I hate deadlines!

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by. quote by Douglas Adams [Is he nuts?]

Caution: I'm cranky tonight!

I think I'm through with any big project that has a deadline attached to it. I do have a few summer postcards due at the end of the month ... but I'll worry about that tomorrow! aka Scarlet!

I also need an UFO done before the next guild meeting - but looking forward to putting into practice what I learned in a machine quilting class last week.

Last month's deadline was the "Sesquicentennial-ish" hand pieced and hand quilted project. I finally got the 'story' to go with it done this week. Coming up with a story was surprisingly hard! These quilts are going to be displayed in businesses around the county to advertise our show. There will be a map and it will kind of be like a scavenger hunt to see them all.


Last week I finally finished my 'paint chip challenge' for guild. What a bugger! It was a feathered star with feathered lightning-streak borders. only 3 fabrics allowed - and you know how I hate non-scrap quilts! muslin and very light blue + one ofther of my choice. 24" x 24" and there was 397 pieces. I'm glad I didn't count those up until AFTER I was done. It was still smoking when I handed it over to the challenge mom. There's some awesome quilts in the challenge - TOUGH competition. Ribbons will be awarded at the August quilt show. On my birthday - do you think it will give me an edge??? LOL!

This weekend I repaired my son's denim quilt. Never again! It would be easier to make a new one than repair a denim quit. I feel like I was wrestling alligators all weekend! If Miss P would ask me "Is Nana happy?" Nana would say "NO!" However, the dryer just turned off - so that's officially DONE! A & J2 visit this week - so I'm actually not going to be working on it at the very last second. I will, however, not sign this work - in fact I may deny any involvement! The repairs did not go well!

Tomorrow we go to babysit and we'll have a surprise in the car. Last week our neighbor pulled up behind me when I was getting out of the car. R is a stern-looking man that kind-of makes me nervous. My first thought was, "oh,oh - what did I do wrong?" Then he asked if I'd like a teddy bear for Miss P. Well, it's the biggest bear I've ever seen - R shows rebuilt old cars and this bear rode around in Americruises and sat in the truck when it was being shown. It's too big to sit in the backseat of the Pacifica - it barely fits in the cargo area!! Miss P and Mr M are going to love it! I'll take pictures tomorrow. We leave at o'dark thirty in the am to babysit for 2 days.

I'll be in a better mood next time - I promise.

One year down!

A year ago today we moved to Newport Oregon - boy did that year go fast!!!

Miss P is now 2 1/2 years old - has been here to stay with us many times - and we love watching her develop! You can almost see the wheels spinning as she thinks something out!

Mr M only arrived in November - 6 months old now - we've been able to be with him so much more than we were with Miss P at the baby stage.

I love lists - so you will have to put up with me.

I joined the Quilt guild at the June meeting - one week after moving! and a small group in August of last year ... I also joined water aerobics and a small stitchery group here at the complex within two weeks of living here. These 4 activities have kept me too busy to be too homesick for Nebraska.

I've finished 17 quilt projects! That number surprises me - I thought I wasn't doing so much! Of course, most of them are small wall quilts but there were 3 lap size, 2 single size, 2 almost double, and a Christmas stocking! Plus 29 fabric postcards! Not bad - glad I looked back at that!

I've read 69 books! You gotta love a town with a good library! Although it's not as big as the libraries in Lincoln, it's connected with every library on the coast and you can request books from anywhere. As you can tell - I jump from genre to genre!!!Favorite books last year included:

Run by Ann Patchett
Third Degree by Greg Iles
The Host by Stephanie Meyer
Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
Riven by Jerry Jenkins
The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan
Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
Winter Study by Nevada Barr
Leeway Cottage by Beth Gutcheon
On Agate Hill by Lee Smith

Okay - enough living in the past! I've got 2 projects that I would like to finish by the end of the month. And repairing a denim quilt for my son- they are coming to visit in 2 weeks - it needs to be done by then.

I've gained 5 lbs here - thought that was going to be a bigger number - but time to reverse that trend. I'm trying to convince myself I live in a 'dry' state or rather a 'warm' state - because liquor is not the problem - ice cream is the downfall!!!

We signed another year's lease - so time to get to work!!! I'll let you know how it goes!

It's time for grandkid's pictures post!

I'm finally feeling more like myself - I still have a cough that makes people turn and glare ... but I'm better. I'll be glad when I get my energy back.

We babysat the last two days and both L and I had great fun taking pictures.


Alas - the 2 bears are not really allowed outside, even though they are used to going everywhere Miss P goes. So they had to sit on the porch and watch the baseball game between beach-papa and Miss P.



Mr M turned 6 months old this week. He's growing like a weed - and has just started eating baby food - alot of baby food. Two containers 3 times a day PLUS 5 bottles of formula!



Isn't she adorable? This was taken one second before she fell back down the ladder of the slide. It knocked the wind out of her and scared Nana to death! But we were all okay in a minute. She was wearing my hat - and that was the end of the pictures today!

Sesquicentennial-ish FINISHED!

Thursday I handed in my sesquicentennial challenge. As you may remember - the challenge was to make a quilt replica using a pattern that was used 150 years ago and ALSO using the same type of fabrics and techniques. Of course, hand piecing and hand quilting. This is to celebrate Oregon's sesquicentennial AND advertising our quilt show in businesses this summer.

I felt called to participate since I followed the Oregon Trail [behind a Penski truck] last June when we moved here!

I made a signature quilt using the 'album patch'. There are 13 blocks - I wrote the names of 13 quilters I quilted with in Lincoln on a regular basis. I drafted the pattern after finding it in "Remember Me" - a great quilt history book.

The handpiecing went well - I'd forgotten how much I enjoy that. The hand quilting also went fast - then the binding from Hades! I joined the strips by hand and then wanted to finish it by a new method - sewing it into a loop before sewing it onto the quilt. It was then that things went terribly wrong!

1. Seam was on the outside of the binding - Rats!
2. Made a geometric figure - yeah - you know the one - the endless loop that turns on itself. Muttered a few nasty words under my breath!
3. Sewed a perfect mitered corner instead of continuous binding. I was loud enough that my DH looked up and quickly avoided eye contact!
4. Decided I liked my usual binding method!

But I handed it in on time ... just have to write 'my story' about it. Don't think I'll include the binding fiasco!

We are well enough to go back up to Portland and babysit again! We're driving up the coast tomorrow and eating at our favorite out-of-the-way restaurant and then over to Portland. Should be a beautiful day again tomorrow.

Pity Party at the coast - y'all come!

Mr M gave DH and I both a bad cough/cold. 5 month olds will cough in your face with no apologies!!! And I was afraid that I'd get nothing for Mother's day!! LOL!

I participated in the Oregon CoastRun quilt shop hop and did their FQ challenge. Let me tell you - those 13 fabrics DID NOT go together! AND some shops had the nerve to charge $3 for the required FQ - that's just not nice. I had a heck of a time coming up with a design ... finally I laid the fabrics in a stack with the selvedges showing and that seemed to calm them down.


I wanted to do something with selvedges - since it's all the rage now! The quilt is called "Did someone say shop hop?" You could only add 2 other fabrics - the green check selvedge and the roadmap border are the ones I added. The green check is the selvedge from mom's 'Gather ye rosebuds' I was working on at the same time. I needed another selvedge to make my squares square! I added comments about the shophop in the blank selvedges ... and the black spotted fabric made awesome spinning tires! I googled cars and came up with the pattern for the VWs I appliqued driving up and down the coast. I had a heck of a time finding roadmap fabric - looked far and wide and finally found it at "Greenbaum's Quilted Forest" in Salem. It's actually a map of France - but I figured 'wine-ing' was involved! All in all - it was fun and I got to experiment with a different technique. Alas, I didn't win - but I did get a free yard of fabric from the shop. Someone with an embroidery machine made a beautiful lighthouse/coast wallhanging - it was hard to believe she used the same 13 fabrics!! The different ocean machine embroideries really blended them. Well done!

Wishing you all a happy "Mother's Day Weekend". Hope you have time to do something you love to do!

Spring at the Coast

Here is our spare room - it isn't really a sewing room, but I get to hang quilts in there. My mom used to have a 'keeping room' out at the farm. Dad would say, "That's old and doesn't go in our house anymore - lets chuck it." And mom would say, "No, let's keep it." and into the 'keeping room it would go! So this is more of a keeping room - not that it doesn't go anywhere else ... just that there isn't room anywhere else. Our desktop computer is in there, the blow-up guest bed is there, the second tv ... and a whole lot of sewing supplies/projects.

Well, the month of May completes our first year at the coast. We arrived here last June 2 or 3-ish. We arrived, unloaded our part of the truck and then immediately drove up to Portland to unload L's part! It was a few days before we were actually residing here. It doesn't seem possible that a year could go so fast!

When we arrived the rhodies were in full gorgeous bloom ... this month we see the azaleas and the very end of the spring bulbs. The summer lower tides are back and I saw the first 'squadron' of pelicans flying this week. I guess it's like seeing the first robins in the midwest. It just soothes the heart! We also are seeing a hawk who must be building a nest close by ... guess she wanted to live on the beach ... the commute from the mountains was too much!!!

I'm nose to the grindstone trying to finish 'Sesquicentennial-ish' by the May 14th deadline. How do I get myself into these marathon finishes??? I have all 13 blocks quilted and am working on the sashings - then of course, the setting triangles and the dreaded sewing of the binding - both sides by hand! [insert scream of frustration here!] So I thought I'd throw in some detail pictures of our condo. I took them just before I went back to Nebraska to show friends and family back there.


My 'neighborhood' moved from Nebraska - there they were spread out between our house and my office window sill. I've added fossils and agates that I've found here. This is a kitchen window that faces our garage/parking areas.


And you all know I got a rock polisher for Christmas! Here's the first two batches I've polished since then. It's really addicting ... and fun to spot the agates and cool rocks on the beach during our walks.

Hopefully, next week I'll be able to show you "Sesiquicentennial-ish" finished before deadline! And I hope to get a picture of my coast shophop run challenge - I entered it into the competition without a picture on my camera. A friend took pictures of it at our retreat ... now if I can just figure out which friend and get a copy from her!!!

Back in Oregon

I'm back from Nebraska - my whirlwind trip! I had a great time. It was just the right mix of family and quilting friends! The photo above is my niece with Mom at cake time.

It's official I had the ugliest rental car in the nation! The "gold" Ford Focus was surprisingly BRIGHT! I was pulled up next to a school bus and compared ... I was just as bright but greener!! G's husband who is a shriner clown said "Egads!" when he saw it! No further validation needed!

I stayed at J&L's "bed and breakfast" There were even mints on my pillow! And it was delightful to sit and visit each night after a busy day. Thanks again!



And here's C, G, and J at the International Quilt Museum and Study Center. We saw the Grace Snyder quilts and a great chintz quilts display. You can see what we saw by following the link. We also visited one of my favorite quilt shops - a rolling party!!

Other highlights included lunch/quilt talk with the gals at the office; my small quilting group meeting; a book club meeting and the quilt guild meeting! It was a whirlwind of fun! Thanks to everyone for making room for me in their schedule!

We're babysitting in Portland - first we took Miss P home with us to the beach. Then we came up and took care of Mr M for the weekend. Monday and Tuesday we babysit our usual gig. We had so much fun at the beach with Miss P. When we went to the aquarium, we went to the Passages of the Deep - and I heard Miss P say "It's [her name], I'm here at nana and papa's." It just melted my heart!!

Mr M was wonderful - he slept thru the night for us. The dogs, on the other hand ... well, not as good! I think they have spring fever! It's green and flowering here - everyone is out in their yards or playing games in the circle - they're not used to spring behavior again yet! Dogs gotta bark!