Snow at last!

We finally had some snow in Central Oregon creating the winter wonderland look we love. It's a bit chilly outside, though, and icy, so I'm staying inside and watching from the warmth of the house! Just wanted to show you how gorgeous it gets here.

I have an odd shaped (triangular) window in my sewing room which affords a beautiful view of the trees as well as the snow on the roof!!

My family is here so I've done no sewing, which is fine. Yesterday it was a little rainy but not terribly cold so I got to take my darling grandson Ryan for a walk with the giant Max, who is wonderful walking alongside the stroller!

My latest leader-ender project, which I'd started last year, is the bow tie blocks which are 2" finished! They're great fun.

Lest you think I've forgotten: Happy New Year to everyone in blogland! It's been great fun and I'm loving it. I wish you a wonderful, healthy, happy 2012~

Scrapping my back

Having finished making my little cheddar/blue top using orphans blocks, I thought it only fitting that the back be pieced with orphans as well. I love doing that. It takes more time, of course, but I was able to use up scraps of fabrics I wasn't using and blocks which I was happy to put someplace.  It's not sexy but it's useful!!

All our kids are here in Sunriver, along with our darling grandson, Ryan, who is happy in my closet once again! It's not looking very white here, but I'm not unhappy because I can walk on the bikepaths without ice!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Happy Christmas

Christmas greetings from unsnowy Sunriver, Oregon.

Love
Randy

Cheddar/Blue quiltlet!!

Our little retreat was 3 of us: me, Claire and Lori. We went for daily walks and actually had a dusting of snow the first day.

Our last night of our retreat was spent having a lovely dinner at the Lodge up at the Sunriver Resort. Neither Claire nor Lori had ever been here at Christmas time and I wanted them to see the beautiful Christmas lights which adorn the trees outside the resort.  Here is a sample of some of the lights: a little train with gifts!

After finishing my toile top (which has a mistake, by the way!!), I decided to work on some orphan 4-patch blocks. Lori helped me come up with a design for this little quiltlet. It's blue and cheddar, which are just gorgeous together.'

My family has started arriving today, and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of SNOW!! I mean, seriously: I have that snowblower sitting idle in my garage!!! Speaking of which, did you ever know that garage door openers have LOCKS? Someone flipped the "lock" switch on our garage door opener and it effectively disabled the OPEN function. Did I feel stupid when my son just looked at it and flipped the switch?? Too funny.

Have a great Christmas weekend! It's the 4th night of Chanukah tonight and the menorah is starting to look beautiful with all the lights!

Toile be a happy camper!!

Our little retreat has been great fun. Lori cranks out the projects, making it look so easy. She brought her DJ quilt over to show us and it's very inspiring!! I don't know that I'd try to make the quilt but it is a stunner and she is rightly very proud of it.

I've moved on from the little mystery pieces to a project I wanted to make in Wisconsin but was stymied by the math. I figured it out, worked on it all day and VOILA--- finished.

This is made with a toile I'd bought in Paris when Bonnie and I went 2 years ago. I'd been looking for the right pattern to be able to utilize the gorgeous print. I mean, who wants to cut into this fabric?? Ultimately I cut the blocks down just a tiny bit. But, I'll tell ya: I barely had enough of the fabric left to go. I used a different blue for the little 9 patches but didn't bring more than a few strips with me so I was forced to cut into the leftover toile -- I used just about every single 1.75" square... I think I had about 3 or 4 little pieces leftover. NO SCRAPS left!!!

Today I'm playing with some orphan 4-patches which Lori and I configured into a simple setting. Hopefully I can show you that tomorrow.

It's been a fun week with my friends. We went for walks every afternoon when the temperature went all the way up into the 30s! We've been having 5* mornings, which is a little brisk when I've taken Max outside at 7 AM...

Hope everyone is having a great week.

Mini retreat!!

Greetings from chilly Sunriver!! Did I mention that Lori, Claire and I were going to get together for a short retreat this week.  Claire and I drove up yesterday and Lori came over this afternoon (after we hit a couple of quilt shops in Bend first, of course).  We immediately went for a walk and you can see that we had a dusting of snow this morning. It's in the 30s with no snow on the ground, really.  It's still beautiful.

Claire and I sewed late into the night last night and I was busy working on my mystery. I finally got all the 5-1/2" string blocks done. They are all shades of purple. I had great fun doing them, although the pile of strips didn't seem to go down much.

I had to get my Ryan-fix before I left so my husband and I went to see my daughter's family on Saturday. Ryan turned 2 on Friday... Hard to believe.  Here he is in Golden Gate Park.

I will report in on our retreat progress. We are looking forward to having a great time (although it's not really complete with our Bonnie-girl, I'll tell ya!!). Have a great week.

Happy Chanukah

We are Jewish and celebrate all the holidays, including Chanukah.  It starts on Saturday night and goes for 8 nights.  We light a candle each night on our menorah, adding one each night. When the kids were little, we'd give them a small gift each night.  We belong to a synagogue nearby and they are having a Chanukah party.  I volunteered to make rice pilaf for maybe 50... I couldn't believe how much rice I had to buy!!

I will report back on Saturday with more details about our holiday.  One of my favorite foods for the holiday is a potato latke (potato pancake) with homemade applesauce. Y U M M Y !!

I'm heading up to Sunriver on Sunday for a small retreat with my dear friends Claire and Lori, kind of a pre-Christmas sewing fest! So you'll be hearing from us up there, probably snow blowing!! Have a great weekend!

Not a lot of sewing goin' on...

I have tried to keep up with Bonnie's steps but I'm still a little behind. Oh well. I finally figured out my colors: I'm doing PURPLE and NEON GREEN. Oh and the 3" strings are YELLOW! It's gonna be bright and I LOVE IT.

My son had a friend visiting from Chicago this week so I took her sightseeing on Monday along the coast, up towards Half Moon Bay.  We drove past a farm and saw this guy watching us very carefully!

I got to pick up our darling grandson Ryan (who turned TWO on Friday) on Tuesday and he was being a smarty-pants, pulling off his socks and putting them in his mouth. Thought it was hysterical. I have to admit it was funny...

Hope everyone has a great Thursday!! Back to sewing for me, as it's a rainy, cool day here in Northern California, although it's in the 50s so I'm not complaining!

Didn't make a dent?

I went to my friend Claire's house yesterday for a morning of sewing. I brought along my yellow strings and am proud to say that I finished all 72 blocks! But, guess what? I still had a huge pile of strips left!! OMG. I thought I'd make a dent in the pile, but NO....

Today's project is the quarter square triangles. I'm using greens, ranging from dark pine green to lime green! I like a lot of variety. Unfortunately I've only done about 50...quite a few more.

Off to the grocery store to get food for dinner and a walk with Max---then back to work! Loving this mystery!!

Hope everyone is having a great week. What is everyone working on??

I must be getting something done....

Recently, my friend Claire told me about find great deals on fabrics.com. Never one to miss a bargain, I went online and happened upon a great backing fabric. I bought the rest of the bolt (15 yds!) at something like $2.50/yd with free shipping. Well, I must be getting something done because I've gone through the whole bolt...This is all that's left. And I love the fabric. It's been perfect for all kinds of quilts.

Recently I retreated with friends in Wisconsin. One of the women I met this time was a fabulous machine quilter, Marge West. I was anxious to have her quilt something for me and I wound up sending her a top I recently bought on ebay for about $75.  She just sent it back and did a beautiful job. I have to say the top looks much better now that it's got this gorgeous quilting. Isn't it fabulous? She does amazing work and I feel incredibly lucky to have found her.

Back to the mystery pieces.... Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

Eye candy...

Remember I was telling you about the wind storms we had this week, knocking out power (*UGH* no sewing**) and sending pine needles in piles all over my yard? We went out today to start to clean up the mess and I found this: a small patio table with its glass top lifted off the table and deposited in the planter adjacent to it...NO , it didn't break. But that sounds like tornado-type behavior...  DH and DS were outside fixing the kitty's little lean-to and the dogs' kennel, both of which were blown off!

The power is back on and I'm starting to sew, at last. I am a little behind on the mystery but did start the quarter-square triangles. I'm doing mine in green (my strings are yellow)...never the one to do what everyone else is doing, I had to try different colors.  It's going to be fun and I've enjoying getting reacquainted with the companion angle for these puppies. See next picture for samples.

My dear friend DarLynn is a great fabric shopper, I'll tell ya. She was going to our friend Pat's shop in Janesville and I persuaded her to pick up a **few** fqs for me, since there was a sale. Well, that's not possible... "seriously?" DarLynn asked?? A few?? --heehee-- anyway, here are the adorable fqs she picked and I just LOVE the colors. Those reds are gorgeous. And, of course, I "needed" this fabric for sure!!! The colors didn't come out very well, but OH MAN... I'm chomping at the bit to cut into these guys. I did already cut a couple of strips of green for my mystery pieces.

Hope everyone is having a glorious weekend. Now that the wind has stopped, we are enjoying beautiful 60* weather. Gotta love California.  What's everyone working on?? I want to hear so I can get some ideas for my new fqs!!

Flashlights are invaluable

Did you read about the terrible wind storms California has suffered the past day or so?  Well, we lost our power almost all day yesterday because of the ridiculously high winds. Flashlights, candles and lanterns were the hot items in our house.  It was really frustrating because I had planned to get lots of sewing done, but NO electricity. Pine needles are about 6-8" deep!!

I thought you'd appreciate seeing a tree that fell across the road around the corner from me. I took this while maneuvering around it, in my car, so it's not a great picture. But now do you believe me??

I'm going to sew tonight, though, and hopefully this weekend. Got to get caught up on the mystery. And work on some little gifts I want to get done.

have a great weekend, everyone!