Let's get caught up!!

I don't know about you, but, sometimes I just go on strike!!  I don't write here or  in my daily journal ... about the only place I write is on the grocery list!!  It usually means that I'm too busy.  And so far this summer has been busy.

Our library has an adult summer reading program!  I loved summer reading programs as a kid.  I could bike to our local library and I was usually done within two weeks!!  Of course, we didn't get to use electronics all day back then!  Is anyone else addicted to Wheel of Fortune free game???  Is there help anywhere?

The reading program is a "Bingo game" with squares to complete here's just a few: First book in a series; Poetry, Award winner; Based on a fairy tale; from YA section; Recommended; and 'has blue on the cover!'  What fun!

So what am I reading?  Funny you should ask!  A Wrinkle in Time (on Kindle); Uncommon Type Some Stories by Tom Hanks and (mainly avoiding) the book club selection this month: Honolulu.

The kids' reading program is mostly about where they are reading:  under a tree, before breakfast, read to your pet, when it's raining ... I sent it to the kiddo's houses!  D is a voracious reader (just out of 1st grade!!)  There will be prizes at Camp Nana/Papa for readers!  First camp is for the Portland kids, they will be coming back from Sisters with me.  The Medford boys will be later in August.

Last week DH was on a golf junket for a week!  It started on Woolies meeting day; through the "In Town Mini Retreat" weekend where I worked on my mini-log cabin blocks.  It was so much fun that I continued when I got home ... man, it was scrappy around here!!

I started taking the 4.5" blocks and put them together into 16 patch blocks.  Then my math got all confused!  I had to figure the number of blocks needed now that they were 14.5"  Probably 64 or 72!  I'm already over 30-something (in many ways!!)  So I laid them out on the bed today - and I still like it!  But I'll have to consult photos so I don't get like-colors together.  (As if, that won't happen even if I'm paying attention.)  It's going to happen!!

Let's do the math - there are 9 logs in each 4.5" block.  144 logs in each 16patch.  If I need 64 of those ...9,216 pieces!!!

Now, of course, the fabrics repeat, but that's an impressive amount of scraps to have! and use up!  Not that it does!  I feel I have about as many scraps as I did at the beginning.  When you fluff - they multiply!

It all started with the bag of scraps we moved from NE.  Labeled "Too big to throw away, too small to use!"  And it was filled with my favorite fabrics - you know the ones!!  It's been great fun to work on, many memories surfacing with the fabrics.

I wanted to create an overall pattern that I could make larger units of and then be able to mix in the newer fabrics that I'm using now.  It IS rabid scrappy - but with this many small pieced, it does start to meld together!  What do you think??

In other June news:  Look who turned ONE!!  Miss E is pulling herself up.  Still moves the fastest doing the army crawl with her little hips swishing back and forth!

Miss P 'graduated' from 5th grade!  Next year Middle School!  Graduation was fun.  All the 5th graders had to say a little something about their time at the school.  Very impressive!  AND they read a list, if you participated in that activity, you stood up.  Miss P was bouncing up and down like a kids' pull toy!  And she was just there for one year. A very successful year indeed!

This week was a private QOV presentation.  They are always moving, I love giving these veterans' their quilts.  Especially if they are curmudgeons!!  They act all tough, then tear up like the rest of us.  What a great feeling, sharing that moment, trying to convince them they are appreciated.

Today we walked the low tide - it was -.5 and lasted forever, with lots of beach to walk along.

                                       

Remember the tidepool in the rock?  Last time it was about shin high.  The sand is way down - now it's above my head!!

 

The star-fish are coming back!  I even spotted a purple one today!

DH walking ahead (while I lolly-gag!)  The condos are in the background.

We can walk thru the cave, standing up!

Happy summer days!!

Whoooooosh! That's the sound of summer whizzing by!

How is it possible that the middle of July is past?  I'm not sure where the time is going - but it's going fast.

Here in Brookings, I've been going to aerobics at our outdoor pool every day I'm here.  It's been a great summer - about 20-30 participants and lots of room for conversations!  Then Monday and Wednesday it's TaiChi and we're really getting oh-so-much-better at the long form.  It's fun and it seems short when you're doing it well!!

The Sisters show was great.  My postcard went for the maximum bid on just the second day!!  $250 was raised for the HS scholarship!  But now, I'll have to be sure to enter by the deadline every year!  I'd told DH that I'd like to buy it back, his response was "Make another one!" And good thing - cuz that bid was WAY-OUT of my budget!

Lots of wonderful quilts in the show - modern quilts are getting so interesting!  Fun to see some of the Quiltcon winners.

This year four Stashbusters were able to meet in front of the Sisters Library for our annual meet and greet.  AND there was an awesome computer keyboard quilt hanging there for the photo-opp!

Jean Wells inspired landscape.

Theme this year was "Every quilt tells a story" (just like I've always said!) They had a book with small quilts and their stories.  Delightful!

Just a simple Logcabin with the dotted sash adding interest - fascinating! Must not start anything new ...

We had a great time at Sisters - the weather was average until it was H*O*T.  But we were staying at Black Butte and they have 5 swimming pools .... we were sure to frolick in 4 of them!

We had some disappointing meals, but the landscape made up for it!  Miss P, Mr M and I did the Letterbox contest and they each got a prize.  I bribed them with the pool when we finished!  Yep, I'm an 'experienced Nana'!!  What the moms don't know won't hurt them!!  What happens with Nana stays with Nana!!

The Hydrangea's are in full bloom around here - gorgeous this year.  This bouquet is from a quilting friend who gave them to me to thank me for consulting!  She doesn't know me well enough to know that it would be hard to keep me away!! I loved the flowers, thank you M.

I'm gradually joining in Fabric Art Post Cards again.  June bug seemed like a good time to stick up for the bees.  I put reptile stamps on the back to eat the pesky bugs!

Saturday was Fun Day at Guild.  I took my mini-log cabin blocks.  3/4" finished logs - 4" finished and made 17 blocks!  I'd decided to do a repeating block design vs a center-out design - mainly so I can start building them as I finish more mini blocks.  Each large block uses 16 minis.  It was so-o much fun!  I love the way it's turning out, much brighter than I thought! It seemed they were going together so fast (with a couple that needed some ripping :<) so I timed myself!  10 minutes from start to finish!!  Hope to get up to that speed again when I have time to restart making the blocks.

When I got home from Sisters I did what I swear I will never do again ... yep, I entered a quilt in the Newport show that wasn't finished! GASP!!  Working on it - but this week A&J2 and the 3 kiddos are here.  No time or energy for quilting today!  Miss E - who is only 3 weeks old is a party animal all night long!! It's downright impossible to sleep thru a crying baby - Mothers never forget!  The boys, 6 and 4 have been a hoot to hang with.

Last night the boys and I went for a walk.  As we passed the beach trail, Mr D (6) asked if we could just walk to the beach.
"Sorry, no - low tide is over and it's late.  We'll hit the beach tomorrow."
He asked, "We get to go to the beach tomorrow?"
I said, "Sure, that's what you come for, isn't it?"
He (buttering up dear Nana!) said, "No, we come to see you!" Too Cute!

Mr K racing the waves.

Dr D collecting water for ?????

Miss E on the beach for the first time!  She ate, she pooped, she got sand in her diaper - - it was the whole experience! LOL!

Hope you're taking the time for the 'whole summer-time experience!'

I [heart] Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!


This is my Holiday guild challenge from last year. Even though it's too big for this chair - it has gamely hung on for weeks!! It's just folded over the top - no pins! And I love it!! Read more about it on this blog entry.

Remember when you made Valentines Mailboxes from cereal boxes and HAD to give everyone in your class a Valentine??? It was so-o exciting!! The girls spent hours signing and planning who was going to get which Valentine from the package. [The package was bought mainly if it had enough Valentines for your entire class!!] How to write their names perfectly and practicing our signatures ...

The boys spent as much time as their moms made them!!! I actually got a Valentine from a boy in my 3rd grade class that said something like, "Wanna monkey around?" LOL! I don't believe his mom screened that package!! However, my mom had a fit!! But we couldn't get too upset - there was no name on the envelope - so it wasn't 'aimed' at me! It just got dropped into my mailbox! I should have realized what boys were made of then!!



I had a good week! I finished an UFO and another WIP for the community baby shower. I finished piecing them at the retreat; then FMQed them at the rental LA at our local store. The new machine has such a nice stitch - I'm really pleased with it! The log cabin quilt is left over blocks from A&J2's wedding quilt.



The blue and shirting quilt was just an idea I had - when I miscut 10" squares for a workshop. Too much blue and too little shirtings ... didn't work for what we were doing there. But there they sat, cut and needing to be used before they fell into the black hole that is apparently centered in my sewing room!! LOL! I'll be glad to hand them in at guild this month. Woohoo! Two more finished projects!



I belong to the Label Crew from Make Life Sweet. I just joined this year. It's fun - they send you labels each month and a project to use them on. I loved the labels for February - but the project involved the giving of candy bars - not on our meal plans!! I had all these wonderful red strips out -for another ongoing project- so made up a candle mat. Cute - isn't it.

It doesn't feel like fall today!!

We've had stellar weather the last few weeks. A little windy at times - but sunny and blue. The last week of water aerobics outside broke our hearts!! It was perfect and it ended for the year!!

Last weekend we scurried up to Portland to get Miss P. The weather and the tide tables looked promising for entertaining a 4 yr old Granddaughter. And we had a great week. Miss P has grown so much. She's much more adventurous now. Climbing the playground equipment and climbing the rocks and logs down on the beach.

Oh yeah - and she has grown into that chatterbox stage. Not Papa's favorite trait!! She announced that she was getting a new baby sister for her birthday - she was going to trade in Mr M! I told her that all brothers and sisters want to trade in their siblings ... but she convinced me she was really serious about it!!

To celebrate this long weekend I moved my sewing space out into the diningroom - with the view. I got into my bag of "too small to use but too big to throw away" scraps and pieced 4" log cabins. It's an addiction - I want to tell you!!

I started making these little blocks back in Nebraska - yes, I moved them and the bag of scraps - get over it!! But the bag was in the way during this new rendition of my sewing space and I was trying to decide if they should just be tossed! The answer was a resounding "NO"! Some of my favorite fabrics were in that bag - and it was like sewing with 'old friends'! I had 21 blocks from Nebraska - I now have 78!

The bag is maybe 2/3 of it's former glory! And there are strips sorted by size in little boxes ready for the next sweatshop session ... I have no idea how many blocks the bag will make!! I did have to break into a few nickel squares for that last log. I was running out of dark choices in that size. But everything else is from the bag! I'll keep you posted how many blocks come out of the bag!

What am I going to do with these blocks?? No clue!! I have a 48" size wall hanging space here - if I run out of steam I can make a wall quilt for that space. That would be about 144 blocks - easy peasy!! If I'm still on a roll - it could be an almost twin size lap quilt for watching tv OR a kingsize quilt for the bedroom!! If it ends up king size I'll add another round of logs to make the blocks almost 6". Then it would take only 400 blocks compared to 900 four inch blocks!!

Oh, by the way, don't think I can't do it!! [insert seriously evil laugh here!] I can probably do it without ever touching what I consider my 'regular' stash!! I have nickel squares and assorted size squares and strips and scraps galore - not counting my 'too small, too big' sack!! And remember - I moved 2 1/2 years ago - I gave away alot of scraps and strips and squares then!!

What can I say - I'm a scrap quilter!! And it's so much fun!!!

What IS it about fabric that's so fascinating???

FINALLY got in gear today and spent the entire day making mountains - okay molehills of 2" strips. Prep work for my son's wedding quilt. He and J2 are getting married next July! Hip hip hooray!! I've been mulling over patterns and picked a log cabin. Both my kids are really hard on quilts ... use them to death and come begging for me to fix them! This one will be sturdy! [I hope!] Log cabin is on my 'Life List' so might as well start one this year.

I saw a cool rainbow log cabin on Maryquilts web site. The woman is seriously talented. She has instructions for many wonderful quilts there - but of course, not this one! How like me! But it's fairly simple I just had to figure out where the colors went. So looked up the rippling waters diagram in "Log Cabin Quilts Unlimited" by Cox & Gordon. Drew it out on graph paper and colored it in with my colored pencils!!

You can get so lost in going thru stash. I started with the 'width of fabric' strips I cut off fabric that didn't 'make the move' here to Oregon. I left tons of fabric. G cut me 5 inch strips off of it for presents after we moved, but when I was back last April, G brought the rest of it over to J's and we stripped it up for whoever wanted it - I mailed a paper box back to Oregon with my portion!

Yes, moving is hard [but I'm almost over it - 15 months later, can you tell???] LOL! - I sold or donated 1/3 of my stash and then I ended up leaving at least 1/3 of what was still there and thank goodness I did! We barely fit everything into the truck AND this condo! After going thru those stacks I had to pull reds, yellows and oranges from my stash and strip them up too. Then went thru a LARGE box of scraps because I can use them for the start of the log cabin blocks. It's going to be very scrappy - kind of like me!!

We have a small condo and DH was worried we'd never get use of our diningroom table back - ever! What a mess! SIX HOURS later - I have six small stacks of colored 2 inch strips. But I thought of quilting friends back in Nebraska all day! Since it was rainy, very windy and grey outside I enjoyed my rainbow inside.

It's so much fun to go thru your stash ... all your favorites are in there - you know!!! AND lots of fabrics you never would have guessed you had! I was cutting strips with the selvedge too - my oldest marked selvedge was 1986(!) but I know some are older - like that VIP Moss Rose that I still have a 'bit' in 3 colors! I have been known to buy my old favorite fabrics at garage sales ... but there's no guarantee that it wasn't the original fabric I bought in 1986!! And today it got picked for a quilt!!!

Tomorrow - I'll make at least one of the 64 log cabin blocks to try it out!!! Don't you love 3 day weekends?

Happy Labor Day, everyone!