Awww.

Maizy and Finn. I must be crazy. There's really no other explanation.

And another shot of Finn looking especially photogenic.

It's here! Finally! After a very cold and wet May and beginning of June, summer has arrived. And I remember: Oh yeah, this is why I live in Portland.
The kids have started up their nightly hide and seek tag games, the windows are open, hammock up, raspberries ripe, and perhaps most important of all, I can put away the rain pants for the season, stop cursing on the morning commute, and ride the good bike  - you know, the one without fenders and fat tires that goes really fast.

Fabric love.

Holy Crap! May has come and gone and we're halfway through June and I have nothing to show for it!! Yikes!


No sewing at any rate. My machine was in the shop for most of the month, and it's been way too wet to work in the garden, so I had no choice but to pick up my knitting needles. With the weather being what it's been lately, it's easy to pretend it's the middle of January and knitting a cozy scarf comes naturally...
The one pictured above is made using a pattern stitch found here using beautiful Manos del Uruguay yarn purchased from a local shop, Knit/Purl.

I also managed to finish up my daughter's scarf from a pattern by Shibui Knits.
By the time I was done, I had something like a thousand stitches on my needles. Ever tried to knit a row with a thousand stitches? It takes FOREVER.  Which is probably why this scarf took forever to finish.

Finally, a little hat for an upcoming birthday gift. I'm quite pleased with how it's turning out, and may need to make one for myself.  This pattern is from the book  Last Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson.  (And yes, it is last minute as the birthday is tomorrow!)

We did have one sunny day in all this rain, this past weekend, and the cat took no time in finding this spot of sun on the floor.   I think her shadow kind of looks like batman.  Watch out!

A little spring color courtesy of my overgrown garden....

I'm such a bad blogger. It's really quite pathetic.  I take pictures, edit them all nice, think of witty things to write, and then nothing. By the time I get around to actually posting it's old news, so I don't bother. 
 Like this set of great fabrics that arrived a few weeks ago. A few prints from Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow and Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane collections.  Now for sale in the shop.

And how about that garage door? Never posted the photo of it installed. There's still some work to do, but it closes and opens and closes again.  Very cool.

And here's a cute little owl in a tree block I made while visiting my sister in Bellingham.   That was over a month ago. He's aspiring to be in a forest of trees with lots of fellow owls. (Although I forgot him up in Bellingham and I think he got turned into a plant cozy.  Oops.)

I'm not throwing in the towel yet with this blog thing.  I'm just in awe of those people that manage to post on a regular basis. IN AWE!  It's a mystery to me how they do it.  I'm not sure I can.


But I'll leave you with a recent project at least:  
A new dust cover to replace the foam one original to the laptop.  Made with a cheerful print from Sandi Henderson's Meadowsweet collection. The corners are a little bulky and the screen won't latch shut anymore, but I'm planning to iron the heck out of it and see if I can smoosh it a little flatter.

During one of my attempts to clean up my fabric stash, I cut the smallest of my solid scraps into rectangles and got the idea to pair them with two tones of dark gray to create color spot squares.
The inner color spots measure one to two inches and are roughly square. The grey border is 1 1/2". I pieced them together by laying multiple pre-cut squares on a strip of grey one after the other and stitched the whole length at once. After pressing and cutting apart, I did the process again for the next two sides.
I originally started piecing these together with the intent of making a series of coasters, but now that I see them altogether I think I may need to start a new quilt.

I couldn't help but copy my sister when she told me about her new method of storing fabric on "mini-bolts."   I love 'em!  All the fabrics are so much more visible and neatly stored.  I also like it because there end up being fewer hard crease lines to iron out and I don't have to dig through a whole pile to find what I'm looking for.  They're super easy to make too.  Here's how I made mine:

Using my quilting rulers and an x-acto knife, I cut 12"x 8 1/2" rectangles out of foam core.  The size is entirely up to you, but these dimensions worked well for me because a) I happen to have two rulers to those exact measurements  b) they fit on my shelves nicely, and c) I can fit 44/45" wide fabric folded 4x height-wise, and each fold width-wise is approximately 1/4 yd, so i can easily figure out how much fabric I have.

I found it easiest to fold the fabric selvage to selvage and again fold to selvage and lay it flat on the table with the "loose" end towards me.   I placed the foam core on top of the fabric about four inches from the end,  folded the fabric over the foam core and then flipped the whole thing towards me until all the fabric was wrapped.  The loose end is held in place with a stick pin.  So simple!  Thanks Jess!  Now if I would only spend as much time sewing as I do organizing!

the soon to be happy tale of a sad forlorn garage.


once upon a time, a previous owner had built an addition onto the front a garage.  It was poorly built, with untreated lumber direct to concrete, and a flat roof.  Over the years, the wood rotted, the framing went askew, and the door refused to open.  In a fit of desperation, the current owner (yep, that's me) with crow-bar in hand, tore off the addition, leaving the poor garage open and exposed to the world.  (my neighbor's hate me).  and there she stood, for years and years, sad and neglected, storing only want nobody wanted, and no one would steal,  UNTIL NOW!   
New framing is in place, (thank you, Philip!), a door built, and the installation scheduled....5 days and counting.
And the little green garage will be sad no more!
I'm so excited.  I keep looking around my house at all the things that can move to the garage.


Miter Saw.  Garage.
Bicycles.  Garage.  (they'll be locked, so don't get any ideas.)
Cooler and Camp Stove.  Garage.
Broken Lamp.  Garage.
Gardening Tools.  Garage.
Canoe.  Garage.  (okay, so that's in the side yard, but you get the idea.)


It's going to be amazing!

One week into the new year and I'm already behind schedule, so I'm going skip over the boring resolutions like exercise more or eat healthier and get right to point:

New Year's Resolutions:  (in no particular order)

1.  sew more.

2.  sew more creatively.

3.  use up my fabric scraps. (in creative ways).
4.  eat leftovers before they go bad.
5.  finish the treehouse.
6.  buy more fabric / buy less fabric.  
I haven't made up my mind on this one yet.  I guess it depends on how well resolution no. 1 goes.  But I'm off to a good start on the first option - picked up some Nicey Jane and more at the depot yesterday.  Can you tell I like the color green?  These might just find their way into a few pea pods.
7.  crochet a scarf

I hate painting.  really.  it takes much longer than anticipated.  it always involves at least three trips to the paint store.  paint gets where you don't want it.  and the color is never quite right.


that said....my daughter's big Christmas gift this year was a "new" room.  After months of deliberation she settled on a light blue-white-red scheme.  The walls are now a pale aqua with a fresh coat of white paint on the trim and she has a fluffy new comforter in red with matching sheets.  To finish it off we've been eyeing this wall decal and are planning a white sheer canopy for over the bed.  and maybe some shelves.  and a rug.  a red rug, definitely. 
What bliss.  She's so happy it's weird.  It's almost worth the painting.