I've been slipping - again!

Well, I have let more time go by than I had planned before posting.

First, it is almost retreat time again!  I will go Friday and come home on Sunday.  I have a couple projects ready to take and am looking forward to some good solid quilting time and chatting time with my friends.  It helps also that the retreat center serves really yummy food!

DH and I spent a few days at the Oregon coast this week.  We had two rainy days and one day that was absolutely gorgeous.  We walked and walked on the beach and enjoyed every minute.

The clouds were so beautiful.

I don't imagine everyone would agree with us, but we consider

 these sea gulls to be water rats - a big, dirty nuisance.

Very pretty, large piece of driftwood.

It was a pretty calm day with not much surf.

A Project Linus Completion!!

Alas!  A Project Linus completion.  And before I go any further, yes, I have now seen that the block in the upper left-hand corner is turned the wrong way.  And do you know when I noticed it?  It was when I downloaded the picture.  Eeeegad!  The blocks are the Disappearing 4 Patch that I referenced in an earlier post.

I mentioned (I think) that I had LOTS of butterfly fabric left over from an earlier quilt (below) that I made for one of my granddaughters.  Believe it or not, there is still quite a bit of fabric, so there may be another Project Linus project in there.

It's a bright, sunny day here in the Portland area, and I'm going to take advantage of it by getting out and taking a nice, long walk with DH.

More this and that

Actually, I just felt the need to post about my four DGC again.  I haven't bragged about them for a while.  This first picture is me with our youngest GC.  He's 7 and in first grade.  Just before school started in September, we took him to the beach and he and Grandpa and I spent a long time trying to make sand castles.  He loves coming to our house.  We have several little boys in our neighborhood for him to play with.

 This handsome boy is our oldest GC.  He is 13 and as I look at this picture which was taken close to a year ago, I realize how much he has grown and changed.  Adolescence does that to you, I guess.  At any rate, his basketball team won a tournament the day this was taken, and there have been a number of wins since that day also.

 The next two pictures are too cute for words.  The two girls on the left are our granddaughters.  On the right is my nephew's daughter.  My nephew's wife French braided the girls' hair and it turned out soooo cute!  Our DGDs are 10 (on the left) and 12 (middle).  The other little punkin is 8, I think.

Here she is!

Well, here she is, presenting Baltippora.  In my previous post I talked about the patterns that paperpanache.com was offering for Fairy Quilt Godmothers.  I really love her and I need to send her picture to the website so she can be added to the many already depicted there.

A while back I ran across a tutorial for a Disappearing 4 patch http://fairholmequilters.blogspot.com/2011/10/disappearing-4-patch.html, and decided to try it.  Below are the blocks I made.   I am going to use them for a Project Linus quilt.  The other fabric will be sashing.  I had lots of these fabrics left over from making one of my DGDs a quilt a few years ago.  I finally am doing something with part of it.  One thing I did different from the tutorial is I made my cuts 1.5 inches instead of 1 inch.

A little of this and a little of that

A few days ago DH and I took a long walk along a trail and had several magnificent views of Mt. Hood.  Mt. Hood is the closest mountain to us and is perhaps 40 miles from our home near Portland, OR  We never get tired of viewing her in all her splendor.  Additionally, we frequently see Mt. St. Helens to the NE of us, and at times Mt. Adams in Washington.  Others are visible when we travel from home.

Now, please meet Baltippora, or what I call a self-portrait.  She is not quite complete, but I am so tickled with her that I had to show her now.  A while back paperpanache.com offered free patterns that they called "Fairy Quilt Godmothers."  You answered a few funny questions, and then got back by email a paper piecing pattern of your FQG.  By the way, paperpanache.com still offers the patterns free.  My pattern languished for a good while until a friend did hers and I was so taken with it that I pulled mine out and started it.  The gold underneath is what the border will be, and hopefully that will get done tomorrow.  This has been one of those "it was just so much fun" projects.

I pulled a box out of the attic a few weeks ago in order to give one of our DGDs a doll I had when I was a child.  When I was rummaging around in the box, I found a quilt that is in kind of bad shape.  It is all white and consists of  a number of embroidered blocks.  The one in the bottom right-hand corner was embroidered by my mother, and there are three others embroidered by  my three aunts and one by my great-aunt, but the others I am not familiar with who embroidered them.  I am going to send some pictures to an aunt and see if she has any information about the quilt.  I want to take much better care of it now that I have rescued it from the attic.

What an accomplishment

Those who have been with me for some time are aware that our dear DIL was diagnosed with breast cancer in November of 2009.  She had surgery and it was diagnosed as Stage IV.  She underwent chemo and radiation and did well until November of 2010, when a tumor was discovered in her brain stem.  She had radiation for that and has done well since then.  This dear girl had started studying for her Master's Degree in Speech Therapy prior to the initial cancer diagnosis.  During the period of time when she had surgery, chemo and radiation, and then radiation again, she continued her studies.  Then in June of 2011, she graduated with an outstanding grade average.  She is shown below with her family.  It obviously has been a difficult journey for the entire family.  Our son was a rock for her.  Her tests have continued clear, and we obviously want so very badly for her to remain in remission.

Project Linus

I made this quilt for Project Linus.  It was a great project.  I used a bunch of charm squares that I had and cut them in half and put in the light-colored strips.  It just totally changed the way it looked.  I will want to do another one with the same idea.

On another note, today one of my DGDs and I made a new recipe - Cheddar Cauliflower Soup.  It turned out so good!  I love trying new recipes.  Then continuing to play Betty Crocker, we made homemade butterscotch pudding for dessert.  Man, oh man, does that put the pudding mixes to shame, and it wasn't hard to make.  Ummm, good!

Pepper Dish Quilt

I have long admired Judy Niemeyer's patterns, and some time ago I purchased her Pepper Dish pattern and have worked on it fairly consistently for a few months now.  I finished quilting it on my home machine a few days ago and hand stitched the binding yesterday while watching football.  Judy does a great job in her patterns of writing instructions clearly.  It was no problem at all to follow from one step to the next.  I chose fabrics that are very different from the photo on the front of the pattern, and love what I chose.  I can see things I could have done better, but overall I am very pleased with the outcome and will definitely be game for making another of her patterns.

2012 already!

It's a little late in the day, but the wish is still there - Happy New Year, along with good health and a safe journey through the year.

We were at our son and DIL's house last night, and consequently we've felt a little droopy today.  The weather was very pleasant, and we did get out for a walk, so that was a good thing.

Instead of working on a UFO, I started a new project, so that will add one more UFO to the others I have.

Now it's back to watching the evening football game, and tomorrow is the eagerly awaited Rose Bowl.  GO DUCKS!!!

Hot Chocolate Club

I was so thrilled to complete this project in 2011.  It was a block of the month that I got several years ago.  I had completed some of the blocks, and finally got in gear and completed the rest and put it together.  Then it was several more months before I settled down to quilt it.  The pattern is Pearl Louise's "Hot Chocolate Club."  I love snowmen, and she creates adorable snowmen patterns.

Merry Christmas to all!  Have a wonderful day wherever you are.  Our family had an early Christmas on December 11 since our younger son and family were going to be in San Diego with our DIL's family.  Today we will have a lovely time across the street with Kevin and his family.  First though, I'm off to the kitchen to make a couple pies.

DH and I with our four DGC

 Older son Kevin and his family

 Younger son Kurt and his family

Pepper Dish quilt top in progress

Now I will readily admit that this picture leaves a lot to be desired.  Early this year at our quilt group meeting, I issued a paper piecing challenge, and for myself I chose the Judy Niemeyer Pepper Dish quilt pattern.  When I took this picture, I had not completed the piecing, and had not done the applique.  The random green partial star is one of the ones I made to check if I liked the fabrics.  It ended up being used in the center.  My fabric choices are vastly different from what is shown on the face of the printed pattern.

After all that rambling, I will tell you that I am now machine quilting the quilt, and the reveal for the paper piecing challenge is at our holiday party on January 8.  I am so anxious to get it completed, and will post a picture or two when it is all done.

By the way, I will tell you that the instructions were specific and very, very clear.  I had no problem following them at all.

Gotta love Yellowstone National Park!

In August DH and I made a road trip to Yellowstone.  It had been a very long time since we had been there.    What a national treasure the park is!  We had such a marvelous time and marvelled again at the geysers, wildlife and gorgeous scenery.  If you haven't gone and can - go!

 Old Faithful strutting her stuff

There were quite a few bison, one of which was ambling slowly down the road, stopping traffic in both directions.  We also saw quite a few elk.  There was one bear, but it was at a distance and we didn't get a photo.

 Didn't I say it was scenic?

 Grand Tetons - they just take your breath away!

It has been forever since I have posted.  I have occasionally  looked at other blogs, but that's about the extent of anything blog-related that I have done.

We had  a wonderful summer, but as always, it went too fast.

I completed the two wildlife quilts for our two sons, and presented those to them.  They were both very pleased.

I can't really attempt to cover the last 8 or 9 months in one post, so I'll just maybe gradually come up to date.

Completed quilt top

This one of two identical quilt tops that I have been working on.  I used some of two June Jaeger patterns:  Gone Fishin' and From the Wild, and then did my own thing with the rest.  I am very pleased with how this looks.  I have to complete the flying geese to finish up the outside border of the second one.  We are headed to CA later this week, and when we come back, then will be the major job of sandwiching and quilting them.