No sewing this week!

It was quality time with the grandkids! Mr M has grown quite a bit in 3 months!!! He's a chowhound. But he's sleeping thru the night and that makes visits oh so much easier on everyone! After my babysitting gig for 2 days, I brought Miss P back to the beach with me for a little vacation for mommy and daddy!

We'd been here about 5 minutes and Miss P had unpacked her books and the toys here! And that's how my week went! We had lots of fun!

Sunday report

We're having a beautiful weekend on the coast - but this morning started out really grey and threatening ... now it's sunny and 51! Sometimes I think I'm back in Nebraska with the changeable weather.

Last Monday I completed the Coast shop hop. DH drove me and we hit every kind of weather! It was amazing. It was icy underfoot when we left at 7:30 am. Rain started, then it cleared, we needed our sunglasses. But about 2 hours south we hit a snow shower that was almost a white-out! They got half an inch in 30 minutes! Then the rain, the sun again ... we spotted 4 rainbows that day and made it to the Brookings shop and back by sunset. 300+ miles! I didn't spot anything I had to have in the stores - like the first half; just bought a few 1/3 yards of blue batiks and the block kits from each store. Living out here may force me to change my quilting style - I've only been quilting with country scrappy colors for 35 years!!! Oh dear, did I hear friends saying they'll believe it when they see it??? When I finished a kaleidoscope quilt years ago, I'd been working on it 10 years and a friend told me "only you would still be working in the same colors for 10 years!" Well, believe it or not - I'm eerily drawn to batiks lately!!!

I finished hand piecing 13 album patches for my Oregon Sesquicentennial wall quilt. [Boy, was I born in the right century!] I've enjoyed hand piecing - but I have to admit I was setback when I realized I'd have to hand piece the sashings too, I knew I'd quilt it by hand, but sew the binding on by hand!!! YIKES! Good thing it's small!

Yesterday I decided I needed to sew at least 15 minutes. I haven't gotten out my machine lately. Pulled the cutting mat from under the bed. And I cranked up Prairie Home Companion on the internet - we can't get an NPR station in our condo - concrete walls to withstand the coast weather. But I keep forgetting that I can listen to PHC anytime on the computer. I ended up sewing for 4 hours! It was just what I needed!

I sewed top and bottom borders to leftover Yellow Brick Road [YBR] blocks; pieced the back together; cut the batting; framed it and pin basted it. Then I machine quilted the block lines - now I need to decide how I'll quilt inside the blocks. But I won't wait too long - I've been procrastinating on this quilt for months! No, I don't know why either!

I sewed down the binding on a charity quilt I picked up at the guild meeting.

I figured out which sashing to use for the album patch - hope to mark it this afternoon before I head to Portland to babysit for two days. Although - I don't ever get anything done up there - when they are napping, I'm napping too! Nanas can do that! LOL!

Hopefully, pictures of the finished YBR quilt next week - it all depends on whether I'll bring Miss P home with me so momma can have a break!

Shop Hop report

It was a good traveling day - went from beautiful Portland to freezing fog in the mountains to sun and haze on the coast! I am not in Stashbuster's "No-buy" this year. Good thing!!! I did the Quilt Run 101's 5 northern stores and except for a great kid's quilt kit at Canon Beach - I did pretty good!!! It was all brights and I don't do brights so had to get it in a kit.


"Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see" came out in fabric and it's fabulous! All brights with Eric Carle's scrumptuous animals ... what nana could resist?!?!?!?! GS Mr M's room is decorated in animals ... and GD Miss P loves that book [well, almost every book!] so how do you give it to both??? Not making it twice!!! I know there are some grandmas out there that have figured this out - share your strategies, Please!




I did buy 2 yards of fabric from the Moda Tranquility line. I had the folk art bird panel and charm squares - have been looking for the blue flowers for border fabric and found them in Wheeler. I did the little happy dance when I spotted it!!! IT WAS ON MY LIST!!! - so only a little guilt! I've linked the Moda website to the pieces I'm talking about - they are pretty muted on the website - in real life they are such funky colors that it's hard to pull from the stash - I'll be able to pull some but not enough for a border. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it - for now! LOL!

Then stopped at my nearest Joanne's [45 minutes away] and used a 40% off coupon for Warm and Natural - 90"wide x 10 yards. That should keep me busy for awhile. Does anyone else have this problem - when stocking up on batting - no matter how much I buy - I'm always a yard short by the end!!! I just don't know how it knows! I've used up all my usable extra pieces and I hate to cut into a king batt for anything else. So I should be set for awhile. I also bought a blue plaid to border a charity YBR - just enough - I hope! There was other stuff there but I managed to pass it by and not buy!

Second half of the Quilt Run coming up later this week - if I can just stay strong-willed!!! Send good vibes!!!

doni back @ Oregon coast