Sisters recap

Sisters was a great show this year.  The weather was just in the upper 70s!!  Practically sweater weather for Sisters!  It did rain on us all the way there on Friday, but no problems on Show Day (Saturday).

My day - in no particular order!!  Both devises were very low on battery power way before I was ready to stop taking pictures!!  So I kept switching!  Even mixed myself up!

I love this mixed up sampler!

Looks like modern houses on a cliff - sort of!

Beautiful melding of colors

Very interesting medallion!

My friend Karen D did this awesome whale!

Blooming 9patch - on my someday list!

Loved that circle - the modern quilts are getting really interesting.  

They've come a long way in a very short time!

Now this quilt could easily adapt to a selvedge quilt, the sashing strips were just 3/4" x 3" 

- wouldn't it be fun!

Loved this - look at the sky diagonals, the floating borders, the reflections in the water!

Ann Shaw is coming here for a workshop in Sept.  This is one of her new "pet" series - hope she brings the patterns!  I have grand-dogs, grand-bunnies and grand-lizards you know!!

R and I faithfully represent Stashbusters online quilt guild each year!

My friend C quilted the Sisters Raffle quilt this year - she's an artist with a long-arm machine

This year we stayed at the Pronghorn Golf Resort.  Very nice but in the middle of nowhere!  It's 30 minutes from Bend and 30 minutes from Redmond. But we loved the cookies in our room, the hot tub at night and the fun patio surrounded by flowers.

The two golf courses were designed by two well known golf pros.  But I swear the 4 mile approach must have been designed by Mario Andretti!!!  Nothing but curve after curve - for no apparent reason!  Just strange to me!

Sunday we took the 'scenic route' to Portland.  We wanted to have the famous (to us) clam chowder at Horsefeathers in Hood River.  They don't make it any more!  :(  But the smoked salmon chowder was tried ... it was okay!  (We're tough customers - don't mess with our favorites!!!)

We'd planned to stop at the waterfalls in the afternoon, it had been a long time since we'd visited and hiked up Multnomah .  Didn't know it was "Quick, go to the waterfalls day!"  No parking and Traffic with a capital T!  So we'll try again in the fall - on a week day!

Monday the Davis Cup started with a kid's event so we took the kiddos there. Mom was working it and kept track of what we should do and see.  It was set up so nicely - the kids got to grab some rackets and volley with tennis teachers and enthusiasts!  Sometimes for prizes!! It was hot but well organized and we had our water with us.

Both playing side by side

While waiting in line they played a mean tennis "air guitar"!!

And then there was face painting with an air-brush! A big hit!

 And that was just the start of our time with them.  More later on what happened here on the coast!

Accck! TWO blog posts in one week ... what on earth??

I know, I know.  The Portland kids are coming back with us from Sisters.  They sleep in the sewing space.  They bring suitcases and stuff.  All the rest of the year, that room is not available for more stuff going in!  Today was the day!  The last time it was cleared and clean was when J from NE came out with P's new puppy!  I thought this occasion deserved pictures!

I haven't taken pictures of the room when it's a mess - who would??  But let me put it in perspective.  There is one twin bed in there.  My DH is an insomniac.  I get up early to go to water aerobics, usually not long after his best sleep time.  So he likes to go back to bed in the sewing space.

That means every night I need to check that the bed is clear.  Don't judge me!  It's a flat surface, yes, things get put on it!

One night DH asked me where the stuff on the bed comes from ... seriously???  Of course it comes from the ironing board and the sewing chair!  Everyone knows that!  And when I sew during the day, guess what is in the way ... the stuff piled on the ironing board and sewing chair so it gets moved to the bed.   I don't need to go on, do I!

My DH says cleaning the sewing room is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic!!  There's a lot of truth in that.

So-o the room can only be cleaned when I know I will be too busy to sew.  Enter grandkids at the beach!

So here is my sewing space - more of a staging area than a sewing room!!!  Caution - it does seem larger for these brief moments!!

Notice the clean bed!!  Design wall behind it.  In front is "Say Uncle" wool bouquet and "It's my favorite" challenge from this year.  Pinned behind those is the QuiltMania BOM by Yoko Saito in 2014??  The end of July there will be a sweatshop dedicated to getting the borders for this quilt done at last!!  The ironing board is folded and tucked behind my chest of drawers from my childhood.  Love those little drawers!

The wonderful window looking out at the forest and courtyard for our building.  Those shades are rarely open - the walkway is RIGHT THERE and who would want their neighbors to see this room in it's usual condition, neighbors who have no suspicion that you are this crazy and disorderly??

There is a shoe shine box on the floor between the table and drawers.  Awkward but sturdy storage for books.  The log cabin project is in a box lid on top of it.  A shopping bag full of log cabin blocks and pieces on the floor under the table.  On the table behind the Janome 4800 is DMC machine embroidery thread in a Snap Lock case.  Two sets of Target little drawers that hold all the little tools and notions that you need but might not use often!  PJ pants labels "Nana Loves You"; machine needles, hand needles, pins, left-over binding pieces, templates for blocks, scissors, you name it.

There are two office chairs - one to stack projects on!!  Hey! They don't have to be moved every day!!  And the regular chair moved to the corner to make room for the extra mattress and suitcases!

Here is the main storage in the room - gotta love IKEA!  There are 4 canvas cubbies that hold UFOs. 8 baskets that hold 1. Embroidery floss; 2. Wool projects and patterns; 3. Parts of plaid bear's paw UFO; 4. Stripe fabrics for the summer quilt just topped; 5&6. More miscellaneous tools, etc; 7&8. Stacks of pulled fabrics for projects hoping to do soon!  Ok - hoping someone else, mainly minions will come in and do my bidding by sewing/finishing these projects.

Quilt books on the bottom shelves.  A stack of magazines and two large notebooks with projects torn out of magazines! A file box of counted cross stitch patterns and leaflets.

Top of the bookcase???  Oh, my!  Buttons, CDs, beach glass, beach rocks - polished and not polished. wifi box, Bose music system, JoAnn ads!! Mom's spice cabinet, basket of pin cushions ... and who knows what else.

PS Under NO circumstances am I showing you the closet today!!!  Just saying!

These may or not be a surprise for the kiddos!  We all went to Disneyland in January and I found two panels at Road to CA.  They are short bunkbed size and hopefully perfect for wrapping up in!  Pictures next time when the kids hold them or pose in front of them!

Well, today was a busy day.  Water aerobics in the morning; Tai Chi over the lunch hour and a haircut right after TaiChi.  So I packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to snarf down in between.  I'm sitting in the parking lot and there is this plant in front of me.  Something attracts my attention and I look closer.  There are snails climbing up the plant!!  Several of them!  Blow this up on your computer, these are honking big snails!  Where are they going?  For what purpose???

They might be easier to see on this picture.  Look at the frond in the middle right above the background trees!

So I wonder - and look at the base of the plant - lots of little snails in que to climb up!!  Weird, right??

Last thing, then I have to get to bed!  When we were in Talent babysitting the little gkids - they had a library book I fell in love with!  Ninja Red Riding Hood!!

This book is a hoot!  I love their sense of humor.  Poor wolf - all his 'meals' are beating him up!  He has to sneak into Ninja school.  He's ready, he sets up Red Riding Hood and she's a better Ninja than he is!  Grandma comes home in her Gi from Tai Chi!!! And they make him swear off red meat!

Try it!!  And the author also wrote The Three Ninja Pigs.  I haven't seen it, but I'm looking!!

Summertime - what ever happened to the l*o*n*g summers we had as kids??

My Grandmother once said, "This summer is going so fast!"  I was in elementary school and thought to myself: "You are losing your mind! This summer is never going to end!!"  Fast forward to 2016 - "Sorry, Grandma.  I know what you were saying now!!"

One exciting weekend in June we were celebrating our DS's graduation from Nursing School.  Look at all that honors 'stuff' around his neck!! So proud of him, it takes determination to go back to school when you have preschoolers of your own.  DDIL is a middle school math teacher - not a lot of spare time there either.  Then to graduate Cum Laude!!  WTG!

School of Nursing was the LAST college to walk.  The weather was surprisingly cool for Ashland OR in June!  The boys were very patient and well behaved but we had our work cut out for us to keep the entourage entertained for 3 hours.  

Victory Lap!!

And of course, with every graduation comes a quilt! Found this quilt on Pinterest - a very dangerous place for me to hang out!  It had been in "Easy Quilts" magazine last year.  Great - because I was working last minute - no surprise there!

  

At our quilt show I found these "Nursing charms" Great sayings on them - "It's only poop!"; "Nurses call the shots" and so on!  So I pieced them into the back.

Way back when  my DS loved the back of his kindergarten quilt more than the front.  So every time I told him to make his bed the Kilban Cat sheet backing was up and the log cabin piecing was down! I wonder which way will be up for this quilt!

Two weeks later we were back for babysitting duty with the boys.  DS and DDIL were in Hawaii!  It was very hot.  Saturday morning the little old neighbor lady came to our door and said, "It's going to be really hot today.  Here's some money to take the boys for ice cream!!  I really like the way she thinks!  So we bought Rainbow Sherbet and ice cream cones and enjoyed them all weekend!

We also watched "Charlotte's Web" and then made spider webs. (Another idea from Pinterest!)  Cut slits around the edges of paper plates and weave some yarn around the plate.  D had a really big plastic spider, we wove him into the web and he hung it in his closet!! Glad I knew about it - that would have been a big surprise to someone not quite awake!

When we got back to the cool weather coast from that - we had a sweatshop here at our house.  Three of us sat and worked, worked, worked on languishing projects.  Okay, we took too many breaks out on the deck; and had time for smoothies ... but we did get alot done.

P and I worked on - wait for it - a quilt we loved on Pinterest!!! Vintage Stripes Quilt by RedPepper. Of course, the original idea was a crib quit and we were making it MUCH BIGGER!!!

We'd collected stripes for a couple of years.  Cut 5.5" squares and then made giant checkerboards alternating the direction of the stripes.  They are so 'summer-y' and the tops are done.  I ran into problems with too little backing fabric.  But hope to simply quilt it and get it on our bed yet this summer.  IF it slows down long enough!  Our bed quilt is quite heavy and DH doesn't need it in the summer.  He tends to throw it over on my side.  Now I sleep 'cold' but the quilt doubled is so heavy that I can't turn over without waking up!!  Not good.

Sisters Outdoor Show - July 2015

This weekend is the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show.  I've been going to it for 17-18? years.  We even came from NE on vacation in July each year so I could go to the show.  This year - so far - the weather forecast is for 80 degree days!  Much better than the 100+ weather in past years.  Looking forward to strolling thru the town with friends and enjoying the quilts.

Our small town has an outdoor swimming pool that is open now.  Every year we hope and pray that the pool will open again.  And we have quite the phone chain about developments.  The very first day it was open for Water Aerobics at 8 am - there were over 30 people in the pool!!  The next week there was a day with 45 people there and 5 of the regulars were missing!!  It has settled down to 25 - 35 each day - just about right!

I love water aerobics - I even drive to Crescent City twice a week during the rest of the year for Water Aerobics at their indoor pool.  (35 minutes each way!!)  But summers, the 5 minute commute; the outdoor air, the camaraderie of meeting everyone at the pool - it's the best.  You feel like "Iron Woman" afterwards! And oh-so-virtuous!  FUN!

We bring Miss P and Mr M back from our trip to Sisters next week.  We'll see how long we can get them to stay this year.  Crossing our fingers for 5 days!!