You can pretty much close your eyes if you need to! - I'm getting wimpier in my old age.
The movie ticket was only $6 for stadium seating at 7 pm on a Saturday night!! I thought that was really cheap. Then I thought I'd have popcorn for dinner - couldn't do it - medium popcorn and medium drink was $9.75!! Is that really expensive? I sat thru the movie and then picked up a chicken nugget happy meal on the way back to the motel! Just the right size for a late, late dinner!! AND I got a hot wheels car!!! LOL! Yep, second childhoods are underrated!!
Sunday morning after checking tripcheck.com - I started off. Our usual route was now open - so went home along 38. The worse part of that was the tunnel. It's a long tunnel with a curve - AND all the lights were off in it! It was like heading into the bowels of the earth!! Pitch-black and scary! And even though my headlights were already on - it felt like they were only parking-lights - the light was quickly sucked away!!
When I got to the coast it was windy but the rivers had gone back into their banks and weren't 'leaking' onto the highway any more!! Home again, home again felt so good!
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