Grey Days on the Coast

We've been coming to Brookings OR for 9 years. Amazingly enough - this is the most grey days we've ever had! It's been "winter weather" for 3 days - we even saw a rainbow between clouds. It's good to know that rainy weather doesn't bother us - since we're hoping to retire here.

A & J2 left yesterday. We had brunch at Mattie's Pancake House and off they went - back to sunny Ashland. We came back to sitting in the alcove and a rainy day nap. I think I'll get a lot of quilting done here. I sat in the alcove and quilted on "Starry Starry Nights" for a few hours, watching the ocean. The ocean was really flat the first week of our stay - more like a lake. But the tide turned(??) and we're getting alot of wave action on the rocks now. Poosh!

I offered to buy some Amy Butler fabric for a friend back home - it's certainly adding to my stash too! I go into the store and start looking around - dangerous if you're a stashbuster! I belong to the Yahoo stashbusters online group. Although I didn't take "the pledge" not to buy fabric this year, it always makes you think and feel guilty as you buy. I'm definitely buying less than other years, but more than I'd planned. I had high hopes!

Looking forward to retiring also adds into the mix. We'll be moving from a 2600ish square feet house to a 1100ish sf condo. And frankly, my sewing room could expand to 1100 sq easily! I'm measuring the guest room closet this trip to see how many cubes (dairy carrying cases) of fabric I can fit in. Like most quilters I love fabric! And each year the market has it's variation. This year it seems that the greyed pastels are hues we haven't seen for years. Last year I think it was the mottled backgrounds. A well rounded stash is always a plus for scrap quilters! Or is that just an excuse??? I tend to be attracted to "tone on tone" and reproduction fabrics. Although I've been branching out into brighter "tone on tone"! LOL!

I've been quilting for 32-33 years and my stash is LARGE. Just chuck full of "old favorite" fabrics. I'll probably have to donate 1/3 of it to charity when I start cleaning out. Our church is making prayer quilts and the Lincoln Guild makes cuddle quilts for our local area and Christmas stockings and bags for the shelters at Christmas. I'm picturing "two for me, one for guild and one for church" when I start clearing the sewing room out.

Stashbusters has a "Fab Four" set up. As you might notice from my sidebar, I adapted it to a "Fab Five+" for my use. It was so funny - I agonized over which 4 to pick from the multitudes of UFO and Whimms I have ... for days ... and then someone on the digest said - it's your hobby - do what works for you. (Thanks!) Picking 5 UFOs and one "new" whimm from stash worked. Although I do have 5 groupings so far!

I brought 2 Fab5s on vacation with me. The blue/gold stars and the wool penny rug are hand work and I'm hoping to get the majority of the handwork done before going home.

I named the blue/gold stars wall quilt "Starry Starry Nights" this week. This poor quilt has been languishing in my closet for a decade! A good friend, MJ was watching me layout 5 pointed stars with alternate blocks. She reached in and twisted a star!!! I'd always put them in straight -top of the star pointed top- order before. I was shocked!!! LOL! But I took the challenge and twisted them throughout the quilt. Hoping it looks like stars twinkling in the sky. But it aged in the closet til now!!!

Well, the sun has come out and it's twinkling on the ocean. 1 hour to low tide and it's time to watch for the water to recede from the rock we use to determine whether we can get around the point. We'll be walking our beach today at low tide. Guess I'll go back to quilting in the alcove til we head down.