Coco & JC en voyage

Well...it has been a bit more than a month since my last post and the end of the "voyage"....thing is, I feel like I am on a new aspect of the voyage...the return to "regular" life which is a trip in itself!

I have been avoiding doing anything regular but I did make it to my exercise class followed by coffee at my favorite spot Baker and Spice. How lucky is this to be in a neighborhood with a great cafe...just like Paris actually. (Since this photo was taken however, Baker and Spice has changed the color scheme and it is much less of a cozy spot to visit sadly...now I am on the look out for a new "favorite spot").

I have quite a lot on my plate right now but this is what my friend Pam and I had for lunch one day at the famous Portland food carts! We sat outside in a tent and just enjoyed the chance to catch up!(We didn't actually eat all this in one sitting...it came home for dinner).

Like I said...this is a great place to live. Even so...I keep thinking back to all the wonderful experiences of the past three months and I get rather dreamy....

Jump forward...it is February 1, 2015 and today is my birthday!! As I typed this a hummingbird flew up to the window!! Time has certainly zoomed by since I wrote the above post! I even have most of the photos I planned to include ready to go but...things got in the way!

Here is a quick trip through the last months of 2014...
The weather was so warm I did some "ice" dyeing out on the back deck and here is the result on a length of silk I brought back from Marché St. Pierre in Paris! It has already found its way into a new nuno felted scarf!

It was "Fruit Loop" weekend in the Columbia Gorge so we headed out with Adam and Holly to do some wine tasting and fruit shopping at the orchards in Hood River:

Domaine Pouillon

Let's taste that new rosé

This is a shot of the Columbia River from the car as we drove home

...and this is what we had in the trunk of the car! Future peach jam for the freezer.

Since Jean-Claude likes to make jam we went out to Smith Berry Barn to pick raspberries. These ladies were greeting us as we went out to pick the berries

Later it was time for some frozen yogurt in the Village and a stroll

I rather found this little group of doggies in front of O'Connor's to be sweet. I think we must have at least this variety of dogs in our neighborhood. There is not a cat watering spot though but I have yet to see anyone walking their cat on a leash!!

In September the brilliant weather continued and JC and I joined our friends for a "Frenchies" weekend at the Hood Canal in Washington in Potlatch. This has become an annual event from when we had our house at the canal and it is a weekend I look forward to with delight! Good food, conversation, laughter and wine. Who could ask for more! It always energizes me and this year it was perfect.

View of Hood Canal

Mailboxes on Potlatch Road

L'heure du berger

Enough energy for me to get some new felting work done for an upcoming art show.

This amazing curtain was felted by my good friend Maris for a fashion show at Quilt Expo in Portland. Maris is an amazing felter and fiber artist and designed and created this back drop for the Columbia Fiberarts Guild fashion show put on by the Wearables group I belong to. Each of the "dresses" is created from silk, lace and felted onto the silk organza backing. I wish I had a house large enough to have this as a curtain in the bedroom!

I am wearing one of the felted garments I created as I pose here for JC in front of my booth at Celebrating the Arts show in October.

Then it was time for JC and I to go see the beautiful aspen in Santa Fe with our dear friends Ed and Nancy who have the great fortune to spend half the year in that glorious place. I wish my photo could give a better idea of the marvelous colors of the aspen trees as the leaves were changing. It was breathtaking.