The Palouse

I've always said that the top of a mountain, creek side in a quiet meadow, or a beach are the most peaceful places to sit, commune with one's self and one's creator. Over the past year, however, I've driven through the Palouse a few times and every time my breath is taken away with how beautiful and peaceful it is. It's been like a fast acting phone charger but to my soul.

The Palouse is the rolling hills in central&eastern Washington that is atop the Columbia Plateua. It's vegetation consists of tumbleweed, tumbleweed, and more tumbleweed, with some other assorted crops throughout. The sunsets are spectacular, the deer are  majestic against the sub setting backdrop and the old barns and grain silos are a connection to simpler times. I miss simpler times, and I didn't even live in them!  The Palouse is a natural patchwork quilt, cultivated by generations of hard-working frontiersmen and women. 

I still live the ocean and mountain tops, but this Palouse is quickly surpassing some of those sights as the perfect peaceful place!

Western Washington Shop Hop 2014

A couple weeks ago, I was exploring a new quilt shop (well, not new, bit new to me) in Duvall. The woman working was so delightfully helpful! As I readied for my departure, she asked if I was doing the Shop Hop. I asked her, "the huh-what?"  She went on to tell me all about the shop hop and what it consisted of. The more she talked, the more I thought that I had to do it! It sounded like a scavenger huntesque event consisting of 51 stores spread across western Washington. I love a good challenge, so I plotted out my course of action. 

As I had to work on the first two days, I only visited three stores each those two days. I really liked the store in Ballard called The Quilter's Loft. It was there that I saw this beauty! I'm so gonna make it!

The deal is that as one travels from shop to shop, participants receive a quilt block pattern and three pieces of fabric. For many blocks, they provided all of the needed fabric. Others did not. On day three, I drove 275 miles and got to 16 more stores. 

Thankfully, I had a partner in crime that day! Thanks Kim!

I also learned some new techniques and about some cool tools that make quilting a little easier. (Possible Christmas present?-mom?) This one, I learned at Bayside Quilting in Olympia--also a cool store.

Many stores offered their blocks from years past for sale. Some were SO cute, like this little beehive. I got a few along the way, because--honestly--I probably won't do some of the free blocks because they're, well, ugly or too hard. So, I will supplement with some cute blocks I saw along the way.

I also saw cute ideas that weren't meant for the shop hop, but these chickens were so cute I had to remember them!

On day four, I drove another 225 miles and got to 10 more stores! I fell in love with the shop in Freeland, WA on Whidbey Island. They had fabrics I hadn't seen anywhere else and the lady working was so nice!

I had such a blast! I can't wait til next year!

4th of JULY!

My favorite time of year!

New flag wall hanging, banner of Americana themed sayings and mason jars! Love crafting for the home!

More crafty things...

I saw this idea at the craft store. They used a pre treated board and it had the clips already on it, but it was a little spendy, so I looked around for something different. 

Then I remembered that I had this wooden serving tray at home already! I still needed the clips though...then I found the flowers and clothes pins at Michaels in their cheap, matchy-matchy bins. There was a sheep of flowers with a pattern and then the clothes pins jumped out at me and I thought, clothes pins will totally work! So I put it all together and here's the final product!

I can't wait to get some herbs going in the garden!

Then I painted my wooden tulips.

I got a few at the tulip festival and a couple at Michaels. They had pre-painted options but the colors were just a bit off from my tastes, so I opted for plain wood and I used cheap acrylic paint from the store to make them colors more to my liking. Love them!

The bunny, the bunny, mmmm, I love the bunny!

This is a knock off of a scrapbook page I made eons ago. I decided to make an Easter wall hanging. The back is a great turquoise blue, to represent the sky. It's about 20x20ish. 

Then, I just started cutting pieces for the body, the ears, the inside of the ears, and the tummy. I just ball parked it, but you could pre-draw patterns if you weren't sure how big to make them. I would do that on wax paper and get a general idea of the lay of the land. I used greens and yellows for the boy bunny and pinks and turquoise for the girl. 

Here's what that looks like half-way through.

At this point, you use wonder under or heat and bond to adhere all the pieces to the background fabric. Then I machine stitched  around the edges (fast appliqué). 

Once you have that, you can start to add embellishments! I added buttons for the eyes and nose, as well as the boy's shirt. I made a string of  beads for the girl. I made a bow-tie for the boy and a hair bow for the girl.

Then you can stitch in little details like mouth lines, ear accent lines, etc.

Then I added the outside border. This helps fasten the bunnies down.

Afterward, I decided to add a strip of fabric that was scrunched up in order to make it look like grass.

Fin!

Here's my month block, too!

Quilt Ladder

I love the idea of taking something very ordinary and truning into something fun and functional! I've been wanting a quilt rack, but all the ones I have seen in the old days are big, bulky and only hold a couple blankets. 

I found this idea on Pinterest.  http://www.shanty-2-chic.com/2013/12/10-wooden-blanket-ladder.html

Her how-to is pretty good.  I will just say that I would have made it taller and spaced out the crossbars a little more.  I tried, but someone cut my wood pieces a little off, so we had to adjust. :)  Maybe I'll make anothe

Also, the sanding process is pretty intensive if you are planning on using it for nice blankets, you won't want any snaggy bits.  I may have gone overboard on the stain too, because I had to do a lot of sanding after I stained.  I think if you do a lighter layer, it would have been less time consuming.

BOOTM II: march

This one is extra tricky because almost every piece of fabric was cut on the bias, meaning every piece is extra stretchy. Fabric is kind of funny like that. 

You can stretch it this way 

and it doesn't really go.

Or this way 

and it doesn't really go!

But this way

or this way

are crazy elasticy.  So when you cut pieces of fabric into odd shapes, like triangles, things can get extremely off kilter. And so, if you don't pay extra special attention, your pieces go all caddywampus!

Here's the finished product! I think she turned out pretty well!