Shop til you drop ... before my big trip!

Last weekend (alright, it was a month ago now!!  There are issues with working in blogspot on the Ipad ... still working on it!!) we had an 'emergency quilt shop hop'!!  Because I'm not traveling enough this week!!  U and I had not been to the Merrill Quilt Shop and P offered to take us!  What a gal!!  It's a long way from the coast to anywhere ... but especially to Merrill.  So we headed across the mountains to Ashland, where we visited the three quilt shops there and stayed overnight.  We had Chipotle for lunch, Yogurt Hut for an afternoon refresher, and Mexican again for dinner.  Ole!!

                              

First stop was the newest quilt shop in Ashland.  Sew Creative.  The gals there were so very nice.  And it's a very interesting store - lots of wool and interesting projects.

Here is their famous guard dog!!

We fell in love with this scrap quilt.  Bento Box with the HST - kind of like my "Bento Box meets Broken Dishes" [aka Sliced Bread ] pattern on the internet, finished last year.  But a much more dynamic setting!

The very helpful staff - with gals this cute and energetic, you know it's going to be a fun visit!

Love all the wool and embroidery projects out and about to tempt us.

Especially this one!!  Birds ... they're everywhere, they're everywhere!!!

Awesome quilting!

On to one of my favorite stores ... Quiltz in Ashland! Believe it or not, all three stores in Ashland are within walking distance of each other!!  Even on very hot days!  Yes girls, I do have to take your picture!

Quilts is always so clean and airy!  Great selection of fabrics.  What's not to like!

Needlework and embroidery supplies, if they don't have it, you probably don't really need it!

Here we are at Fabric of Vision - right off  Ashland's Plaza - the town square.This tiny little space really packs a punch.  I always find something I H*A*V*E to have here.  Lots of unusual fabrics to draw you in.

A place for a weary  shopper to rest! In front of their VERY FULL Notions wall. If I can't find it anywhere else, I find it here!

Monday, we traveled to Tater Patch Quilts in Merrill. Hey, gals!!  Thanks for letting me take pictures!!

This store is fabulous - two floors, umpteen quilt samples hanging everywhere.  Definitely worth the trip. Don't miss the basement sales room. Spend some time looking around ... if you dare!!!  LOL!

In Oregon the mountains are never out of our eyesight - isn't this a wonderful quilt technique.  Dividing a large [beautiful landscape] into 8 panels.  Just Fabulous.

Funny how this advice doesn't touch on the restorative value of shop-hops!!! What a shame!!

Yep, even the bathroom is quilt-y and entertaining!

So many quilts, so little time!

So, ladies, if you need a tour director for shop hops, I highly recommend Ms Pand me to lay it out.  We had a great time, although the heat did take it out of us "Coastal Peeps"  In fact, I hate to mention it, but someone even skipped our book club that night!!!  We need to build up endurance for shop hops!! You can use fabric stuffed in bags for dumb-bells!!  You'll be glad you did!! LOL!

UFO Finished!! Whoo-hooo!!

Retiring to the Coast was definitely the right move.  That being said - Holiday decorating was always one of my favorite things to do.  Well, in a small condo - if you add one thing, it looks like the whole place exploded and needs to be fixed!!

Christmas seems kind-of glum.  It IS the rainy season by then, that doesn't help!  And our condo is too small for a Christmas tree.  But last year I added a greenery/lights swag to our mantel and I loved it, but it needed new stockings now!!

I finished "Beach Nana" and "Beach Papa" stockings last year and they traveled with us to our family Christmas celebration.  Finally - the grands' stockings are done too!!  Even one for the newest addition born in April!!

I'm in the UFO challenge in Stashbusters Online and believe me, that list moves at the speed of light.  Well, I'm -momentarily at least- at the bottom of the list.  Now for a celebratory hot chocolate!!  Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

Makes me smile everytime!!

Bummer, Dude!!

Soooo, let's talk about the Newport Show

It's a month later ... if I don't get to it now - when??  I AM trying to be better about blogging again.  This year has been pretty bleak in frequency of posts.  It wasn't because I wasn't having fun ... trust me!!

My good friend R was the featured quilter this year and boy, she did a bang-up job of it!!  She has such a variety of techniques and style in her quilts and her winning personality completes the package.  She had a lot of quilts in her personal exhibit and two out in the show - one of which won a ribbon!!  Excellent!!

This is one of R's quilt.  It was a BOM from the Newport local Quilt store.  It was designed by one of our guild members and it's an awesome quilt.

Patchwork of the Cross, have you seen one of these up close and personal yet??  There's only so many ways to say "Stunning!"  S, who is in the Friday Bayshore Group hand pieced and hand quilted this.  She worked on it for years and it was so much fun to watch her progress.  I noticed that the Omaha store Sew Many Quilts is offering this pattern in a BOM club. The quilt is designed by mainly fussy cutting wild and crazy large prints ... imagination required.  Great Job, S!! 

Here's a close up of a few of the blocks.  Each one turns out so very different, it's fascinating to study.

I have one of these racks.  Anyone doing trio projects now??  I got it because a friend here in Brookings has an awesome machine embroidery trio of Christmas.  We're negotiating for her to make me the set.  I'd like to also make a trio - 3 different panels with a common element - like "A River Runs Thru It" only smaller!  So what has anyone else done???  Fess up!

Another good friend in Newport  won so many ribbons this year.  She won more ribbons than the number of quilts she entered!!! All different styles of quilts, she is so-o very talented.  She is the one who embroidered the seashore embroideries for this quilt.  

You may remember my "If ever you live by the ocean ..." challenge quilt from the "Stay Robin here in Brookings.  I love how her machine embroideries frame my borders.  So fun.  

Oh - a side note: I wondered if I'd ever feel at home out here and the answer is "YES!"  5 1/2 yrs later, 3 1/2 yrs in Brookings -- I feel like this is home.  It's a milestone of sorts!! I was amazed this born and bred Nebraskan would love it out here so-o much!!

The gardening club in Waldport commissioned this giant quilt.  I love that they hung it with the doorway in the center corner - it gives it so much depth.  It's a lovely quilt with little surprises tucked here and there.  Just the way I like projects!!

This was one of the patterns I bought. Annabelle's Quilt by Blue Canoe Designs. The quilt pictured on the pattern itself was "ehh!" but when I saw it made in scrap with loads of shirtings .... whole different story!  Made my heart go pitter-pat, I'm telling you!!

A close-up - do you see what I mean??  Seriously, it's truly a miracle that I haven't started this one yet!  Only due to the dedication I have to the Houses BOM, because I'm truly itching to start stitching this one! [and others!!!]

A sneak preview - this is our raffle quilt for next year!!  It's awesome and I'm hoping that I am going to win it!!  Along with every other member of guild!  The applique lighthouses were based on pictures handed to the members that volunteered.  I helped paper piece the Storm at Sea blocks ... but those gals really made the quilt!!  Can't wait to see it quilted ... and at home on my bed!!!

A glimpse into my sewing room/ Quilting staging area/ Quilt Cave ... whatever it's called, it's usually a mess!

It all started with returning the antique library card catalog back to my daughter. [I'm happy to say it's their new big screen tv stand and looks awesome!]  So things had to be cleared out, stored, found new homes and rearranged!!  Ladies, it took weeks!!! :) I handled everything quilt-y I own at least twice!!

I returned from my daughters with my Ethan Allen lingerie chest.  I moved my IKEA Expedit bookcase out of the closet in the sewing room; and the lingerie chest fits right next to it.  I bought canvas containers from IKEA that were designed to fit the bookcase.  Although I was disappointed in the colors offered right now, I'm thrilled with how much they hold.  They seem pretty sturdy and time will tell, I guess.

My friend K in Waldport is so-o very organized.  We were looking for a pattern she was sure she had and she showed me how well her system worked!  She letters each container.  Then she writes a master inventory for each ..  i.e. Box A has baby girl quilt; Lori Smith Log cabin kit, Jungle Boogie UFO.  I'm still getting used to writing it down, remembering I wrote it down, and looking it up before destroying the entire room looking for it!!  You know how it can be!!

I brought in all containers out in the storage closet - so everything quilt-y is now in the sewing room. [Oh, except for all my stash in Expedit bookcases in the dining room!!!  But there was no expectation of them fitting into the sewing room!!!]  Just like Prego spaghetti sauce "It's IN there!"  [Does anyone else remember those commercials?]  

I built a milkcrate and board bookcase in the closet to help me organize that storage area.  Our local Ace Hardware could not be more helpful. The mill cut my purchased boards in half so they would fit in my car!  That was too easy.

Starting on the top shelf of the closet - Box of Christmas fabric decorations, long basket of interfacing, pellon and freezer paper.  LandsEnd tote bag of, well, tote bags!!, basket of gallon ziplocks of cut squares, shoeboxes of cut strips.

Top shelf of the bookcase: basket of scraps with a backing on top, quilting stencils hung behind, 2 small canvas boxes of sewing misc.  wood basket of quilt framing supplies - c-clamps, pins, basting spray.

1st row of cubbies:  UFOs, UFOs, and probably more UFOs - but at least they are all out where I can find them [most of the time]

Rest of cubbies - UFOs - you see the theme.  There's favorite scraps "too little to use, too big to throw away" that I'm using for mini log cabins, there's a stash of selvedges, more UFOs, more scraps, Fabric Post Card supplies and one very big milk crate of children's books - for when the grands are here. 

Now that's just one corner of the room and just one glimpse of how much you can collect over 38 years of quilting!!  Even if you DO downsize and move to Oregon and then move again to another condo in Oregon!  Oh, MY!!

Go ahead and laugh!!  Someday this may happen to you!!!  

Celebrate Labor Day by working on a quilt!!

That's what I'm going to do!  I've been working hours and hours on the Quiltmania 2012 BOM by Yoko Saito. A real sweatshop feeling but it's so addicting!  I have a few machine and hand embroidery details left on the blocks.  I may be avoiding it by sitting here at the computer ... but want to get those done before I put the beast together!

A quick review - there were 6 blocks in the Magazine series.  But I didn't like the final layout they did.  And if you're going to change something ... well, why not change everything and really make it yours!?!?!  Yep, that's how I get into so much trouble and have so many UFOs!  I wanted a square center so I designed 3 more blocks to fill in.  My next task is to add top and bottom borders.  Top being mountains and bottom being the beach and ocean.  The town will be Brookings Oregon, my hometown now.

Here are the blocks that you haven't seen yet.

This is block 3 from the magazine.  We sewed them out of order because we were a year behind anyway and wanted to save one "easy" block after the dreaded block 5 - which we called "Pile of houses"!  If you lived thru block 5, you were seriously hooked!!

Block 6 from the magazine.  6 houses, but at least they weren't in a pile!  My center background was cut too big - and it's been patch, patch, patch ever since!  So I do have an extra staircase coming down and a bird on the roof ...  I really got into the hand embroidery on some of the trees and the window panes!  Great fun in front of the tv at night!

This was my first block I designed.  It was basically taking my favorite houses from the other blocks, reversing them and guessing at what size I needed the block.  I was awake in the middle of the night this week.  You know how you lay there and think about design problems!!  Quilt or life in general!  And I thought - this town needs some pine trees!!!  I added triangular trees to 5 of the 9 blocks and am loving it even more!

We definitely needed a school. So I looked thru my house quilt pattern collection and found this schoolhouse.  Perfect!  The houses around the school are smaller because it's an older neighborhood!!  LOL!  I still need to put hand embroidery details on this quilt - window panes and the swings.  The flag was a happy design - I couldn't find the red stripe I was looking for but this worked well.

In this block, I picked houses out of the designer's book "Houses, Houses, Houses"  It's a great book!!  I had to reduce the 4 houses slightly.  P, a friend here who is also working on these blocks, mentioned something about a tree house and we just had to run with it from there!!  I remember climbing trees to get to the rickety-est trees houses in existence.  I need to add wood ladder steps up the tree.

It's coming together ... I love this portion of the design process!!  

Good times!!

At the beginning of August - life got faster!!  The first weekend is always the Newport Quilt show and it is always a great show.  This year was no exception!!  I particularly had a good time at this vendor!!

 Carriage Country Quilts  I didn't even know there was a Des Moines Washington!!  What drew me in was the wool and embroidery samples and patterns.  Awesome stuff!!

Oh, and I'm happy to say, I didn't just bring home purchases!!  Take a look!

I L*O*V*E winning ribbons, especially at the Newport show - their ribbons are so pretty.  This beauty was pinned to my Reminiscing wall quilt.  The pattern is Reminisce by Lori Smith 

I talked about making this quilt here.  Scrap Happens, my small group in Nebraska, exchanged the blocks in the outside border.  I love that it's finished now - it reminds me of good friends back 'home'.

After the show I headed up to L&J's house for some quality time with Miss P and Mr M.  We started my birthday celebration there.

 J grilled us steaks and sweet potatoes for dinner, followed by a celebration at Menchie's - a frozen yogurt shop.  After enjoying our yogurts we stopped by the water fountain park right there and L caught this picture with her new camera - I love it!

Doesn't it look like they are in a flash mob??  They were stepping on the water jets and having a great time of it!

Oh - you want to see their faces? Why didn't you say so!! Here's my cutie patooties!!

While we were gone, A&J2 and the boys came over to our condo to get out of the smoke.  We're having many persistent forest fires and the smoke has been hanging in the valley for weeks.

They let me know that they didn't forget my birthday either - with a 'scuplture' of my polished rocks!

What fun!!

I have lots to tell you about sewing room stuff!  But that's for next post.  Here's a shot of someone who's been hanging around with his friends ... He's pretty shy, but I managed to catch him today!!  Wish you were here too!!

Newport Oregon show this weekend!

Don’t miss one of the best shows on the coast!

Friday & Saturday!

▼

Oregon Coast Quilters Guild

presents

the 23nd Annual Quilts by the Sea

with over 200 quilts!

Friday, August 2nd - 10:00-6:00

and Saturday, August 3rd - 10:00-5:00

Newport Recreation Center

225 SE Avery St. Newport

Hope to see you there!

Wish you were here to go to it with me!!  It's always a really nice show - good variety of patterns and techniques. Always a fun show - and I'm going!!  After Newport it's off to Portland to see Miss P and Mr M - it's been a few weeks and I'm betting they have grown!!

I'm happy to announce that my friend - S's Christmas stockings are done!  Hip, hip hooray!!  It was a consignment that I took on last year.  I showed her the stockings I was making for my fireplace.  Beach Nana and Beach Papa plus Miss P, Mr M, Mr D and Baby K!!  Just us and the grandkids! Of course, I really only got just us done in time for Christmas.  Since I'm in stocking mode - hope to get the grandkids stockings done this week too!!

We needed stockings to carry with us up to Christmas at the kids' houses.  S said - I like those, but we need them bigger, much bigger, much, much bigger!!  So I made them much bigger and added more even seam allowance 'just in case'  And they turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself!!

And note this awesome way to hang the stockings!!  Two or three of the new flat hooks, an expandable curtain rod and just loop them on!! You can make the rod as long as you need!  With this many, it's expanded quite a way.  I'd add one more hanger to keep the rod straight.  But with my little stockings, just 2 do fine.

Just glad I don't have to fill them!!  There is quite a difference in size!!  :)

I 'collect' alphabets.  I've been know to buy a book just for the alphabet in it!!  Both of these alphabets, fusible for S's and embroidery for mine - come from Art to Heart books.  Her alphabets are the B*E*S*T!

Since we arranged this consignment, S's husband died suddenly.  So we incorporated his shirts into the stocking design. The main body is from the shirts and the entire back is also. I make them to last and I sure hope these are no different!!  Ho, Ho, Ho!!