WIP Wednesday: Home Again!

Tags

Barbican, Cambridge, City of London, Highgate Cemetery, London, Museum of London, Natural History Museum, Oregon, travel, Tube, V&A, Willamina, WIP Wednesday

London, captured.  Picture taken at the Museum of London.

I’m back!

So happy to be home and chatting with you all again!  Travel is wonderful, but so is coming home.  🙂

We actually got home from our London trip on August 12th, but then had to turn around and get ready for an eclipse camping trip in Oregon the following weekend.  Still plenty to do and many errands to run, but things seem to be settling down a bit.

As for London, well, three weeks of adventures there is a lot to process!  We went to museums, ate lots of great food, hung out with friends, and went on three walking tours.  I took many, many pictures, just a few of which I’ll share here.  Be sure to check out Flickr for more.

I just may have ordered some London Tube map fabric as soon as I got home . . . .

From the Balenciaga exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum.  X-ray shows the corset built into the dresses.

The altar at St. Mary Le Bow Church.  Tradition holds that you must be born within the sound of its bells to be a true Londoner.

Leadenhall Market in the City of London (financial district which has a weird, semi-autonomous status–its own mayor, for example).

From our walking tour in the City, which is a strange mix of ancient buildings and modern skyscrapers.

The Barbican.  Wandering around this concrete miniature town on a sunny summer day may almost convince you that Brutalism can actually work as a style for residential building.  I suspect it feels like a damp, gray wind tunnel in November, though.

Cambridge, the river Cam, and the famous punts.

Highgate Cemetery, on a gray, wet day, which seemed very appropriate.  Our tour guide told us “there are no bad pictures in the Cemetery” and I think he was right.

Dinos (and many, many people) in the Natural History Museum.

And a few from our eclipse weekend in Oregon.

Our friends have 30 mostly-untouched acres near Willamina, OR, which just happened to be right in the path of the eclipse.  I took this with my back to our tent; that’s a rather green pond just beyond that tall grass there.  I was hoping to see the elk that come down here to drink, or maybe even the local bobcat, but the only wildlife we saw was a massive slug.  Welcome to Oregon!

Eclipse watching in the meadow.

I’m hoping to get back to doing some sewing soon, though right now I’m pondering what to make and enjoying the feeling that I can sew anything I like with no deadlines.  We’ll see what idea gets me moving first.

I hope you are all well, enjoying what’s left of the season you’re in, and looking forward to the next.

STH

Advertisements

Sunday Sevens 06-26-17

Tags

Eugene, Oregon, quilting, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Sunday Sevens, travel

Hot afternoon still life with binding.

Sunday Sevens hasn’t been happening too often around here lately, as I just haven’t had many opportunities to take interesting photos.  I’ve got a few fun things to share with you today, though, so let’s get to it!

SCRAP recently had a jewelry repair workshop and Rachael and I fixed about a bajillion broken bracelets.  I had been stuffing broken jewelry in a box for YEARS, and I’m so happy to have it all back!  This was a big mood booster for me, as I LOVE my jewelry and the arthritis in my hands is to the point now where I pretty much can’t wear rings any more.

I’ve been working away a bit at a time on my fabric database in Evernote.  I’m up to 64 pieces of yardage, which I think is maybe 2/3 of the total.  I’ve pulled out the ones I don’t love and they’ll be going to SCRAP.

This feels like the bigger accomplishment, though.  I went through all my scraps and filled these three big bags with all the ones I don’t like and won’t use.  These bags were posted in my local Buy Nothing Facebook group and wound up going to a little girl who’s taking a sewing class and wants to make doll clothes.  I thought it would be hard to give all this up, but I realized as I went through everything that these fabrics felt more like a burden than anything else–I didn’t want to use them, couldn’t see a way to use them, but I felt a lot of responsibility to not waste them.  When they were picked up, and that burden lifted, I felt light, and so moved that I was able to help out a beginning sewer.  And all my scrap drawers close again!

This past weekend, my partner and I headed down to Eugene, OR, so that he could ride a 300k brevet organized by one of his buddies.  While he was out there riding (in temps over 100F!), I explored Eugene, which I hadn’t seen since I was a kid living in Medford, OR.

Lots of cool older houses and mature trees!

Love this Craftsman bungalow, now divided into offices.  Every time I go to Oregon, I’m reminded how big and new everything is in the Tri-Cities, where I live–pretty much everything here was built after World War 2.

Nifty older theater building.

This looks more like a courthouse, but it’s actually a Protestant church–that’s stained glass in those second floor windows.  I like the blue banner celebrating Ramadan; on the left side is a Pride flag.  This is the kind of thing that cheers me up when the political news is ugly.

Saturday afternoon and evening were spent in the air conditioning at the motel, watching some good TV (PBS) and also some bad TV (horror movie starring some menacing frogs and a very young Sam Elliot) while I worked on my quilt binding.

As always, many thanks to Natalie over at Threads and Bobbins for starting Sunday Sevens and encouraging us to document and celebrate our adventures.

I hope you all have a very excellent week and have a little sunshine wherever you are (temps below 100F would also be nice).

STH

 

 

 

Sunday Sevens 3-12-17

Tags

Hoover Park, International Women's Day, Newberg, Oregon, recipe, Sunday Sevens, travel

Very soggy Hoover Park in Newberg, OR.

Still catching up on my pictures in this edition of Sunday Sevens; some of these are actually from last weekend, which was spent in Oregon.  As always, all credit to Natalie from Threads and Bobbins for coming up with the Sunday Sevens idea and giving us something to do with all those random pictures we take.

On Friday, my honey and I headed down to Newberg, Oregon, so that he could do a 200k bike ride with the Oregon Randonneurs (that website is terribly unhelpful, but randonneuring is a type of long-distance, non-competitive, self-supported cycling; a basic introduction is here and a slightly odd–why the marching music?–look at what it’s like to do one of these rides is here).  He’s signed up to do the London-Edinburgh-London ride this summer and a LOT of training needs to happen between now and July.

While he was off doing that on Saturday, I took a walk around and stopped at Hoover Park  (Newberg has the somewhat dubious distinction of being the birthplace of President Herbert Hoover).  This part of Oregon is still firmly in monsoon season and the park is sort of bowl-shaped, so the ground was muddy, saturated, and slippery with leaves.

I was just happy to see some green, though.

Did not manage to get a picture of the hobbits that surely live here.

I also stopped at the Goodwill there, which for some reason has GREAT fabric; last summer, I picked up this fabulous flannel there.  Look at the summery goodies I found this time!  White gauze tablecloth, white eyelet curtain, and this amazing flowered cotton knit!

Total luck–opened the hotel room curtains and caught this guy snacking on the berries in the tree outside.

Back in eastern Washington, I joined a couple hundred other folks in Richland for an International Women’s Day rally.  Best moment:  a toddler in a red dress wandered up to the stage, picked up one of those signs, and walked off with it.  When she turned around, we could see that it read “Children Before Corporations.”  Big cheer from the crowd.

Another Goodwill find:  a new home for the stash!  I have had ENOUGH of moving bins to get to the one on the bottom.

And, finally, dinner:  I have introduced the Resident Englishman to another venerable American food tradition, the Tater Tot Hotdish (albeit an unusual version).  #Murica

Busy week ahead.  Among other things, I’m working on a birthday present for my sister and need to also finish up the commissioned baby quilt ASAP.  I hope you all have an excellent week, get the important things done, and also make room for the fun things.

STH

Sewing, Snow, and Stuff

Tags

clothing, Columbia Point, FNWF, Healthy and Happy: SSWD, Oregon, Portland, quilting, Richland, sewing, travel, Washington

From today’s walk:  14F and enough wind to make the snow “fall” horizontally.  😦

Hello all, and I hope January is treating you well!

I’ve got some frosty pictures to show you, as well as some news, and, most importantly, sewing!

I participated in Friday Night With Friends last night, and did some work on another colorblocked fleece pullover.  Do you remember the wild flowered fleece remnant I got from SCRAP?  It’s now become this:

It’s hard to see here, but I’ve put in a black zipper which I took out of a cheap and nasty waist pack.  I like the long zipper pull on it. 

I’m using an old pattern (dated 1994), also from SCRAP, which should win some sort of award for least promising cover photos ever.

Don’t bother fitting–just make everything as large as possible!

The line drawings, though, show that this is a nice basic pullover that’s perfect for colorblocking (i.e., not a lot of seams to complicate matters).

The fit on this thing is SUPER weird, though.  It’s designed to fit some sort of busty linebacker, as far as I can tell.  In order to get those slightly-dropped shoulders, I had to bring the sleeves up a full three inches.  I also had to narrow the sleeves by 4″ so they wouldn’t be massive.  I took in the side seams, but I’ve still got all this room for the huge bust that I don’t have, and it’s now too tight at the hips.  More work to be done there, needless to say.

And I can use all the fleece I can get.  It has been SO COLD and SO SNOWY here–pretty unusual winter for us this year.  I haven’t taken many photos because it’s been way too damn cold to go outside much, but here’s another one from this afternoon.

I’m starting to understand why “snowbirds” here travel south in the winter, while these obviously-not-very-bright geese and I stay here for some reason.

Partner and I took a trip to Portland last month and apparently brought the bad weather with us.  It was a bit warmer than at home, which meant the snow had thawed halfway and had the usual Portland rain on top of it. 

BRRRR . . . I had packed for typical Portland weather, not this, so I wound up wearing many, many layers at a time.

Always looking for color.

A small part of the large stained glass window in the fire station near the waterfront Saturday Market.

In other news, you remember the sew-along that I was doing with the Sew-Alongs and Sewing Contests Facebook group, right?  Well, I won!  The prize package consisted of several indie patterns, plus a gift certificate for some fabric–WOOT!  And I’ve also been asked to run a 2-week sew-along in the group, to be announced tomorrow.  That should be super fun and get me to FINALLY use some fabric I’ve had forever.  Stay tuned for more on that.

I plan to focus more on quilting than clothing this year, though.  I didn’t feel inclined to do any sort of wrap-up post at the end of the year, but I did look through what I’d made in 2016 and realized I managed to not finish a single quilt!   I’ve been missing quilting and I want to get back to it.  I’ve pulled out my blocks for the RSC 2015 quilt and I would like to finish that up–it’s way past time that I finally made a queen-size quilt for our bed.  In addition to that, I’ve got a commission to make a simple baby quilt for a friend of my sister’s, and my niece will need one for her baby that’s due this summer.

So that’s the plan for the moment.  I’m really glad I don’t have to actually stick to these plans that I make, as they’re constantly evolving, but that’s the plan right now.  Until it isn’t.  Which could happen at any moment.

Anyway, I hope you’re enjoying your January and keeping your feet warm (currently my number one goal).

STH

Skirts and Other Adventures

Tags

Astoria, clothing, Garibaldi, Newport, Oregon, Oregon Coast Aquarium, Rockaway Beach, SCRAP Tri-Cities, Seasonal Sew Wardrobe Destination, sewing, travel

A beautiful September day on the Oregon coast.

I haven’t posted in a bit, because I have been busy!

First, I have 3 of my 8 projects finished (!!!) for my Destination challenge, so my sewing has been moving along.

My first item was my circle skirt, which I made when I taught a circle skirt class at SCRAP.

Not a great picture, but the best I could do.

The fabric is a mystery synthetic with a nice drape and a soft, brushed finish.  I am most definitely not a fan of synthetics, but you know those light, drapey polyester fabrics with the beautiful, bright colors?  They are pretty much perfect for a circle skirt.  I made several skirts in preparation for this class, and had two persistent problems:  a circle skirt gives you a HELL of a lot of fabric around your hips (just where many of us don’t want it), and all of that fabric can weigh a TON, especially if your skirt is long like mine.  I made one that I really liked, but found that it was kind of a pain to wear, just because the cotton knit was so heavy.  I’m enjoying this one much more because it just doesn’t have the bulk or weight of a natural fiber fabric.

When I developed the class, my goal was to come up with a way to make these skirts without math.  Personally, I think being able to actually USE PI IN A SEWING PROJECT is super way cool, but I know a lot of folks would prefer to avoid math as much as possible.  So I use the waist template found here; you simply fold your fabric (at least 55″ wide fabric, unless you are a very little person who wants a mini) in quarters, then place the template at the fold.  (In other words, cut the skirt according to the instructions in the tutorial.)

My other goal, though, was for my circle skirt method to work equally well for knits and wovens, but not involve gathering (which nobody likes, admit it!)  If the waist of your skirt can go over your hips, and your hips are bigger than your waist, then you’re going to have extra fabric at the waist.  So I used the bias tape waistband method from this tutorial.

I threaded 1/4″ elastic through the waistband, stitched the ends, and sewed the bias tape closed.

Since I had some fabric left over, I also added a band of fabric to the bottom of my skirt to make it a little longer.  I haven’t hemmed it, though I’ve decided I will, as the unfinished edge is just bugging me!

The other stuff that’s been happening here, besides sewing?  Vacation!

My honey and I have been feeling a little restless, since we didn’t travel much over the summer.  So we decided to take an impromptu trip to the Oregon coast.  And I brought back photos!

We started in Astoria and worked our way down the coast.  This is the bridge that extends from Astoria, crosses the Columbia, and goes all the way to Washington state.  Yes, it’s supposed to dip down in that rather alarming way.

Astoria reminded me a bit of San Francisco–very hilly with many grand Victorian houses.

So many beautiful beaches!  And so very different from the beaches in southern California, where I grew up.  Very few people out there, even though the weather was beautiful.  And the water’s super cold, so nobody gets in it (which seemed very odd to this California girl).

We rode a steam train from Garibaldi to Rockaway Beach and back.  Half an hour each way (to go four miles!) with a half hour layover, long enough to get an ice cream cone for the trip back.

We saw puffins (oh, and some other stuff, too) at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.

And we flew kites, and ate fish and chips, and just generally had a great time.

Back soon with projects #2 and #3!

STH

Make-a-List Monday 05-11-16

Tags

bags, Make-A-List Monday, Multnomah Falls, Newberg, Oregon, Portland Women's Forum, Rowena Crest, ScraptasticTuesday, sewing, travel

Mossy trees near Multnomah Falls, Oregon.  Scroll down for more green.  😉

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!

Busy week with everything BUT sewing!  I didn’t even bother to make a list last week, but this week should be better.  Here are my plans:

• Make my new purse!  I’ve been wanting to make myself a new cross-body purse for a while now, and I finally settled on this one:

Photo from Noodlehead link above.

I’ve already got mine cut out–using fabric scraps from the stash, of course–and I’m using this super cool nylon jersey (stabilized with interfacing) for the front flap.

LOVE THIS FABRIC SO MUCH OMG

The outside will be this black textured fake suede and the lining a Laurel Burch fabric.

I suspect black piping and some nifty glass beads will be involved, as well.  😉

• Cut out my new wallet.  Also something I’ve been pondering for a while, as I’ve been wanting a way to grab all the essentials quickly when I want to go out for a walk.  This one is exactly what I had in mind–I can just stick my phone in the outside pocket, snap a strap onto the wallet, and go.  This could be quite the challenging pattern; it actually comes with a long list of warnings!

Photo from Craftsy link above.

• Finish the cat scratcher and get the class proposal ready to go.
• Do better on healthy eating and exercising.  As I’m hoping to be employed soon (should find out how my job interview went at the end of the week, by the way), I’ve been thinking about what I might need to sew to complete my work wardrobe.  Then I realized that I’d have a lot more work clothing to choose from if I could get rid of that extra 5 or 10 pounds I picked up over the winter.  Hmmm . . . .

 

And now on to the tree pr0n!

I spent the weekend in Newberg, OR, while my honey rode his bike for 600 kilometers.  We took the scenic highway home and took a few photos on the way.

The Columbia Gorge, taken from the Women’s Forum viewpoint.  All kinds of dramatic sky and cloud stuff happening.

We hiked up to the little bridge part way up Multnomah Falls; this is the top half of the Falls.  (So beautiful, but it’s in all the Oregon guidebooks, so the area’s always so crammed full of tourists that there’s no room to move.  We were there on a Monday morning, so it wasn’t too bad.)

Near the base of the Falls.

Columbia Gorge, taken at Rowena Crest.

Another angle of the view from Rowena.  Not shown:  the gale-force winds trying to knock me over as I took the picture.  They were kind enough to blow away the clouds, though.

(I am linking this post up to Scraptastic Tuesday over at She Can Quilt.)

Have a great week, everybody!

STH

 

 

 

Sunday Sevens 03-14-16

Tags

Bellevue, Bellevue Botanical Garden, Heidi, Howard Amon Park, Oregon, quilting, Richland, sewing, Splendid Sampler, Sunday Sevens, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a weekly (or occasional, in my case) series in which we share some pictures from the parts of our lives that aren’t covered in regular blog posts.  The ever-fabulous Natalie from Threads and Bobbins is the one who got it started.

Been getting out a little bit here and there, so I have some better pics this week.

Will you just look at this plump little guy!  I took a walk in Howard Amon Park the other day and a couple was sitting on a bench surrounded by birds and squirrels.  This one ran off with his treat and ate it sitting in a tree nearby.

I was having a particularly bad day recently and decided I needed to buy myself a present.  Quick trip to Tuesday Morning for some fat quarters ensued.  Happy colors!

Which then went into some more Splendid Sampler blocks.

My partner and I drove the route for the 300k ride coming up this Saturday.  This is in eastern Oregon, but it looks a bit like Scotland to me.  We saw many cattle, some sheep and deer, but very few cars or people that day.

This past weekend, my honey had a 200k bike ride in the Seattle area, so we headed up on Friday evening and I got to spend a lovely Saturday with my friend Heidi.  This is the Bellevue Botanical Garden.

Ferns growing on trees!

And flowering trees!

Have a great week, everybody.

STH

 

 

 

Make-A-List Monday 12-28-15

Tags

cats, Make-A-List Monday, Oregon, Portland, sewing, travel, Wood Memorial Park

Another shot of Wood Memorial Park in Portland, OR

(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!)

Busy week!

How did I do on my goals?

1.  Make food gifts.

Done, though I also decided to cut back on the number of things I gifted.  There were so many sweets around that it seemed a little bit excessive to make more as gifts.  (It’s currently three days after Xmas and we’ve still got cake, Sticky Toffee Pudding, and various types of candy in the house, so I think I made the right choice.)

2.  Make two final sewn gifts. 

Done!  Used the leftover fabric from the famous cycling jacket to make a new messenger bag for my partner.

As you can see, the cats are quite excited about the project.

I used this tutorial and sized the bag up a bit.  Partner wanted no internal pockets, just the one under the flap on the front, and a little bit of hook-and-loop tape as a fastener.  Quick and easy.  Love the lining fabric–that was from the stash.

I’m a little bit tempted to make one for me with all those cool pockets she has in the tutorial (read:  OH LOOK A SHINY OBJECT).

I also made a fabric box to hold a bag of homemade granola to give to my mother.  Forgot to get a picture of that one–hey, I finished it at 9:00 p.m. on Xmas eve, and I was very ready for bed by that point–but here’s a picture of the other homemade gifts I made.  The only one you haven’t seen before is the trash bag on the left, which was for my honey’s new car.  I really need to make one of these for me!

3.  Figure out walking feet and darning feet so that Santa can bring them for me.

Done, but not actually until today!  I realized a couple of days before Xmas that I had everybody else’s presents underway except for mine.  😛

I wasn’t at all sure what kind to get for my machine, but Sewing Parts Online offered a reasonably-priced walking foot and darning foot that are guaranteed to fit.  Sold.

4.  After Xmas, make muslin of the Willara tunic.

Done!  Actually, I’ve got the muslin done AND the final version about halfway there.  There were complications–do I even need to say that at this point?–but I really like it so far.

Okay, goals for this week:

1.  Finish the Willara tunic.  I still need to bind the neckline, hand sew the armholes (it’s a long story), and hem the sleeves.
2.  Make fabric box #3 for the Finish-Along.
3.  Make my sewing weights for the Finish-Along.
4.  Make my windowsill pads for the Finish-Along.
5.  Do end-of-year blog posts (this will be a bigger job than it should be because I am a very large dork and have managed to mess up the photos on most of my old posts, so I’m going to have to sort that out first).  😦

This is probably too much, but I’ll see what I can do.

Have a great week, everybody!

STH

ETA:  I have linked this post up at Finish It Up Friday (yeah, it’s on Monday–just roll with it, is my advice) at crazy mom quilts.

Sunday Sevens 12-27-15

Tags

cats, cooking, Cool Cottons, Oregon, Oregon Zoo, Portland, recipe, Sunday Sevens, travel, Wood Memorial Park

Thanks go to Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for coming up with Sunday Sevens, a sort-of-weekly series in which we share some pictures of what we’ve been up to.

Here’s what’s been happening here over the last couple of weeks.

It has been COLD and occasionally snowy here–a real winter, as opposed to what we had last year–and the whole family has been enjoying sitting by the fire in the mornings.

(Not shown:  the wrestling match that followed this sweet moment by about 30 seconds.)

Last weekend, we were in Portland so that my partner could do the Solstice Ride on Saturday night–13 1/2 hours of cold, rain, and wind on brightly lit and decorated bikes.  I expected him to sleep through most of Sunday after all that hard work, but he got up and went to lunch with me, and then we took a walk through another one of Portland’s amazing parks, Wood Memorial.

It looks a bit soggy here, because by that point, there had been 19 straight days of rain in the area.

That evening, we went to the ZooLights event at the Oregon Zoo.  Spectacular, but so crowded, cold, and wet!

On Monday morning, we headed to Cool Cottons to use my gift certificate from my mother.  SO MANY BEAUTIFUL THINGS–we especially loved all the sciencey fabrics!–but I had my heart set on dark, intensely colored fabric for a dress.  The one on the left is for a shirt for my honey.

Another gift–my partner’s sister knitted us socks and cowls.  These are mine; his are a beautiful blue heathery wool.

I tried my hand at making a traditional Christmas cake this year (a.k.a., fruitcake).  Verdict:  partner loved it and said it gave him flashbacks to childhood Christmases spent at his grandparents’ house in Scotland.  Personally, it was too much concentrated sugar for me; as dried fruit desserts go, I much preferred the Ecclefechan Tart I made for Thanksgiving.

The other new recipe I tried for Xmas dinner was Yorkshire Pudding, a special request from my honey.  They were easy to make and tasty, but I did manage to set off several smoke alarms in the house in the process of making them, and then had to clean the oven the next day.

Hmmm . . . not sure that one will get made again. 

We’ve had such a fun couple of weeks here, I’m a bit sorry to say goodbye to the Xmas season.  Time to finish up the last few projects of 2015, though, and look ahead to the new year.

STH

.

 

Sunday Sevens 10-25-15

Tags

2015 FAL, Columbia Park, Kennewick, Oregon, Oregon Zoo, Portland, sewing, Sunday Sevens, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a series in which we post some pictures from our week and show a little bit of what we’ve been up to.  See Natalie from Threads and Bobbins for more info.

A bit late to the party after a fun weekend in Portland.

Preparations for my mother’s new carpet continue.  I brought her some boxes this week so that she could start packing some things up.  I’m also hoping she might donate a few things, as her three-bedroom house is jam-packed full of stuff.

So far, she’s donated this jar, a throw, and an unused set of sheets.

Three down, ten million to go.

More thinking about sewing than actual sewing this week, but I did do some darning on my honey’s jeans; they were in excellent condition except for tears at the inner corners of both back pockets.

Saving usable clothing from the landfill feels like a big ol’ win.

And I got the super-sized snaps onto my fleece jacket!  For those following along at home, that’s two finishes toward my goal of ten by the end of the year.

Took a walk with my mother to the fishing pond at the far end of Columbia Park.

We spent the weekend in Portland; on Saturday, my partner went off on a bike ride with his buddies, and I went to the Oregon Zoo.

Here’s an eagle for ya (another one is behind the trunk of the tree).

Isn’t this a beautiful place?

And a cheetah:

And (slightly less majestic) Naked Mole Rats sleeping in a heap.

And, just for fun, a couple of bonus pictures of the fall colors from the drive back home on Sunday.

This is at the Starbuck’s in Hood River, OR.

And a tree farm near the Oregon-Washington border:

Have a great week, everybody.

STH