july + august

August 3, 2012 at 9:08 am | Posted in button it up, chatty, craftivism, crafty events, oregon, portland modern quilt guild, quilting, sewing | 3 Comments

This summer has been packed! Here are a few photos of things I’m excited about from the last few weeks… wow, the last time I had a few minutes to post was right before Sisters. I’ll link over to our PMQG post when it’s up, but it was an amazing show, suddenly punctuated by torrential rain, thunder, and lightning strikes mid-afternoon!

Petra and I were the hostesses on duty for our special exhibit section, and raced to rescue the quilts, thankfully with plenty of help from our friends close enough to be deputized. We got all the quilts down and safe, and ran for margaritas down the street to celebrate!

Back in Portland, after a super busy work week and an amazing PMQG park meeting, I packed up the car and the kids and headed out to meet my husband Andrew in Eastern Oregon for a beautiful three days away. We went to La Grande, Baker City, Union, Wallowa, Joseph, Wallowa Lake, and Elgin, visited a rodeo, a carnival, and a powwow, paddleboated, got ice cream cones, and even visited the covered wagons. Here’s just one picture, the view from the Oregon Trail interpretive center. On the way home we stayed in Hood River and watched barges and boats on the Columbia… the nicest way to end a trip that was a little too short.

Back in Portland again, I was so lucky to go to President Obama’s event the next day (along with Rachel) and hear him speak. I had a great spot on the right of the stage, and even got to shake his hand at the end – something to tell my grandchildren about!!

I made an attempt at fabric shopping with both kids (apparently that era is over for now) and went back to Cool Cottons solo to choose solids and prints for the wonderful Denyse Schmidt class I took at PNCA. I think I’ll make that a separate post, it surely deserves it, but for now I’ll just show what I started with – Kona grass green and lime, plus some favorite prints from Denyse and Lizzy House.

After the first day of class, I ran over to the Museum of Contemporary Craft to see the closing day of the magnificent Betty Feves show. Here is one of her pieces – Garden Wall.

I loved that her personal sketchbooks, glaze calculations, mineral maps (for digging her own clay), and books from her home and studio in Pendleton were included – a full and beautiful portrait of her work and life.

Back down to earth after a weekend of sewing and looking at beautiful things, I am deep in a totally different project. I have posted about my efforts to ban BPA and toxic chemicals plenty of times over here… you might have heard that the FDA finally chose to ban BPA in baby bottles and sippy cups a couple weeks ago. I don’t think that goes nearly far enough, and I started a petition on change.org asking them to ban it in all food packaging. The petition has over 170,000 signatures now, and it would be great if you’d like to sign it or share the link with friends! I am so hopeful that the FDA will take notice of our numbers and work for safer food for all of us.

Pearl and I were on the news yesterday talking about it, if you’d like to see that clip – thank you to KOIN 6 for the support! (It’s called “Portland mom hopes to ban BPA in all food packaging.”)

Now I am teaming up with Diane for a presentation we’re giving next week at the National Button Society annual convention – here’s a nice article in the Oregonian about it! If you come by the show Friday, August 10, she is teaching a Kanzashi class, we’re both speaking on button crafts (which should be super fun – with tons of photos) and then I’m teaching a button jewelry class. We would love to see you there!

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