This and that..........

We had a great long weekend on the coast other than just running over to check on the cottage and mow the lawn - it was wonderful. We spent time with vaccinated friends who camped over there. We did something we had never done before - rented a polaris rzr to ride the Oregon Dunes. Our friends have done it before and loved it so after 29 years of living in Oregon we finally did it.  Very fun and a bit a lot scary as the dunes are tall and have drop offs that we sped straight down as that was the only choice at that point. There were roll bars, we were helmeted and belted in our 2 person rzr so other than possibly rolling the thing we were safe. 

Speaking of the coast after getting back I decided to make two small wall quilts out of cross stitches that will go perfectly at the beach cottage. I love these sandpipers. I usually frame cross stitch pieces and actually have several sitting here stretched over foam core waiting for me to feel safe enough (covid) to get them framed. 

And here are some funny otters for my otter wall in the hallway over there. I didn't take a picture of the backside but for hanging I did the corner triangles and cut a dowel to fit across the top back.

And a few roses in my yard - they have gone crazy, there are hundreds blooming with hundreds more buds on my 16 rose bushes.  The breeze kept coming up so most of my pix didn't turn out but here are a few. 

I can't remember the name of this one, isn't it interesting how the petals are so close together?  If I weren't so lazy at the moment I'd go outside and check my tag on it.  Many of the bushes were here when we bought this house three years ago so I don't know what they are but this is one I bought to fill in an empty spot. 

This one is interesting too with the white & dark pink but a bit of yellow in the center. 

I cut my rose bushes back quite a bit in February but they're already way taller than me and huge. They obviously love that side of the yard. 

 

Finished quilted throws

 I had dropped off my quilted throw tops to Jordan Quilts for long arm quilting just a couple weeks ago. I knew it would be 7 weeks before they'd be ready but last Thursday they called and had them done. So, during the Superbowl and today I got the bindings on them. I love the way they turned out. I haven't been getting good color with this new camera - haven't figured out why as it's just a newer version of the old camera. The throw above has a pale blue background and navy accents.

This second throw really isn't pink looking - the background is a light lavender with plum accents.

I really like this pattern - it's called Fast Lane and I bought it at Jordan Quilts along with the Kaffe Fawcett 10" layer cake bundle of prints and the solid background and accents.

This and that.......

 I finally got a decent picture of the shawl that I blocked last week, the one that I spun the Inglenook Fibers 12 days of Christmas fibers for. Love how it turned out but in this heat won't be wearing it until fall or winter.

And here are the hexxie pieces hand stitched together so far. They're in sections with the flower and part of the white background. I was laying them out to see how many I'll need for an afghan size. I'm thinking 5 flowers across and 9 flowers down but will decide for sure after I get more stitched. Im undecided if I'll put half flowers on the edges or if it will all be white.....will decide that later too.  No stitching at the moment, finger is still sore but I'll be ready with the stick on thimble once it's recovered.  Don't ask me why pictures with the phone sometimes turn when I upload them to blogger - it's not this orientation on my computer. Technology...……

This and that......

Once again I've been missing in action - we had Sam's cousin Trish and her friend Ruth visiting from Virginia on their cross country adventure. On Friday we took them to Crater Lake (national park) with a stop at a quilt shop along the way.

This is a picture of the Rogue River Gorge which is in Union Creek on the way to Crater Lake. It's the only one I took which is unfortunate because the scenery is beautiful but then I can go up there anytime to see it.

Here is Crater Lake - look how blue that water is and yes, that's snow in the foreground. The entire drive around the lake isn't open yet due to snow - perhaps early July. It is the deepest lake in the US at 1949 feet and one of the most clear lakes in the world. It's volcanic caldera was formed 7700 years ago after the eruption of Mount Mazama. The elevation at the water is 6,178 ft, it's over 7000 ft where we were standing.

Here's a Clark's Nutcracker sitting on a tree in front of the lake - many thanks to birder friend Yvonne for identifying it for me, she used to work at the park so is very familiar with the birds there.

And what's a trip to Crater Lake, or anywhere out Rt 62 without a stop at Becky's Café for pie.

I'm going to be starting a long term project - a hexxie (hexagon) afghan quilt. And I'm going to use all fabrics in my stash - what a novel idea. I have tons of beachy fabrics. I'm using the same coral seahorse fabric for all the flower centers and I have 9 different fabrics in sea glass greens for the petals. The white background is a white on white design with all things beach related, can't see it in the photo. Originally I planned on doing two rows of flower petals but that would have meant I had to buy more fabric and my goal is to not buy anything other than more white quilting thread for this project - I even have a package of free batting won at the quilt show in May. Yesterday evening I decided to hand sew one section to see how it went before I start cutting out fabric and making up little kits for each section. This will be am on the go project for when riding in the car or waiting rooms, etc.

Here's the backside so one can see the paper pieces used to create the hexagons. As a piece gets surrounded I take out the pieces of cardstock as they can be reused. I saw a trick of punching a hole in the paper to make it easy to put a needle under to pull it out. Hand sewing this was very fun yesterday evening.

Lovely day......

It's been a lovely day - 70's with a stiff breeze...perfect for working outside and never feeling hot.  A lot of weeding happened today along the rose bushes, grapes, fruit trees and all the abundance of gravel we have in the side yards. We also hung old plates in the rose garden, and outside art on the house at the deck. Below is the garden as of this afternoon. Sam built the pvc structure recently to hold bird netting since I watched the birds eat every single seed and starter plant I put out there. Now they can't get them. We've got lettuces, strawberries and the tiny starts of radishes, beets, kale, spinach and green beans. There's space for tomato & pepper plants which I may pick up this week, maybe a cucumber, maybe not.......

Yesterday I was invited to ride up to the Umpqua Valley Quilt Show with 3 other fiber fans.  It's a much bigger quilt show than those down here - lovely exhibit, more vendors and they've even got full fledged classes over the 3 days.

Yes, this pic is turned sideways - not sure why when I take pictures with my camera if I don't hold it right the photos are sideways and there's nothing I can do about it.  I work on them in a photo editing program, they look correct but when they load onto the blog they're still sideways. Still kicking myself for not taking my camera. Always love a good Dresden plate...........



....and here's another......

....loved this, photo doesn't do it justice.....

....this was impressive, not sure how many pieces there are but they're teeny tiny......

....wool applique, something I want to learn......on a small scale......

Today I was sampling free motion quilting of gingkos for my wall quilt......very discouraged thinking I bit off more than I can chew since the only free motion quilting I've ever done was in a 1 1/2 hour beginner class. I'll do more sampling but I'm not sure if I'll be able to pull off the project - I may have to come up with a Plan B......

This and that.......

Still not accomplishing much but that's ok - it's my life, I can do what I want..........most of the time.  Friday morning I drove 5 miles up the road to the Hugo Ladies Quilt Show - always a fun event with quilts on display inside the historic one room schoolhouse, lunch including home made pie for sale, vendors and music outside.  It was too hard to get photos of many quilts this year so I only took a few pix.

I love this quilt pattern and the colors. I'm impressed with the curves and points in it - construction was incredible.

This was one of the quilts by the featured quilter - she had many quilts I loved but this old fashion one with the applique really struck me.

And although not my favorite colors put together I always love a good hexie quilt.

After some time in the morning at the quilt show we took off for the coast for 4 days - the weather was glorious. These are raccoon prints on the beach - wondering if they're just out enjoying the surf & sand or maybe eating some of those crabs washed ashore.

Yesterday I did finish knitting the shawl I recently started on - if I'm feeling up to dealing with it today I'll get it blocked. Maybe I'll get some sewing in today. Pix to come when it's camera ready. Tempting to start another shawl or play on the blending board but first need to work on some gifts.

Once again more tragedy in the news - the devastating fires in California - my heart goes out to all affected and I'm sending positive thoughts that the firefighters get them under control soon.

This and that.........

I finally found some time to do more dreaded photography work, otherwise these scarves would get moved from hanging over the back beam of one loom to another to get them out of my way. Now they're photographed, tags attached and hung with other scarves listed in my etsy shop.

Here is the second echo weave scarf - this one has a red tencel weft. I've been wanting to weave something in echo weave but hadn't gotten to it, always put on the back burner. Our weaving guild challenge this year is to weave something new, the perfect opportunity to make time to try it out. I'll show my two scarves at the June guild meeting.

I put a warp on the AVL for my original Iranian Tilework draft. I love this draft I created and hadn't woven it in a couple years. The iridescence in these scarves is incredible. They all have a fuchsia warp, above a dark teal weft........

..........here a gold weft...........

.....and here a lavender weft.

I sewed a couple more baby quilts for donation via the American Sewing Guild group I joined in March. These are a part of our community sewing. I'm not sure what I had in mind when I bought the sheep fabric many years ago - so far I've made two baby quilts and there's enough to make two more. The polka dot flannel was from the ASG stash.

The train flannel fabric and navy polka dot was also from the ASG stash. I've got a third quilt in the works, a simple pieced top in red, white & blue, but I ran out of my leftover stash of batting so I'll have to finish that one up after I feel like going to JoAnn's with my discount coupon.

There are days when I just don't think I can stand to watch or read the news. It's something new each day with this administration, I use that in very loose terms. And the news is not good, it's disturbing, embarrassing to our country and downright scary. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that 'he' totally implodes at some point but he's such a weasel he might 'do a little sidestep' and get out of it. Yes, that's from a song from the Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, very fun movie, hmm, that would be much more fun to watch than the news..........

Pet peeve today - when people say 'you guyses'. Ok, when we moved to Oregon back in 1992 I noticed wait staff in restaurants would always address us as 'you guys'. Then it progressed to a plural  'you guyses'. I didn't realize guyses was a word, is it one of those new ones that I don't pay attention to???  Or is it an Oregonian word???  So, I'm used to hearing it these days in restaurants, store, coffee drive-thru but now I'm hearing it from our local newscasters........didn't they go to college??? didn't they take any English or writing classes???  Am I wrong? Is this really a word and I'm just behind the times?

Garden Party Quilt Show

Friend Teresa of Camprunamuck suggested we meet on Friday to go to a local quilt show - the 37th annual Rogue Valley Piecemakers show - this years show was called Garden Party. We thoroughly enjoyed the over 200 quilts on display and spending money at the vendors. I only took a few pictures as it was hard with many others there, and they aren't great since I often couldn't take them straight on, but I thought I'd share a few favorites although there were many more I loved and wish I had pictures of.

I love dragonflies so this quilt caught my eye. I'd love it on a wall in my house.

This is lovely, I love traditional looks and applique

My favorite quilt pattern - grandmother's garden (hexxies). This is a vintage quilt from someone's collection. I'm going to make myself a hexxie afghan quilt in the near future only my hexxies will be big/monster size in comparison to these. I can't remember how many pieces were in this but it seemed like it was over 2000.

I love this Dresden plate variation

I'm a dog person, I am not a cat person. It's not because I dislike cats, it's because I'm allergic. If I wasn't I'd have a cat in addition to our dog (but I'd still be a dog person first).  I love this cat quilt - there are little mice in-between the cats.

Here's a more contemporary quilt which I love just as much as the traditional designs. It's very Japanese in feel, the simplicity is beautiful.

I wish I would have taken pictures of all the quilts but that would have taken more time than I had to spend at the show. I have always been in awe of the incredible quilters in our region.  I hope I can make it to many of the quilt shows in the region this year.

Back to making pancakes

Sunday and Monday I took some time to spend at the sewing machine sewing and turning the circles for the pancake quilt. I was really worried I'd get totally bored with making 77 pancakes but it was fun.

Today I quilted a 'X' in the center of each pancake. Then I went to the only floor space big enough to lay them out so I could make sure no two fabrics were next to each other on the front and the backs of the pancakes. First I got them laid out looking at the coral side to make sure no two were next to each other, then I turned them over to the teal side and had to start making swaps to avoid two next to each other. After I finished that I made a pile for each row and pinned a post it note on it with the row number. Next up will be sewing all the pancakes together.......not sure when it will all get done as I've got other things in the works but it will be the near future.  I just noticed in the photo that I've got one pancake turned upside down with the teal showing on top - need to go fix that now........

Bits and bobs.........

 I just listed some more ice dyed silk scarves in my etsy shop. I've got some silk shawls 'marinating' now.....will rinse them out tomorrow and eventually get them photographed when I have time. Then I'm done with scarf/shawl dyeing for the year. Out of the recent dyeing I have set aside 3 scarves for myself - can't wait for cooler weather to start wearing them as it's still summer here.

 I went to a quilt show over on the coast last weekend. It was a small show but very nice. This was my favorite quilt in the show. It's hard to tell in the photo but all those circles are yo-yo's. I love yo-yo's. I can remember my grandmother showing me how to make them when I was very young. I've wanted to do a project using them one day.......perhaps that day/year won't be terribly far in the future.

This was another quilt I loved. It won best of show at the  Coos County Fair and had a second place ribbon from the State Fair. I can see why, it's a wonderful quilt.

Hugo Ladies Quilt Show

Today friend Kathy and I went to the annual Hugo Ladies Quilt Show. I have never been to this show and am now sorry I missed out all these years. And it's held just 5 miles up the road from my house. They meet in an old historic house, I'm not sure if it's an old school house or old church - either way it's really cute. Not only were there quilts on display but there were booths out on the grounds of quilting supplies, lunch and pie available and musical entertainment...........and it was a beautiful crisp fall day........it couldn't have been a more fun day. I took photos of a handful of my favorite quilts.

This is a vintage quilt that looked to be a friendship quilt and it was local quilters from way back in the day. This is one of my favorite quilt patterns.

I loved this appliqued quilt - beautifully stitched.

This was another beautifully stitched quilt. I love all the color in it but yet it all flows.

One of the many fun art quilts. I couldn't capture all the beadwork on this, it's lovely.

A riot of color

This was one of the quilts from the featured quilter. I love the simple flowers. They're all the same flower in different colors and heights. It's one of those quilts that makes me smile.

I also loved this simple block quilt, simple as in looking, not in execution. What really drew me to this quilt was the fact that the fabric was wool. I know this would be wonderful to cuddle up under on a chilly evening.

So often I've been out of town or busy when this show is held, I'll need to make a point of putting it on the calendar for the future, it's always held the first Friday/Saturday of October.