Ornaments, Not Bombs

Each year I make some small quilts to give to friends and family and I'm pretty proud of the little cuties I made this year.

I got just the very cutest fabric this summer. That's right. I bought fabric over the summer. I also pieced all the blocks this summer.

They're ornaments!  They might look a little like bombs, but they look less like bombs later. Promise.

Later, in December, I did some pretty schmancy free motion quilting and took a fairly lame photo of it.

But this polka-dot binding. Cute.

Here are a few of the finished quilts!

You saw right, those are yawning winter bunnies on the back.

Happy holidays to everyone celebrating!

Clairvoyant Quilting

My brother and his girlfriend, Becky, asked for a quilt this year for Christmas and lucky for me I started my quilting plenty early.  I had just two thoughts about the pattern that I chose, this Kona Color Wheel Pattern from Red Pepper Quilts.  The first thought was that it reminded me of double wedding ring quilts and the second was that it's difficult to keep white quilts clean.

The first thought was fortuitous because my brother and his girlfriend eloped!  That's right, they're married.  Just like adults!  I can't even believe it.  This is my favorite picture from their wedding day.

Good thing I was well into making them a wedding ring quilt when I found out! These are the fabrics I chose way back in the summer.

I cut the strips and made up a little assembly line

so that I could make lots and lots of these little arcs.

When I started assembling them Eddy got interested and wanted to see how I put curves together.

Four arcs make a circle.

I created a layout with a few circles missing because I am artistic and also because I underestimated how much solid fabric I would need.

That inspired me to make a border with a few pieces missing.

Once I had the front pieced, I wanted to do something really special for the back because I took this really great free(!) Craftsy course from Elizabeth Hartman about Creative Quilt Backs.

Then it was basting day.

Basting day is terrible, but it leads to quilting day which is the opposite of terrible.

That second thought from above?  The part about how difficult it is to keep white quilts clean?  Well, that thought was just as fortuitous as the thought about wedding rings because right about this point of the project I realized that the quilt somehow had a stain on it.

I have no idea how this happened. Except that I share a workshop with these three dirtbags.

I tried and tried to get the stain out and it looks a little better than in the photo above, but I stopped short of sending it through the wash because new quilts are just so delightfully flat I like to think of people adding their own wrinkles as they send it through the wash again and again.  I like to think that all I did was take the pressure off of Evan and Becky.  Now they won't feel like they have to keep the quilt *so* spotlessly clean.  You're welcome.

Finally there's binding day.

And here's the finished quilt!

But there were still days of burying threads to go.  Days and days and days.

At least I had a little help.

Congratulations to Evan and Becky from all of us Westbrooks including the cat!

Pacific Northwestern Exposure

Did you know that the television show Northern Exposure was filmed not too far from Portland?  Since we've moved here we've done a bit of television tourism and Northern Exposure was one of my favorite shows, so it was only a matter of time before we made it out to Roslyn, WA.

We started by heading up the scenic Columbia River Gorge for some breakfast.

We noticed some totem poles by the restaurant and got a little curious.

Apparently, there is a very large totem pole in Kalama, WA.

But I mean very large. It is also right by the road. We've driven by it multiple times and haven't ever noticed it. That's probably because we're always too busy with vampire tourism.

When we got close to Tacoma Eddy had to pee, so we stopped at a Pro Bass (which incidentally originates in my hometown.)

We also made a brief stop at Snoqualmie Falls, where the intro to the original Twin Peaks was filmed (because TV tourism.)

Also it's breathtakingly beautiful.

Finally we made it to Roslyn!

First stop The Brick, obviously.

There's still tons of fun Northern Exposure sights around the main drag,

as well as a few non-Northern Exposure sights.

But as with any trip to nearby WA, the most exciting part is always getting to pump your own gas.

Now, if you haven't seen Northern Exposure, or if you haven't seen it in awhile, I highly recommend watching it. Now. Do it now.

Hellstrip

Did you know that the strip of land between the sidewalk and the street is sometimes referred to as the hellstrip?  Just one of the many useful things I've learned on Pinterest.  Since we moved into this house, our hellstrip has been a mess.  It was grass and some unattractive bushes and we've just never been good at maintaining lawns.  This summer we let the grass entirely die out (which I am sure our neighbors appreciated) and this fall we played chicken with the weather to install some new landscaping before the rains set it.

Here's what our hellstrip looked like at the end of the summer.

Pretty dismal, I know. So we rented this tiller and then it was full-on dust bowl.

Seriously, it's been so drought-y this summer that it was as if Eddy turned into Pigpen from The Peanuts for an entire afternoon.

Did I mention that we did all of this work with our front windows open? Oops. The next day we bought some plants to fill in where the grass used to be.

This is Eddy using a drill to dig holes for these plants. That's how hard packed the dry soil was (and also how nutty Eddy was that day.) Finally, we completed the fastest ever mulch job and made it inside just moments before a downpour that lasted three days.

True story.

Next weekend we got out there and added some pretty boulders and the last of the tiny succulents we bought the previous weekend.

Handsome, strong Eddy put them in place

and planted the rest of our tiny succulents.

Here's the finished hellstrip!

Hellishness officially reduced.