You're Going to Get Very Sick of our Faces

We went to the Netherlands and it was amazing.  But I must admit that it was long, long ago now, so I'm just going to show a few (thousand) highlights.  Mostly just our cute faces enjoying Dutch things.

First, the best part of our trip was the museums. We saw so many amazing collections and objects.

And we also goofed around some.

Seriously, though, the Rijksmuseum had a room full of model ships and Eddy just.

We also made a special pilgrimage to the Van Gogh Museum to see this painting that grade school Eddy copied in pencil as a child.

It is displayed proudly in our home always.

Okay. So other than museums. Windmills. Obviously.

We also went to the beach! It was lovely.

But the zaniest and most amazing thing I did was tour a stroopwafel factory in Gouda. Ask me about it sometime. The story is long and amazing and ends with stroopwafels.

Eddy and I also took some very compelling boat rides (because canals, you see.)

There were some beautiful bridges with charmingly low clearance.  Seriously, the captain asked us to duck many times.

We took pictures on the various boats.

But mostly there was just a whole lotta this kind of thing.

Which led to a little of this.

Also this.

Look. We went to the Netherlands and it was amazing. That's all she wrote!

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So Mote it Be

I made a couple of quilts as gifts over the past few months and I want to catch you up.  So mote it be.

One was for our dear friends Emily and Neal, who recently got married!  They are involved in cat rescue, so this pattern was a pretty easy pick.  It was super fun to see all the different cats I could make.

Then I added a cat border. So mote it be.

And I quilted their names and wedding date in the borders. Then I boxed it up and sent it on its merry way! Just look at those cute little mice on the backing fabric.

Congratulations Emily and Neal!

In other news, our friend and realtor Clarity took amazing care of us when we bought and sold our house and we were no treat. Trust me. We were a pain. So I wanted to make a special thank you quilt for her.

I started by free motion quilting some metallic gold thread on a black background.

I added some appliqué

and I backed it with the reverse of an orange fabric from my stash.

And here it is!

We are now caught up on quilt projects. So mote it be.

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Welcome to Four Cedars!

So we moved!  We're still in Portland, but we moved to a different part of town and we are loving it.  SO MANY PROJECTS TO DO.  Seriously.  It will take us a very long time.  These are big projects, so they will be a slow trickle making it to the blog.

That said, we busted our butts to get some of our outdoor projects finished before the rains set in and one of my priorities was to make the front of our house a little cuter.  Here's what the house looked like when we moved in.

One of the things I hated was these old rusty light fixtures.

So I got these new light fixtures.  We use them in pretty much every house we've ever owned, but this time I wanted to paint them a cute light blue.

Norman helped me paint them.

Then, guess what! I wired them all myself!

Also I painted both of our doors.

I threw some extra paint on this little guy.

Again, Norman helped.

Lastly, I made a sign using reclaimed pallet wood. We named our house Four Cedars! We name our houses. That's just how it goes.

Here's the new and improved front view of our new place!

Welcome to Four Cedars!

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Welcome Little One!

Eddy's brother Gene and his lovely wife Annie have a new little girl!  The obvious thing to do is send quilts.  Send so many quilts.  Annie told me she was entertaining the idea of an RBG nursery decor theme.  Whether she was serious or not, I decided to take it very seriously and send this little number. 

Okay, but then I needed to send an actual baby quilt along. I was very excited about this pattern I found and the fact that the nursery color is lavender.

So I did a lot of cutting and labeling.

And turned that stuff into this kind of stuff.

I used some of my very favorite fabrics from my stash on this project.

Here's a very unsexy picture of the layout for the quilt top.

These rows are just too cute.

TOO CUTE!  I am actually so pleased at how the quilting came out. This is the first time I've really felt confident about my free motion quilting.

I found a very teeny, stripey fabric for the quilt binding.

Okay. Here's where things get dicey. I swear (I SWEAR!) I took so very many pictures of this quilt before I sent it off to little Eleanor, but I cannot find those pictures. All I have is this garbage shot of the pieced top

And this somewhat lovely shot of it as a finished quilt.

That's all she got. Apparently. Well, not Eleanor. She gets the whole quilt. Welcome, little friend!

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