Sunday Sevens 04-30-17

Tags

cats, Columbia Park, food, Kennewick, Olympia, politics, quilting, randonneuring, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens

Baby geese!  Many, many baby geese!

I was too fried to post last Sunday when we got home from Olympia, so I’ll try to catch up on the last couple of weeks in this post without burying you in zillions of pictures.

Last weekend was the annual Northwest Fleche ride, a one-way (fleche=arrow) bike ride to Olympia, WA.  I drove up to meet my partner and his team at the end of the ride and participate in the March for Science at the state capitol in Olympia.

All of us old hippies on the way to the capitol.  All of these marches I’ve been to since January have been majority women, often majority middle-aged and older women.  We know a bully when we see one.

A few short speeches before the March.  It rained BUCKETS as I was driving over there and searching for a parking place, but the rain petered out as I was walking to the capitol, thankfully.

I enjoyed this sign.

Off and marching.  Estimated attendance 5,000 people, which I thought was pretty impressive considering that nearby Seattle also had a huge march.

Tacos for dinner.  Partner advised me that you really don’t want to hang out with randonneurs if you’re trying to lose weight because this is how they eat.  (Not shown:  equally impressive lunch.)

We came home on Sunday afternoon to find that my Nature’s Fabrics order had arrived!  I waited until they had a discount code available for members of their Facebook group, then used that and the gift certificate I won a while ago.  I got these two cotton/lycra knits, plus two heavier cotton knits for leggings.  I LOVE THEM.

Tuesday night clean-out-the-fridge-before-I-go-grocery-shopping pizza.  Sauce was a weird pesto made with leftover parsley, mint, tarragon, basil, and some broccoli.  Covered with random bits of veg, some ham that needed using, and various cheeses.  A little strange, but we ate it.

Quilt top is finished and sandwiched!  The back is also pieced–used up a LOT of scraps on this.   More scrap quilting to come, as I’ve realized that scrap stash is a bigger problem for me than actual yardage.  (BTW, Shelby is contemplating the napping possibilities here, you can just tell.)

I was inspired by this lovely post over at Mona’s place and filled another bag of clothing for the local shelter (partner also contributed).  The white bag in front is filled with 8 1/2 yards (plus some large scraps) of fabric to go to SCRAP.  Yay!

As always, all credit to Natalie of Threads and Bobbins for coming up with the idea for Sunday Sevens and giving us an excuse to talk about (very) random pizzas.

Have a great week, everybody, and I hope that you find some beauty in the world this week.  Sometimes it’s hard to find, and sometimes you have to make it yourself, but it’s there.  Hang on to it, and each other.

STH

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Make-a-List Monday, 04-19-16

Tags

clothing, Crystal Mountain Resort, Make-A-List Monday, Mud Mountain Dam, Olympia, quilting, sewing, Washington

Will you just look at this cute little guy?   My mother and I took her dog, Regan, over to Columbia Park to meet the squirrels.

Make-A-List Monday is an idea that I borrowed from Sarah Craig over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and I thank her for inspiring me to try it!

Had a short list last week, as I was out of town for three days.  Let’s see how I did.

• Try a circle skirt with a woven.  I’m thinking the same technique with a little extra ease should work.

Done!  I should have grabbed a pic before I disassembled it, but it was made with a fairly hideous fabric from my Freecycle haul.  I also wrote up some instructions for the circle skirt class I’m going to teach. I’m pretty happy with the process I’ve come up with–it works with either knit or woven fabric, it doesn’t require a zipper or a waistband, and no math is involved.

• Get my hand work done while I’m in Olympia over the weekend.

Not quite, but made some good progress.  One block done, one about halfway, one not started.  I had SO been looking forward to getting together with a new friend for a crafty evening, but she bailed at the last minute, so I kind of lost my motivation and didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped.

 

So, this week’s list of to-dos:

• Cut out a black knit skirt.  I had been planning to use this cotton knit for leggings, but realized it’s 2-way stretch, and I’d need 4-way for leggings.  So I pulled this wrap skirt pattern out of the stash (it’s dated 2001) and plan to make view G.  This will be a nice basic to wear with tunics.  More secret pajamas!

• Cut out this blouse (or attempt to).  I’ve been thinking I need some more tops, and pulled out some T-shirt type patterns.  But then I saw this post from Lynn and this one from Gayle Ortiz and I thought, you know, I can do something more interesting than a T-shirt.  So I looked through my sewing stuff again and came up with this pattern, recently purchased from SCRAP, and this very cool quilting cotton.  I’m a little short on fabric to make the top, but I’m going to see if I can make it work.

• And now for something completely different:

This is Pooh’s cardboard scratching box and he loves it more than anything except the Mama Bear.  I recently came into a large amount of cardboard (partner ordered a new plastic mat for underneath his desk chair and, rather than being shipped rolled up, it came packed flat in between two huge sheets of cardboard), so I went a-googling and found instructions on how to make your own scratching boxes.  So that’s going to happen this week, and may become another future SCRAP class.

While I’m working on that, here are some more pictures from my week!

Another one from Columbia Park–baby geese!

This past weekend was the Seattle International Randonneurs’ Fleche ride–the 11 teams participating had 24 hours to ride 360 kilometers ending in Olympia, WA.  My honey’s team started in Portland, OR, and I drove up to Olympia to meet them at the end.  They had great weather the whole way, as you can see in this picture of the Olympia waterfront.

On Sunday, after the Fleche banquet, we drove home, taking the scenic route to see if we could get some good shots of Mount Rainier.  “The mountain is out,” as they say in Seattle.

We took a brief stop at Mud Mountain Dam for a little stroll.

And another at Crystal Mountain Resort, where I had a hard time believing I was looking at snow–and lots of people skiing on it–when the temperature was above 70F.

Have a great week, everybody!

STH

 

 

 

 

Sunday Sevens 04-13-2015

Tags

cycling, Olympia, sewing, Sunday Sevens, travel, Washington

(Sunday Sevens is a more-or-less weekly wrap-up of the week, including seven pictures more or less.  Natalie is our Fearless Leader.)

I’m a day late and a dollar short on this one, I’m afraid; I had a bad week, mood-wise, and didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do.  So I have more pics from the weekend (which was more interesting, anyway).

I’ve been working on putting my recipes into Evernote; it’s so great being able to search by the type of thing you want to make or the ingredient you need to use up.  The problem is I have a HELL of a lot of recipes to enter and the task is deathly boring.  Oy.

My honey wanted to do something nice for a friend of ours for all her work putting together the weekend’s bike ride, so I volunteered to shop for a present and came up with this:

It didn’t have a lining, though, (WHY) so of course I had to put one in, with a fancy divided pocket and everything.

(The tag that was on the bag had washing instructions, so I sewed it into the lining.)

I took my mother out for another walk this week along the Columbia, as for once there wasn’t much wind.

Here’s a close-up of the rather strange-looking plant we found growing there.

On Thursday afternoon, we headed down to Portland for my partner’s Fleche (French for arrow), a one-way team bike ride.  Each team designs their own route, but it must be a minimum of 360 kilometers, finish at a set location in Olympia, WA, and it must be completed within 24 hours.

On Friday morning, partner’s team set out and I drove to Olympia to meet them.

Friday afternoon was spent wandering around Olympia  (new word:  flanerie!) and taking pictures.

On Saturday morning, I walked down to the Farmers Market for a few treats (more lovely French words:  baguette, brie, croissant, andouille!) and more pictures at the garden there.

And I walked back to the hotel via the boardwalk.

The Fleche team finished their VERY wet ride right on time, which was followed by a meal and a long sleep.

This coming week, I’m hoping to finally do a post about my purple blouse–if the sun comes out long enough for some decent pictures–and start work on my green one.  Some mending also needs to happen before the pile teeters over . . . .

Have a great week, everybody, and take care of yourselves.

STH

ETA:  Almost forgot!  Verdict on the cycling cap was that it was great, though, as expected, the cotton fabric was cold when it got wet.  A Gore-Tex version has been requested.  The idea of merino wool caps with the logo of our local randonneuring club has also been floated, but that will have to wait until said logo actually exists.  😉

ETA:  Cripes, I was out of it yesterday!  Just added the logo and link to the beautiful and talented Natalie.  I need another cup of coffee.