Still alive, mostly

it's been a ridiculous several weeks in my life, jetting here and there.  I'm not complaining.  It's been great;  just has left me little to no time for myself.  Add to that babysitting (my daughter was between nannies so I stayed in SF for most of last week helping her, and then we had the kids this weekend).

Have I done any sewing?  Not a lot.
I did get the Sajou top that Lori (Humblequilts) organized but of course mine is not like the original design!  Once I realized that my center toile was going to be lopsided, I realized that I wanted to keep it straight. So I designed corners that allowed it to be upright!  For me, that was no small feat.



I love that toile;  and the pink outer triangle fabric is one of my favorite fabrics as well.  All in all, I'm happy with the result.  I just need to quilt it (one of these years).

And speaking of Sajou, did you know that it is a fabric/thread/supply store in Paris?

My husband and I had a trip to France in the past two weeks where I was lucky enough to spend the day with my dear friend Will.  She took me to the shop where I found some wonderful little things to buy.  I bought only a little bit of thread...but look at the choices!  This is just one portion of one wall.  I didn't take a picture of the wool threads... I bought a few spools of the thread that Will swears by for appliqué.


I was very tempted but resisted and didn't buy this adorable sewing machine cover pattern.  I figured I'd never do all that cross-stitch, realistically.  It sure was cute, though!


I had to take a picture of these marking pens that they had at the check out counter.  Can you read it? Hysterical.  Who would ever take a top off with their mouth??!! HAHAHA  Imagine that!!


Will and I usually meet for coffee near the metro (and her fabulous, charming neighborhood) and then amble our way back to her home for a little show and tell. This visit was just as I'd hoped.  She has been working on a most amazing hexagon quilt.  Here was her pile of hexies ready for assembly:


Here is one side of her project!


In the right corner, you can get a little glimpse of another small quilt she made from the Jane Lury book.  Fabulous!

The true masterpiece, in my opinion, was this quilt she showed me. (not that any of the others are less gorgeous by any means!

The photo does not do it justice.  Will is an amazing quilter!  She has such a fabulous eye for fabrics and choosing what fabric to put where.  She doesn't go into a local quilt store since there isn't one-- she buys old clothes or other items with fabrics. She fussy cuts.  But her hand quilting is fabulous.  You also cannot see but her embroidery skills are amazing (the corner basket stems!)... I had brought her some valdani threads a couple of years ago and she really used them beautifully.  And the appliqué?!  She's very inspiring!!  And one of the sweetest women I know!

It was another great visit and trip to Paris.  We also went to Provence, in the south of France, which is for another day's blog post.
I wanted to share with you a photo of the hotel where we stayed in Paris.  We stayed on the top floor, where there is a roof balcony on the right.  This is a typical building in Paris.


This is looking up the street from our hotel.  Let me point out a few things:  the iron railings are very typical. They are usually so intricate and one of the most beautiful parts of any building. And every building's railings are always so different!  The street sign is also typical of Paris;  the roof-top windows as well as the floor to ceiling windows on each floor are very typical.  This is a one-way street with two lanes; many are barely wide enough for one lane of traffic!


Flights always seem to arrive first thing in the morning in Paris (you fly through the night, from San Francisco) and I loved this view of the sunrise. FYI: it is about 11 hrs from SF to Paris! 


It's been a very busy and crazy month for me, between my trip to Singapore, babysitting, quick trip to Napa with friends, babysitting again, and a great vacation in France, then more babysitting.  I'm off for a business trip to Hawaii tomorrow, home for a couple of weeks and then my dh and I are returning to New Zealand after Thanksgiving.  Then THAT'S IT!!  Staying put (or in Oregon!!).  My fabric is missing me! And, I will admit, that I was longing for my sewing machines.  I did bring hand-work for the flights but still missed the hum of my machine! ;-))

I have so many pictures to share... thanks for standing by me in my absence.
xxxxs,

Trying to catch up

Chantal is the winner... she guessed right.  I was in Singapore.  What an amazing place to visit.  SO interesting... I took so many fabulous pictures.  Where to start??

Singapore Botanic Gardens!!  Always love visiting the different botanical gardens as we travel, especially since we've become friends with a fabulous horticulturist extraordinaire! (yes, PBR, that's you!)...  This garden is huge and I went twice!  Hidden in the foliage are a number of sculptures, which I think is where I'll start along with water features.  Here are the gates to gain entry (FREE)



















Loved this walkway!


That's enough travel photography for today.  Now a little sewing!
I did work on Lori's little sew-along once I returned, although now that I'm seeing the second step, I'm not so sure I'm going to stick with it.  Won't look good on point..  I'll be like Wendy Reed and make a couple of versions!  This one might become my October mini!! ;-)  Add a few more rows and VOILA!


I also went back to that local antique store and found another little wire basket for some more scraps.  I dumped moved my "dark" scraps into this one and it's already full!  Now I need one for the "lights" on my sewing table!


I'm off this evening and tomorrow to PIQF, the local enormous quilt show put on by Mancuso.  Looking forward to seeing some new friends.
If you're going to be there, please let me know so we can meet up!

September mini--delayed

I am hoping that the Monthly Mini Maven (Wendy Reed!) will still accept my submission for my September mini.  I picked it up from the quilter in September...does that count??  Plus I think I should get a ribbon because this was a UFO from a few years ago which I recently finished up at the cabin.  Just needs the binding.



and I decided I didn't want to add to the stash with the leftover fabric I accumulated in making this darling so I took all the leftover fabrics, cut them into strips and made a jelly-roll quilt, which I also got from the quilter.  Funny that the left-over quilt is much larger than the original quilt! vbg  The good news is that I don't have any more fabric left from this project!  And it'll make a great donation quilt.  I think I'll let Claire (the donation queen) direct me on that.


When I last posted, I had a group of friends at the cabin and we went hiking every day.  I got no sewing done, especially because I flew back with them and missed my drive time for hand sewing. ;-(
I showed you many of my scenic views.  We had a wonderful time and I loved sharing the cabin and Central Oregon with them.

Then, right after I returned from the cabin, my dh and I took a little (that's not exactly true...) excursion.  If you can identify this location, you'll win a FQ!
I'll post more pictures from this trip after the destination has been identified.  It was so interesting.



One small hint:  my hair, which is extremely curly, was beyond curly and frizzy.

Just a little to show for my week plus great nature experiences

What can I say?  Didn't get much sewing done-- I had a group of friends come up to the cabin last week and we were hiking every day... They aren't quilters (imagine that?! non-quilter friends!) so I wasn't able to sew.

I did finish another one of these darling baskets on the drive up to the cabin!


Before my friends arrived, my husband and I went on a hike with the Deschutes Land Trust organization and it was phenomenal.  We were treated to a history lesson about the area.  I hadn't known there were people living in the hills, miles from others, doing mill work.  There was evidence of these sites...dating back to the early 1920s.  Here is a pile of rusted metal cans, all of which are identifiable if you look closely!  There was also a cup and plate!
My inclination would be to clean up the area but historians are adamant that it remain intact to  tell the story from about a hundred years ago!




Then there are the gorgeous fall colors in Central Oregon.

This one was from the hike, in the hills outside Bend.  The next one is from the area by our cabin near Sunriver.


I'm sure all the leaves will be gone in a  matter of days... I love the fall colors!

Here are some nature shots taken during the hikes with my friends.

This was taken during a hike around Sparks Lake.  You can see the South Sister to the left and Broken Top to the right.  This is my favorite area of the Cascades.  The road is closed between November and May because of all the snow.  I hiked between those two mountains earlier this summer to Green Lakes.  This hike was a lot easier! ;-)

Then we went to the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.  This area was formed thousands of years ago by volcanic activity.  The lake in the distance is Paulina Lake, which my husband and I hiked around a couple of weeks ago.


We also hiked up to the Obsidian Peak.  Have you heard of that rock?  It's a very sharp, shiny black rock from volcanoes.  This is one example.  I think it looks other-worldy, if you get what I mean.


This is that mountain from Paulina Lake.  It's quite a huge mass of rock just like the picture above.


Hopefully I'll be getting more sewing done!

A great find

I was on my way back from getting my flu shot this morning when I drove past a new shop with stuff outside (I thought it was an consignment shop--it's an antique store) and I saw something that caught my eye so I stopped.

I had recently seen that someone used an antique metal laundry basket to hold their scraps and I thought that was a great idea.  Looked on Amazon and it was pretty pricey.

So I saw one at this little antique shop.  I didn't buy it but I found something else adorable and much more affordable.  I'm guessing it was a bread basket in a former life (pain means bread in French)...note my toile window seat cover!  I do have a bias towards things French for sure.


I thought it'd be perfect to hold my scraps... so I quickly dumped my previous tupperware container's contents, thinking I'd have plenty of room leftover...
WRONG... Filled it right up, but now I can SEE what's inside.  I'm really excited about this...



Don't want to mislead you into thinking this is my only pile of scraps... NO... it's the one by my cutting mat.  I have two others overflowing near my sewing machine... Oh and another basket on the floor.  So many scraps... so little time!!

Quilts in the garden

This weekend, a local nursery held its annual quilt show in the garden.  I don't usually go because it's about an hour away but this year, since we didn't have the kids, we decided to take the drive.  What a treat.  This is one of the nicest places to buy plants I've ever seen.  The majority of the quilts were by Eleanor Burns, who was the featured quilter and displayed probably close to 100 quilts!  Alex Anderson lives nearby so she was prominently featured as well, including a booth and her demonstrations.


This was what we saw as we entered the nursery grounds.

I loved the wool applique so had to take a closer picture.  Up close I noticed that the quilter did not do buttonhole stitches.  She did a different kind of stitch, which looked equally nice.  I couldn't get a closer shot to show you as the quilt was too high up.



Look at the size of this tree!!  This was just one of many.  By the way, the pig quilt on the right had the most adorable pig fabric on the back, too!


This was one of my favorites of them all!






I really liked this log cabin variation.  It's an Eleanor Burns quilt as are the ones above, I believe.
 The sashing was printed not pieced.  I am always looking for the right pattern for me to make a quilt using some of the Kaffe Fassett fabrics I've been collecting.





This one is a mini.  I loved how she did the mini stars and the flag.  Remember I tried to piece a flag recently and it was pretty sad.  This one is adorable.



There was a really interesting exhibit by one woman who sewed people as if they were sitting on a bench.



Clever, don't you think?

This one was right by Alex Anderson and is called "Sizzle"-- it's the 2019 BOM by thequiltshow.com.   It was designed by Becky Goldsmith.  Thank you Dottie Daybell and Barbara Black for giving me the correct information about this quilt. I love the colors.


Hope you enjoyed the little show.

Tomorrow I'll show you my second quilt using the rest of the Triangle Gatherings blocks.  Used them all up! WOOHOO. Just need to put on borders.

I realized something this weekend.  I have so much fabric and so many quilts I want to make that the temptation is sometimes overwhelming.  I want to make this one and that one;  then there's another one I want to make.  Where to begin??  Know what I mean??