10 October 2008

A Permanent Part of Portland

A little over a year ago, Jerry and I bought a brick in Pioneer Courthouse Square. We specified that the inscription read JEREVA, 8.3.2005- . Shortly after I submitted the order, the brick mavens got in touch to make sure we were aware that they couldn't go back sometime in the future and add another date after the dash. I assured them that this wasn't a tombstone-type engraving.


They batch the brick orders, apparently, so ours wasn't installed until a couple of months ago. We got a map and a certificate, suitable for framing, signed by Mayor Potter. Ours is brick number 2273, in square 49 on side C, on the upper level near Broadway and Yamhill. We finally got over there to look for it; it took us a while to find it, but I think we have it triangulated now. I suppose we'll have to add it to our tour-guide itinerary. You've been warned, out-of-towners.

August 3rd, 2005, was the day we moved to Portland and began our new life in the Northwest. We're planning to keep that dash open-ended as long as we possibly can.

03 October 2008

Subtle

No, I'm not referring to Sarah Palin's performance (and that's what it was, in the sense of scripted and theatrical) in her debate with Joe Biden last night.

I've had this quilt on my design wall since last spring. Now that fall is here, I was determined to git 'er done. I posted about my original inspiration and design process here. My hangup was that the brownish squiggly fabric that I'd conceived as a unifying element just wasn't strong enough to do the job. I tried shadowing with fabric paints; still not assertive enough. (This is a very busy quilt!) Eventually, over the course of several sleepless 3 AMs, it came to me: dark organza.

The penultimate version is on the left, the finished product on the right. Unlike Biden and Palin, you can barely distinguish them, especially on a computer screen (though you can click the image to enlarge it), but to me, the sheer overlay makes a huge difference. I had just enough yardage from a natural-dyeing workshop (Was it walnut? Logwood with an iron mordant? Who knows?) to lay over most of the surface, quilt roughly along the seams of the problematic brown squiggle fabric, and then clip away the excess. Here's a detail of the overlaid and stitched-down organza:


I'm pleased with the result, and glad to get another UFO out of my workspace. It looks like fall is here for sure, and with it, quilting weather.