A Silver Anniversary

Or maybe more like gray ;- )

However you choose to label it, we had a lovely day at the beach. This beach:

It didn't seem that overcast when we were there; I don't think the pictures do it justice in spite of the tweaking I did to them. It was a sort of lightly overcast sky. The clouds didn't let any blue or actual sunshine through but at least they weren't dark gray and threatening. And it was warm enough to be comfortable in a well-padded jacket.

We pretty much had the beach to ourselves, which was also nice. This is one of the rare places along the coastline of Washington State where there's sand on the beach. Mind you, there are still plenty of rocks , but there's more sand than elsewhere within a short drive of home.

I could have sat there all day just watching and listening as the water hit the sand and then flowed away again...

We did walk the shoreline, and I brought home a couple of feathers, a bivalve shell still pretty much intact, and a couple of rocks. I'm not normally a rock person but these two were so smooth I just couldn't resist. And look at the big rock on the left in this picture:

I swear to you it was lavender! I didn't do anything to alter the color in the photo. There are pretty cool black and white striped rocks on the beaches in this area too. It was a marvel the first time we saw them but as it turns out they're fairly common.

All in all it has been a pretty quiet celebration. But we've enjoyed being together and ignoring the clamor of the world. We rented a couple of movies and one disc of the first season of Pushing Daisies. I was surprised to discover that I enjoyed Igor (with John Cusack) more than WALL-E. Don't get me wrong, both are good movies, I just enjoyed the intelligent humor of Igor a lot.

I have done a bit of sewing over the last few days too. I'm about ready to set the food blocks into a top. And then I will have to figure out what to use for sashing!

Thank you for your felicitations and positive feedback. You guys are good at warming the cockles of my heart :- )

Sad Dog

Reilly went to the groomer the day before yesterday. He came back too toxic for me to be around. I already had arranged for him to spend a few days with DD this weekend so DH and I could spend our 25th wedding anniversary sans chien. (DH isn't a big fan of dogs. Or cats. He's allergic to animal danders. And pollen and dust and mold... We're like Jack Spratt and his wife: He can't handle naturally occuring allergens, I can. Chemicals don't bother him but nearly kill me. Of course.) All I had to do was find someone who could take him until DD could pick him up. Fortunately that only took a few phone calls.
Unfortunately, poor Reilly didn't have a clue what was going on.

I don't think I've shown you this pillow I made recently, using up some scraps of fishing related prints:


Of course I had to put this on the back!

I also finished up the Broken Dishes doll quilt I'd been working on (after deciding to keep the Spare Change flannel doll quilt for myself!). Made a quickie pillow to go with it too.

There are a couple more food blocks to show you, and I've started work on that Friendship top that's been hanging in my way for years, but right now I need to get off the computer and pack a lunch so DH and I can go out to the coast! :- )

Still Hungry?

For starters I'm serving up cherries, seafood, grapes, and peas and carrots.


When I started making these blocks for a new Foster Quilt I think I had it in the back of my mind to only use each food print once. I certainly have enough fabric to make a good size quilt that way. But as I've worked with the different prints I've discovered other combinations I've wanted to try. So far I think I've used two prints twice. Whether all of those blocks end up in the final edition remains to be seen. I like to have more blocks than I need when I'm working this way so that I have options when it comes time to set the blocks together.

For example, I used the hot pink carrot print (the lower right block above) with a marbled green in a previous block. Then I found the peapod print and just had to put peas and carrots together! In the upper right of the picture below is a block featuring breakfast foods and a newspaper. I'd used that before, but the print I used for the 'frame' was the same scale as the breakfast print. There was sufficient contrast in color to make the block work so I moved on. Yesterday, however, I found this black with tiny little muffins printed on it. Perfect for breakfast! (Although they could be cupcakes; it's hard to tell.) I made a second version of the block. We also have cherries and raspberries (not sure that would work in a dish!), apples, and eggs (which look a little like rocks to me so I included some chickens as well).

I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but my intention when I started making these blocks was to just make them inbetween work on other projects. They were going to be "fillers" to keep me sewing when there was a lull in the action. Well, they've taken over. I can't even think about the other projects at the moment! And there may be more than one Foodie Quilt before I am done.
;- )

More Food Blocks

I have a few more blocks to show you. This is another one where all I had left of the food print was a few small squares:


I didn't get the colors quite right when I edited this next picture but you'll get the idea. Hot pink, orange, and green.


I may or may not include this third block in the quilt top but I couldn't resist putting the block together ;- )

I just love that print of the fish on the newspaper! And I'm not even a fisher-person!

The skies around here have turned gray and leaky. I'm already tired of it. I was thrilled to find some cut daffodils in the Food Co-op on my last trip out. I was also very tempted by the primroses and hellebores for the garden but figured (correctly) that I wouldn't have the energy to get them in the ground while the weather was still pleasant. I seriously poisoned myself on that outing; I haven't been well since. When I'm finally feeling back up to par I'm going to have a lot of blog reading to do to catch up on what everyone else has been doing.

Ready for Lunch?

Thanks for all of your positive comments on this strippy preemie quilt. It really is one of my favorites too. You may not be able to tell from the photograph, but it is now backed and quilted. (Hopefully you can get bigger images by clicking on the pictures.)


And here are the blocks I've been making for a new Foster Quilt.

I have a lot of novelty prints in my stash. One of the shorter stacks is comprised of food prints. I finally decided to see what I could do with them. I thought about some more wonky stars; they're so much fun to make. In the end I went with this variation of the Hole in the Barn Door pattern. Or maybe it's a variation of Churn Dash. Whatever. I chose it because it allowed me to feature one print in a really big square. The blocks will finish at 12". The center patch is 6".

Right off the bat I found I didn't always have a 6 1/2" square available for the center so I had to come up with some other block to use. That's when I reverted back to what I know as the original Hole in the Barn Door block. (Or Churn Dash. Or Monkey Wrench.)

It will be fun, I think, to have a mixture of block patterns throughout the quilt top. It will also be good to use up (or at least make a dent in) these old prints.