To Blog or not to Blog -

 A 3 month blogging hiatus??  Why?  Who knows!  We are still under construction - the painters did come back this week and we don't really have that unique light blue and medium old brown combo on the outside of the house.  BUT they still need to finish doors, railings and PLEASE put back the handrails!!  It's really depressing, I know Curry county is often called "No Hurry Curry."  But these guys are stretching that to the max!

I celebrated a BIG birthday in August - SEVENTY! Thanks to P, I had 2 surprise lunch parties!!!  Fellow quilters know what you want!  Always the best presents. Thanks so much for the festivities!!

 I'm don't feel older but seem to catch every cold/virus around.  And for some reason, at 70, it takes longer to recover from said viruses.  Thank God, not COVID - but many days thinking 'if this isn't COVID, I sure don't want it'  And of course, aren't we sick and tired of Covid directing our lives and thoughts?  Bah!

My 'new' Eversewn QE sewing machine has been on the 'PIA' list lately.  Now the foot pedal port is loose.  It took 2 weeks to figure out the problem (one week it was in California to be looked at!)  No machine repair here.  Nearest is 2 hours away.  Meanwhile, I have a 'fix'  cram a folded 'pedicure toe separator' between the cord to the foot pedal and the electric cord!  P is convinced I got a lemon.  Sigh!  I miss my Janome that served me well for over 12 years!!  And the Kenmore before that I got while in HS!!  The quilt projects are stacking up!

Hmm, maybe I quit blogging because of my mood??  I'll try to correct that.

Blessings:

Living in Brookings where the climate is down right 'medium'.  Although, the Port, our neighborhood, was 101 degrees last week.  Yep, hotter than Medford AND Nebraska summer weather!  But, that's highly unusual.  Usually we are 50 something degrees sometime during 24 hours all year round.  Sometimes the high, sometimes the low!

These gulls insisted on posing for me!!

R and I walked the beach at low tide that 101 day.  We're walking close to the water and I kid you not -  hot, hot, one step, cool breeze the rest of the way!!  AND on the way back to the car we crossed that invisible line again - back into the heat!  Things that make you go "Huh?  What?? Why??".

Miss E was here for 6 days!  Everyone else in her family was in school.  She starts kindergarten a week later - different districts.  She did fine, until she heard Dad's voice on the phone!  That day was rough.  But with 2 older brothers, she's a tough little gal.  Not a fan of "NO!"  But who is!!

Brother D, now in middle school and just got his own phone.  D & K called us to talk to E.  She wasn't quite sure what was going on, but when she figured it out, she immediately threw us under the bus!!  "K, don't tell mom, but I got A LOT of screen time!!"  K immediately told mom!  Well, I admit screen time did go up after Nana got the cold.  

Redwoods - our model wanted pictures with all the trees!  40+! 

The call of the sea

Breakfast conversations! Love her crossed legs.

We had loads of fun reading library books over and over again!  Our favorites were "Ducks Don't Wear Socks"  And "Stephanie's Ponytail."

Unfortunately, she came with a cold and generously gave it to me (see 'colds' lament above)  Yikes, we drove her back to Medford and my ears did NOT like going over the mountains at all!  Took me 5 more days to get over it.  BUT not the first time (or probably the last) a beloved Grandchild spread the plague!  No hard feelings!

Meanwhile, there are failed projects and projects waiting to be finished.  Sewing rooms to be cleaned and reorganized ... all in different levels of implementation!  I'll let you know what's going on next time - hopefully before 3 months!

Winter Storms are here!

And the ocean is H*U*G*E!  We saw waves coming over Rainbow Rock a few times yesterday - and that is over 100 feet above the water level!  It's hard to decide where to look - so many sea stacks, so much ocean!!  Tee-hee!

DH is healing, walking over 2 miles a day - 20 minutes at a time.  We're both struggling a little with a healthy diet.  I'm not an adventurist cook!  And that is an understatement!  Rick and I used to tag team groceries and meals.  I've been on my own and I don't like it!!  Grocery shopping 2=3 times a week is NOT my idea of a good time!  But, life will get back to normal, or a new usual soon.

I can't believe I have left the Year's Review til now - but here we go!

There was a new addition last June!  Miss E made her appearance!

The boys came to the beach two times.  With their parents and their first "Camp Nana/Papa".  I love this tidepool picture!! Brothers do come in handy!!

                             

But it wasn't all fun and games - the Chetco Bar Fire roared down the mountains and we were evacuated!  Luckily for us, the wind changed at just the right moment to send it back on itself. 

 

The BigKids' Camp Nana/Papa was great fun and ended with a cousins sleep-over where they got to meet Miss E! We also got to share the Eclipse Event with with them!

Let's move onto Projects!!!

A&J's crew is designing their own stuffies - so besides my usual animal repair work, I learned to manufacture animals to very exacting supervision!! Here's our Saber-toothed tiger and some Anti-Hero who's name I can't remember!

I was active in MailArt fabric postcards.  I was in seven exchanges, creating over 30 postcards.

Valentine's Day fun with rubber stamps, "Love" stamps and my fancy machine embroidery stitches!

 Lighthouses.  Done by CY's method. Crayons and markers for details. Black lines are added by machine!

Quotes!  I had so much fun designing this card. Tracing a couch and then stitching in details.  Finding just the right font!  I may have been  my favorite!!

My favorite selvedges card.  I made a bunch of these - and I'm using them for the Birthday Fabric Post Card exchange in 2018!  Who wouldn't be cheered up by these!  And I draw a birthday cake on the other side!  Fun!

I used Riel's selvedge Mummies for my Halloween cards!  Love them!

Patti and I both have Italian penpals through The Quilt Show's Intl Miniature Exchange.  We turned the leftover lighthouses into Christmas cards!  I never heard whether my Penpal got hers - Rats!

My favorite postcard was the one I entered in the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show's Make a Card contest.  My little heart was picked to be framed and sold in their auction!  It was beautifully finished.  AND it sold for the maximum bid just the second day of the Silent Auction!  $250!!  Way above my budget to buy it back!

 

Favorite quilt projects were:

QOV mystery quilt.  We had several of these in the QOV presentation we held at the quilt show in May!  It was the first time we presented and it was so moving.  I ended up being the MC - and I was so nervous.  It was well attended, ran out of chairs twice!!  All those people ... too late to back out now!  So I simply focused on the front rows where the veterans were seated and talked to them.  We presented 17 quilts and it was so-o awesome!

L wanted some things in her etsy shop, we decided on baby quilts.  So I made/finished six of them.  Also gathered antique tops to "release into the wild!"

I found "Kelsey's quilt" on Pinterest.  Yep, I'm still addicted!  It uses charm squares, I love this one.

  

Girlie By the Numbers.  Great fun to put all sorts of squares and shapes together.  By cutting only certain sizes, they generally all fit together without much angst!

Baby Rainbow - one of my favorites.  Just love the colors and the scrappiness!  AND that it's asymmetrical!

Beach Baby was a design I came up with after making "Pies and Tarts"  I thought the circles looked like beach balls!  What do you think??

It's a Jungle out there! was an idea after seeing a fellow Stashbusters' baby quilt setting.  I saw lots of possibilities with this one.  I was on the lookout for some of my favorite kid prints!  The sharks! The monkeys!

Baby Checkerboard - another idea from Pinterest.  I look at the picture, Try to figure out what size blocks I need to make it the size I want.  Then follow their design.

This one turned out too small, so I had to add checkerboards too - trying to keep the pattern in sync was picky!!


The antique tops sold, but the baby quilts have just aged!  So - don't have to try that again!  I loved some of them and was counting my chickens before they hatched!!  Oh, well.

My favorite quilt I made was "Shhhh, It's low volume"  A quilt I started at Finishing School (I get the irony!) and entered into the Newport show.  I love it - it's on my side of the bed as I type!!

 

Last weekend a Brookings quilting friend and I went down to Napa for #CraftNapa.  What fun!  It was DH's first solo weekend and I'm not sure who was more excited about it!!  It rained the first 5 hours of the trip :( so we consoled ourselves with  lunch at Schat's Bakery in Ukiah.  We may have even bought some of their Chocolate Chip Cookies for the rest of our road trip! But not enough!!!  Never enough! For some reason I picture a LOT of trips now planned to go through Ukiah around noon!

But more about that later!!  And perhaps some links to the stories behind these pictures??  We'll see.  Definitely some "Book Talk" too!

Fire continues

Now that was hard to write - the Fire Continues.  We did have fun with family and friends as we were on the road.  But it doesn't matter if you stay at home and weather it out, or whether you hit the road to get out of the way/smoke.  Nothing feels right.

So to remember some fun times - here are pictures, in no particular order (Really, they didn't load as selected!!)

Olive Garden birthday dinner for moi!

Since we were evacuated and couldn't go home after the eclipse.  I elected to stay at the new house and watch it from the deck with the kids.  99.3 - not totality but the shadows and the temperature cooling was awesome!  And the company wasn't bad either!!

This is what the Brookings cars looked like.  It was greasy, sticky soot everywhere.  And of course, we had water restrictions - so I didn't wash it until I was in Newport, running from the smoke.  R and I did a bang-up job!  Dawn dish soap; washing mitts and alot of water pressure.  Had to go over this beauty 3 times to get all the soot off.  Then we washed her car - easy peasy, just dusty.

First day of school pictures - I got to take them!!

My view Sept 1, 2017.  The fire is active near Selma; but the smoke is hanging around here.

Boys playing at Whaleshead beach - race those waves!!

Gotta throw rocks.  Gotta skip rocks.  Gotta break rocks ... it's a Boyd thing!

I made these!  I was given pictures and suggestions by the designers D & K.  They helped steer the machine and correct any mistakes I'd made!!! Saber-tooth tiger on left.  Superhero bad guy on the right!!

Still celebrating my "birthday month"!

The Newport show was a great success.  The traffic on the coast this summer has been epic!  More so in Newport than ever.  Is everyone coming out to check out Eclipse Viewing spots??  That would be okay since it means after next monday, the traffic will disappear?!?! Ha!

Shhh - it's Low Volume hung unadorned but it did hang straight!!  It's a miracle!

View from the Deck got a ribbon this year.  So it's safe to come visit - DH says life is easier if I get a ribbon!  LOL!

The show is in the Newport Recreation Center, Here we are looking down from the track at the main gym.  It's a great facility - next year I'm bringing my swim suit - the pool is finally finished and looks Great!!!

After the show, I went on to Portland and celebrated my birthday there - Olive Garden one night and Panera Bread salad the next night! Oh - and I picked up my new Ipad too! Did a little shopping but no quilt stores this round!

Tuesday bright and early Miss P and Mr M headed toward the coast with me!  We had a great "Camp Nana/Papa".  Lots of fun and beach time.  It was pretty grey ... but that just adds to the 'coziness!'  Papa played catch inside and out every day!  Inside is with water balls from the Dollar Store. They work great for kids inside and many a game has been made up with them.  We watched the Little League tournament while pitching in the house!!

We threw frisbees every evening after dinner.  Our best count was 20? without a drop.  Must work on that!

We were on top of the sea stacks ...

We were in front of our favorite driftwood elbow ...

We were crossing streams precariously ...

One day the bed-hair was so drastic we had no choice but to go to Open Swim at the Brookings Pool ...

We walked thru the Redwoods ...

Stopping along the way to explore ...

Then Friday night we went to A&J's house and had a cousins' sleep-over!  Miss E was the hit of the party.  Nana had to compete with Miss P for holding time.

Legos were very popular

But a new game of airplane was also invented!

Bedtime was delayed many times for books and giggles.  But memories were made!

It's no wonder that when we got home (sweet home) I was low energy! I had a long and complicated 'To Do' list.  I must say, it made a great bookmark!!  I sat and read and read and listened to the ocean.  Made smoothies and didn't share with anyone! Hopefully I'm fully recovered now because the little guys are coming for their first "Camp Nana/Papa" this week.  YIKES!  I'll let you know how it goes!

Enjoy these lazy (?) definitely crazy days of Summer!!

Chaotic Summer!

My DD had a work-related scheduling problem the week after Sisters.  She called and said, "Can you come up to Portland after Sisters and handle the kids for a week?  You can stay here, you can take them to the beach. But you're in charge!"  Just what any Nana loves to hear!

Here's what we did!!

After the Davis Cup event, we left for the beach Tuesday morning!  Lunch at DQ and all good travelers get to eat their dessert first!  I texted that to my DD and she said, "Cool, wait ... what???"

We got here, I ran to the store, they went out to throw the football around, we ate, we watched a Harry Potter movie and off to bed!  But thus began the nightly 'football camp' challenges!  We have a staging area in a clearing by us.  Giant mounds of gravel.  Every evening after dinner we went, tried to break our records for the most footballs caught in a row.  Throwing between the 4 of us!  Races thru-out including up the gravel mountain and back!  Who was the most worn out??? I think it was a tie!

 Swim lessons (2 sessions) began Wednesday morning - plus 2 "Open Swims"  Wednesday, Miss P got her bangs cut!  YAY - I can see those lovely eyes and expressive eyebrows!!

We hung out at the beach - this is at my favorite "elbow driftwood" to take pictures!

We forded streams and skipped rocks.

We made Wonder loom jewelry.

More beach rocks to climb!

Surprise - Disney Celebration quilts for these two!  We all went together in January.

Posing for Nana

We covered notebooks; we read books; we watched movies; we ate on the deck; played briefly at the Kid-town; Ate breakfast pancakes at Matties, went to the golf course with Papa.  Mr M put together a erector set-like airplane.  Kit from the Dollar Store!!  And went to "The Secret Life of Pets" (it's very good!)  Saturday we went to the kite festival.

This is one of the best ways to watch the kite festival!  We then made our own kites with their help ...

And flew them on the beach where it is always windy!

Carefully packed them in the trunk and left for home!  Exhausted!!!! Just the way we like it!