Goodbye September...

I have been sitting here trying to think where September went. I know I had my family here for the first half, school started, we celebrated our anniversary... so many things! And it's over just like that *snap*

Well, my husband was out of town this weekend, and I got quite a few things done. I was able to get the top pieced on my pumpkin quilt.

Here is a closeup of the leaves:

I now need to add the border to it, which has a lot of pieces, so that is a whole lot more work :) Which I am looking forward to!

Then I finished the rest of my birthday blocks. I don't think I'll do this exchange again next year. It is quite a lot of work to make 17 other blocks throughout the year. It kind of wore me out. I liked making them for the experience I suppose, but I am happy they are done :P So here are my final 4!

And go me! It is the last day of September and I finished my September Bent Creek Snapper this morning :D I want to add some sort of verse to the top of this like "for every season there is a purpose under heaven...." or something. Anybody have some good seasonal quotes/sayings/scriptures that come to mind? I'd love to get your ideas!

Home from the Framers

This week has sure gone by quick, but the days seem long. I know that doesn’t make sense, but that is what I feel right now :P

I have been such a good girl since I posted about not buying any stash. I am quite proud of myself. I did get two of my cross stitches framed though, and I have never had my work professionally framed, I love it! I wanted to hang both of these in my living room since they are “ocean-esc” :)

Hinzeit: Harbor Lights

Kind Stitchworks: Cannon Beach

I had the hardest time coming up with what color of mat for this one, I finally settled on green, since that matches the green on the Haystack Rock. I like how it turned out. The question now… where am I going to hang them? :D

I went to our quilting class at church last night. We are making seasonal items now. So, we had to get fabric to do a Christmas tablerunner. I didn’t start on it yet, I helped some others cut their fabric, since they were new to quilting. It was fun! I hope to get started on it this weekend.

I’ve also been stitching on my September Bent Creek Snapper. I still have a long ways to go, but I hope to finish it this weekend too. I love how this is turning out. I need to start on the border as well if I am going to get it done by the end of the year. We shall see. I’ve been working on my Pumpkin quilt too! It is going to be so cute. I’ve been sewing the leaves together. There are quite a few, but I’m getting them knocked out. It is coming together a little bit at a time.

On the family side of things, our little hamster got hurt this morning. His paw got stuck inbetween parts of his cage. The poor thing! Jessie was so upset and crying for him. He will be fine, but I felt bad for it. You know… if it is not one thing it’s another right? Holy moly, I can’t keep up with life some days.

I have to tell you all thank you SO much for stopping by and leaving comments, it makes me so happy to know you all love these hobbies as much as I do! It gives me motivation to keep on truckin’ and enjoying what I am doing.

Trip Around the World

Well, I have some good news! I FINISHED the Trip Around the World quilt tonight :D

I got it back from getting it quilted last week. I went ahead and finished the binding today and it is ready to mail to my cousin now. I am so excited! It turned out beautifully. I had the quilter do a "puzzle" pattern on it in green thread.


Also this weekend I worked on my Shepherd's Bush ornament, I finished Wisemen Came. I now have 4 done, only 2 more to go.


I helped Katrina finish a few of her exchanges last week, she was so sweet and sent me this chart and kitted it up for me, to say thank you. Well, thank you Katrina, you are wonderful! :D



Today was a quiet day, church was really nice, and we had a good dinner. We took some silly pictures for fun too!

Eagle Creek Trail Hike

Thanks for your comments on Debby’s NRR :D I am so glad you all like it! It can be a bit daunting when you have to make up a house and all that, you want the owner of the piece to love it you know? So, I mailed it off to Von and next will be Rob’s NRR, hers is a seaside theme yay!!! I almost went with a seaside theme on mine too, so I am pretty excited to do hers.

I don’t have any crafty pictures to share today, I’ve been working a bit on several things so nothing to show LOL! I still have stitching ADD LOL!

Over the weekend we went on a hike in the Columbia River Gorge, which is just east of Portland. It is a beautiful place, a big canyon that the huge Columbia River winds down. Well, there are waterfalls, canyons, rivers, and tons of hiking trails all through it. We decided to do an easy hike to Punchbowl Falls. We went to the Eagle Creek Trailhead and started out. It follows Eagle Creek through a really pretty canyon. We got up pretty high at one point, and then came back down to meet the creek. It was a two mile hike into the waterfall. We were lucky and had the place to ourselves for about an hour. The water was really cold and clear. When you come upon the waterfall you see:

Lower Punchbowl Falls

Then you wander just a bit up the riverbed to see:

Punchbowl Falls (this I’ve seen in a lot of calendars, the big log across it must have fallen recently? It wasn’t in any photos I’ve seen of this waterfall before)

Mark and the kids took off their shoes and socks to go wading, and then they all fell in :D I knew I would have done that too, so I stayed out and took pictures instead. Next time maybe I’ll bring a wetsuit so I can swim around.

Debby's Neighborhood RR is done :)

Hi there! I finished up Debby's NRR last night. It was such a big block, I still feel like it looks empty in the front yard, but I'll leave it that way, I don't want to clutter it :D I really enjoyed this one. I'll put this in the mail to Von next week! I am excited to receive the next one. I like that we can be creative and piece so many ideas together, it's really cool.

Here is my block:

And the full piece:

I am not sure what we are doing today, either going on a hike to see waterfalls or to a drive-in at the High School. We have our old car we can take :) Either way it'll be a fun day. I hope you all have a nice weekend ahead!

Jayne's Attic Round Robin is home! (and a lot of other stuff)

I saw this quilt in a shop Undercover Quilts in Seattle, isn't it beautiful???

This is a view of the Olympic Mountains near Seattle, it's a 5 minute drive from my cousin's house to see this, it was gorgeous!

Mark picked the big sunflower to dry it out, look at that thing, Curren could barely hold it up!

You know after you have company over for a long period of time, when they leave it takes awhile to get your steam back? I am just exhausted! LOL! I need to have another vacation to recuperate. It was not like I did a whole lot while they were here, you just are thrown off of your normal routine. So the past couple of night I haven’t done one thing. I’ve been nursing a cold too, but that will be better soon. But that isn’t helping me get back to normal either ;)

I’d been working away on Debby’s NRR the past couple of weeks. I like this so far, it has been a challenge to find the time to sit and work on it this month, with my company and school starting and stuff. I will add a gate and some flowers to the right side of the house and a few animals in the front yard. I used a house from a Prairie Schooler chart, and the quilts and tree are from the LHN: Quilt time sampler chart. She said she wanted a country theme and what we’d like in our country house. Well quilts sound awful good to me :)

Also, I have received my Round Robin back from it’s trip across the globe. It went everywhere! Iceland, Europe, and the USA. What a lot of fun it was! It was through the Jayne’s Attic BB. Everyone over there is so sweet if you ever have the chance to meet them. I had them all stitch two Prairie Schooler charts, Autumn Leaves and Winter Winds on a piece of white linen. I think I’ll turn them both into flatfolds so I can display them easily. The stitching on them is beautiful. Thank you to all of you who stitched on this.

Dusty was who mailed to me each time. Her DH had to undergo surgery during the time she had my chart. I told her to take her time with it, and not to worry about stitching on it. She was so sweet to me, and included a beautiful chart by Keslyn’s. It is called “Smile” She even included the threads for it. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that in the package, what a sweetheart. Thank you Dusty!

My husband’s birthday was yesterday, we got him some new wetsuit boots and gloves, and a new shirt. He was happy for that! I also made him chocolate cake, yum :)

I am sorry I haven’t been doing very well about leaving comments, between work, being sick, and all of that I have just been reading your blogs (I am addicted!) I’ll be better to you all though. Thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit! This was a long post, I have so much to talk about LOL!

Remember

I have been thinking a lot about what happened today on September 11, 2001. I remember that day perfectly. I want to just say that I am sorry for those who lost friends and family to this tragic event. My heart and thoughts are with you today. I hope we can all remember to love one another, and be there for each other. <3

Keeping busy with a lot of good stuff!

Well my vacation is coming to an end, tomorrow I have to wake up and drop off my mom and sister at the airport and head back to work. I had a really nice vacation and am sad to have it end. I am glad that we had this time to hang out and catch up.

We went to Seattle all of last weekend, I had a great time! The weather was amazing, and it was fun wandering the shops at Pike Place Market. I even found a quilt shop in there LOL! It was a nice one too. I was glad we got to go there.

My sister got bit by the quilting bug, so I'll show you what she's been working on while she has been here. She is doing a log cabin out of batiks. She chose really beautiful colors, here is one block of 120. She has a lot more to go :) She's almost done cutting all of the strips out though, so just a lot of sewing and ironing ahead.

I bought her this kit for her birthday, and had her cut and piece the top of this, I quilted it and sewed the binding around it, she is in charge of finishing the binding :) It turned out pretty!

I've been working away too, I have Debby's NRR 1/2 way done, a picture will be coming soon I promise :) I also started a new Little House Needleworks chart called Berries while we were in Seattle. It is really cute. I plan on working on this at work now.

I started my Thimbleberries pumpkin quilt. I've been wanting to make this forever! I am so happy to start it now. I got my pumpkins pieced together, aren't they so cute? I changed the fabric to more vibrant colors, Thimbleberry patterns are very muted colors, and I am much brighter :D

I have been doing so many things, I have quilting and stitching A.D.D. now LOL! I can't work on any one thing for too long. I hope to finish Debby's NRR next so it's ready to go by the end of the month. Thank you for your comments on my Shepherd's Bush ornaments, I had a good time stitching them. I have a visit from frogs on them at the moment, so I put them down :P I'll get them done though. So, back to reality again, I'll be back soon :)

The Shepherd's Watched & Vacation :D :D

We got to ride horses again yay!!!

I was able to finish one of my Shepherd's Bush ornaments yesterday :) I like how it turned out. Once again I didn't use the recommended silver charm for it, I just stitched another sheep. I started the next one called The Wisemen Came.

Here are all 3 together, with the 4th started. I've been helping Nikki make a tablerunner, and her log cabin quilt. We went to Holly Hill quilt shop in West Linn yesterday and I bought some fabric to finish my Halloween Exchange and my Autumn Quaker exchange. I have them both finished up tonight, they are SO cute! My mom and sister are fighting over them LOL! I told them to join the exchanges :)

My kids are both in school now, mom is sad :( They are not babies anymore! They tell me that all of the time now. It is so much fun to see them growing up.

While the kids were in school, us girls went to the Portland Zoo. We had a fun day! My husband is taking the kids to his summer company picnic on Saturday at the zoo, so I don't feel too bad not having the kids with us there.

Thank you all for such sweet comments on wishing us a happy anniversary, you are all the best! Thank you!!!!!

8 years :)

September 4, 1999

Yesterday was my 8 year wedding anniversary to Mark! It is exciting. The time has gone by so fast! I am happy to say our relationship has only become more exciting and dynamic since the day we met. We went out to dinner at Newport Bay, a nice seafood restraunt and then went and saw the Harry Potter movie. I have been wanting to see that for the past two months, I am glad we finally saw it :) He surprised me with a pair of diamond earrings, what a sweetheart! I was so surprised.

A lot happened yesterday, it was also the first day of school here, and Curren had to get ready and go. He is in first grade this year. He was excited to meet his teacher. He had a really nice day, and I just got back from walking him to school. Jessie's first day is tomorrow for kindergarten. I'll get a picture of them then :D

My sister and I have been sewing up a storm! It has been so much fun to have somebody here with me quilting. I took her to Fabric Depot and she decided she wanted to make a log cabin for her first quilt. I told her it was simple, but there are a lot of pieces. So she picked out blue/green batiks and has to make 120 blocks! She's crazy :D I love it LOL! She's been cutting and cutting for two days straight. This is her first quilt, I am glad I can help her out.

I've been working on my grandma's log cabin. Here is one block finished, I've been making 72 of these, I'm about 1/2 way done now :D I am enjoying this quilt.

I've also been stitching, I have quite a bit done on Debby's NRR, and my two fall exchanges are stitched, I'm doing the finishing on them this week. Busy busy!