Thursday, March 13, 2008

TRIP TO SEATTLE
Last week I took a trip to the Seattle area to visit friends, Tim and Melody. I had a great time. Upon arriving, Mel and I spent a couple hours in downtown Seattle, Pike's Market, and walking around. They live about 30 min. southeast of Seattle in a small town, a bit rural, and there is an alpaca farm minutes from their house. You can see Mt. Rainier from their bedroom. Wow! Mel took me hiking at two different spots. One was Discovery Park on Puget Sound. It was a great day and we could see the Olympic Mountains in the distance.

On the beach, we looked for beach glass for Mel's collection. Nice lighthouse!

Mel also took me on a nice hike up the Snoqualamie River to a set of water falls.

Here we are at the upper falls.

The forest was full of ferns and moss was growing on everything. Some of the trees were covered with itty bitty layers of ferns. We saw skunk cabbages just beginning to sprout.

The highlight of my trip was a visit to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. The foot bridge from the downtown area over the freeway and railroad tracks is called the Bridge of Glass. There are two of these huge turquoise blown glass towers on the bridge. (This picture is actually sideways -- I couldn't get it to rotate)

There is a wall of glass on the bridge with about 40-50 huge glass sculptures done by Dale Chihuily on shelves encased in glass. Amazing art right out there for the public. Also on the bridge is a covered walkway with a ceiling of glass, encasing hundreds of colorful glass pieces, with the sunlight coming through all the colors. You feel as if you are underwater as the glass sculptures look like sea anenomes, tubes, jelly fish. It is truly amazing and goes on for about 20 feet. This is also Chihuily's work.


The Museum of Glass (which is free by the way) was featuring an exhibit of glass art from Murano, Italy -- some of the most amazing pieces I have ever seen. (No pictures allowed.) We also spent a couple hours in the glass blowing workshop auditorium. You sit or walk around above the glass workers. There were 3 teams of glass blowers when we were there, blowing glass and shaping sculptures. It was fascinating. The auditorium floor has kilns and ovens with vats of molten glass at 2300 degrees. A visit to this museum is a must.
And what is a trip to Seattle without a seafood pig out. My last night, we went out to dinner at Elliott's in Seattle, a fabulous restaurant. I got my fill of seafood: a sampling of raw oysters (I was in heaven), shrimp, crab, calamari, and Penn Cove mussels. OMG! I could not have been happier!
During my trip to Seattle, I had sad news that one of my weaving friends, a wonderful, kind lady, Dale Braun, had passed away. Anyone who knew Dale, loved her and appreciated her zest for life. Weaving and spinning were the joys of her life. She was one of the most generous and lovely people I have ever know -- she will be missed by all of us.
ETSY UPDATE I am continuing to add new handpainted yarns and rovings to my ETSY shop. I have had good sales and thank everyone who has helped to make this a success -- many new customers and many who have bought from me at various fiber shows. Here's the web address if you want to take a look: