One of my favorite things about living near Seattle is the access we have to the great outdoors.For us weekend fun is packing the car in January and going tent camping in search of owls.I remember once sharing jaffa cakes with Colin Prior knowing that this was a man that would hike for hours just to get the right light on a Scottish wilderness.Art Wolfe’s workshops start pre dawn in the Palouse. Andy Rouse travels the world in search  of penguins.So a little ice camping is good for the art.

We just pack the truck drive 90 minutes and get to see owls,bald eagles and beautiful flocks of noisy snow geese grazing on the flats.

I just document the photographer but we have found like minded folk to enjoy birding .

Steve’s images can be seen here:

Sammish Birding

Also Loren capture of me balancing over a plank (remember we were camping and I’m bundled up !)

Loren’s images

So over the last fortnight I’ve been travelling, creating and shopping !

There are a few thing to catch up with but the first I’d like to share was a rather sad thrift shore find.

We were passing through La Conner in the hours before the Superbowl final and just had time to pop into one of my fav thrift stores.La Conner has a quilt museum and many fine seamstresses and it’s always worth checking out their fabric stash.

I found 4 gallon sized bags stuffed with high quality left overs.On closer examination one bags held 49 completed square and 24 uncut squares.Each completed square was perfect and hand pressed.I’m pretty sure a very talented person has passed and I’m the beneficiary of their quilting talents.

So today when I’ve finished blog updates and got bored of trying to clear the “ephemera” on my desk I’l have ago at piecing the quilt and seeing how far I can get.

I love visiting artists studios and doing so with my docent friends is particularly important to me.The beaming picture of me outside at Pilchuck last summer shows this perfectly.

I visited April Surgent and Ethan Stern last week and was thrilled that they are working artists on the Pilchuck Board to ensure the future development of this special place.The expertise shared there will ensure that the continuity of ancient arts and traditions will continue into the developing technologies of glass art

I have a beautiful image of a very talented textile artist just gently exploring an engraving in process but will just leave this as visual description as acknowledgement to the Artist’s space