Saturday, May 21, 2016

It's T-6 days til the big show!

I'm happy to say that the last entry I said would be in the show is Done-Done!!  Every year I swear that I will NOT -I repeat NOT- enter something that is not done!!  And about every other year I still do that very same thing! [I'm so tired of that part of me that forgets this every time!!]

And here it is!!  Uncle Bouquet  
                                                                                                             
Catherine Ware of Wild Hare, taught wool classes for the guild in the Fall of 2014.  The flower bouquet was a hoot to work on.  I don't use a lot of big flower fabrics, so I had to go buy some of those.  I don't do 'bling' either, but it's in there. I kept noticing "improvements" that were needed.  It kept getting bigger and busier until I just yelled "Uncle!" (Are you old enough to remember that when you wanted to give up you yelled "Uncle"!??) 



The only other things I need to do this week is put a label on my QOV quilt; and finish a cuddle quilt that is 3/4s done.  It's the cuddle quilt that we started at Finishing School this year - I'd like that committee be able to hang it in their exhibition if they would like to.  Oh, and bake bunches of cookies for the cookie sale we have!

The reason it just got done is because for some unknown reason I decided to hand quilt it rather than machine quilt it.  That slows you down! In the middle of the process I really wonder why I changed my mind, but now that it is done, I like it again!


It's been a glorious spring here.  Gorgeous weather, warm for us but with a cool breeze!   Unless it's a gale force wind ... but that's spring on the Oregon coast.  Regardless of the wind, the flowers have loved our weather!



Just another perfect day on the coast (taken from our balcony!)


Mr D and Mr K together.  It's amazing that they are both sitting still!! We get to babysit them this next month while mommy and daddy go for a trip.


A little woolie block for a secret project!!  Cute isn't it!!  Who else is working on this??



Friday, May 13, 2016

Speeding along in life

Or is life speeding along with me!  We had a few days of awesome spring weather - so nice out.  It really reminded us of why we live here.  Not at all like the rainy season 'wondering why-oh-why do we live here?'  LOL!

We had a great week with J.  There was quilting, talking about quilting, shopping for quilting, and even watching TV shows about quilting!  But wait, there's more!!

We had a "chowder eat-off".  Yep, we went to three different restaurants in the Port for chowder lunches on three different days!  The winner shall remain nameless.  J did try the chowder at the airport when she left.  It was NOT in the running!

We went to Crescent City Pool for water aerobics twice.

There was show and tell.  Here is CG showing her Splendid Sampler blocks.



We went to the redwoods for a walk.



 Did you know that J and C were born exactly a year apart??  We know now and they bonded quickly!!


 We tried to walk our beach, but it was too rocky.


J then bonded with Tonka and Meg in Portland - as if she had a chance not to! PS don't tell DD that the dogs were on the couch! -again!!


We (Joni included) got to watch the kids play basketball and baseball games.  Both are good little athletes and played well.  Miss P's basketball game was off a little, something that bothered her much more than us!  She had a great defense game going!

It was a perfect afternoon in Portland.  We were seated in the shade and there was a cool little breeze. And Mr M was adorable as he stood at 1st base and waved at his good friend, from the opposing team, as he ran to first!! Since Mr M was playing 1st baseman, good thing there wasn't a play to screw up!!  It IS hard to throw out your best friend!  Here's Mr M fielding a grounder before the baseball game.  



And the last night we stayed at the Shilo Inn in Beaverton.  This is their lovely courtyard.  Pond behind the gazebo and pool up the hill to the right!


J went home Saturday night.  More fun to come in Houston in November!!! The upside of that was I got to be at my daughter's house Mother's Day morning!  That was fun.  DH made us his famous "Eggs Marinaro"  which is an omelette created by Ed Marinaro at "Mama's" when he played football in Minneapolis.  It's basically a Denver omelette with sausage instead of ham!  Delicious!

Miss P and I also played dolls!  We never do that, but it was so fun!  We changed the doll's clothes and redid her hair ....

Here is our 'girls' picture on Mother's Day.  Three generations all with "Kay" as their middle names!!


And shhhh, don't tell, here is our boys on Father's Day picture (preview!)

 

DH and I had a lovely ride home along the coast.  We had Chinese take out for dinner.  It's always good to be back at home!  I've been hand quilting my Wool Flower Bouquet all week.  I do hate to quilt against a deadline, but the show is in TWO weeks!!!  So nose to the grindstone.

My good friend D in Redding CA always kids about "O" rocks on the beach.  "That Oprah, she's licensing everything!"  So one thing our beach DOES have right now is lots of rocks - and here's the "O"s I found and one "X"!!  







And wait for it - one "X"!  If you use your imagination!


Happy Spring to everyone!









Monday, May 2, 2016

May Day!!!

How did it get to be MAY 2016???  When I was in elementary school, one summer I overheard my Grandma Grant say, "This summer is going so fast ..." and my thought was, "Grandma you are losing your mind, this summer is never going to end!"  Grandma, I'm sorry!  I know exactly what you were feeling!!  and PS thanks for giving me an interest in quilting!!!

The last few weeks have been a blur - but I did get a few things done!!  So lets start seeing what's been happening!


'
There was a trip to Portland, we'd learned to make "Lotus Flowers" with napkins at guild meeting.  It was a sweet little project so the kids and I made some.  I thought they were cute May Baskets ... they ended up being teacher presents. We took turns balancing them on our head and shoulders!


Miss P is into selfies!  So we had to take many pictures - I'd say she was pretty good, I never get one this good!!  We also made rubber band bracelets on the Wonder Loom.  We do have trouble with that loom.  It's easier for Miss P to make the single bracelets with the crochet hook.  But I found the fish scale (tail?) bracelet instructions online and it was very forgiving!  AND it uses 2 pegs on the loom.  When I told Miss P, she lit up and got excited,"We get to use the loom?????"  So we sat across from each other and both used 2 pegs successfully!  YAY!


The Sewing Studio was open in April.  CY, a very talented friend is designing the raffle quilt for next year.  We met for a week in her MIL's currently unoccupied house to sweat-shop it.  It's going to be gorgeous and lots of research of Oregon Coast flora and fauna was being done.  There's hand quilting, strip piecing, fusible applique, hand applique and lots of fabric try outs!  I thought I was there as a fabric consultant and tie breaker!  But I ended up fusing that adorable Oyster Catcher block!!  My first 'solo' block in a raffle quilt!  I'm usually one of the machine piecers in any group effort.  And oh, I can weld a mean seam ripper too!!


Sue Spargo introduced a "Instastitch BOM" two months ago.  It's log cabin-ish and looks very modern.  She uses a variety of fabrics on hers.  But I had these yummy Cherrywood hand-dyes. So that's what I picked.  I was behind on block construciton, but at Bayshore Retreat (more about this fabulous time later) I got the first two blocks pieced.  I still need to add the embroidery highlights - but first need to finish some pieces for the 'quickly speeding at us' Memorial Day Quilt Show!!!


Here's one of two UFOs finished.  This is an I Spy quilt for my great nephew's first baby, expected in May!  Mom and I made these checkerboard I Spys when she was only able to sew squares together because of her eye sight.  We made 7-8 of them, one for the first child of her grandchildren and great grandchildren!  We have two more in that generation left to do.  Be aware, I spy quilts are pretty much a life-long obsession.  I'm still on the look-out for fabrics that work!!  A decade later???


Another UFO I finished was the Red and White Bento Box for the Bayshore Quilters Challenge.  This week, I noticed my Dropbox notifications were about changes to files (?) So I went in and saved them all on my computer.  But I'm missing some pictures - including the finished one of this quilt!

Luckily I took it to retreat and people took pictures of it - so I'll get one of those.


This is my Brookings Challenge for 2016.  I made a similar quilt last year.  This year's challenge was to use a traditional block, and do your favorite technique.  They had a dozen entries!  A successful challenge.   I used shirtings, wool applique and my favorite ocean creature - the whale!  Sorry for the uncropped picture - but when I cropped it, it turned sideways!!!  I figured upright was better than sideways.



This is for all you crazy Brookings quilters who helped me save scraps for Dog Beds.  I took enough to retreat for us to make SEVEN dog beds - and one was quite large as you can see!!


There was a "Map" fabric post card exchange and I love maps.  This is a "Shop Hop" in Oregon!  But the map fabric is really France!  But I made the cars follow a route printed on the fabric!


And I exchange a "May Day Basket" with my friend in Texas.  At one time I stenciled that little basket block.  It was pretty light, so I went over it with a Fabrico pen and then stitched around it to get it to stand out.  I also sent that cute pieced basket pin? coaster??  I never figured out how to use it - so I released it into the wild!!!


This is my Woolies Stitch-along challenge.  Four of us in Woolies played along.  I started the little house in the woods. The others gave me the sidewalk to the door, smoke coming out of the chimney, the forest, flowers and a tree farm in the front yard!!  One participant just moved, but if she can find her project, all four will be in the Brookings Show Memorial Day Weekend



We also got to see the boys this month.  I went over for the big Birthday Bash.  D is 5 and K is 3 and they had a Ninja party.  Their mommy may have outdone the rest of the family with Pinterest party ideas!!  We had cucumber snakes in the snacks, an obstacle course, ninja stress balls the kids help create, ninja pipe cleaner figures, and a chopstick game among other things!!!  It was great fun to be there.

Then the next weekend we went over and babysat for them.  A&J went up to Portland to see "Newsies".  L and Miss P also went to "Newsies" the night before!  A good time was had by all - including Nana and Papa!!



And that brings us to this little doll!  NO, it's not mine!  P, a friend here in Brookings was looking for a puppy.  They are very expensive out here.  I told her my friend J in NE had connections and we assigned J to look for a Boston Terrier at a cheaper price.  If she found one, we would pay her airline ticket out here.  6 weeks later she found "Lucy" a seal (brown) adorable puppy! 2 weeks later they are both here!!  I know quilting friends will get a kick out of the "Lucy Boston" connection!!

I picked them up at the Portland airport Saturday morning.  Lucy was delivered to her new mom and dad; we settled in - unsupervised - and have already planned a Houston Quilt Show/Quilt Cruise vacation this November!!!  When I emailed my golfer DH - who has naturally gone golfing to give us time to take over the house!!!! - he said, "I knew it was a mistake to let you gals get together!!!" And then approved the trip!

Sew Many Places is who is arranging the cruise.  M and I took a cruise a few years back and they are VERY well planned.  M even said it was her best vacation ever!  I'll let you know what other 'trouble' we get into this week!