Raquelle's 5th Birthday

This is the quilt that I made for Raquelle's 5th birthday. She is all about fairies right now, and after being convinced that it wasn't a rug she loves it. (She loved it when she thought it was a rug too.)

Of Fabric and Finishing Things

I went on a quilt shop hop last Saturday with two of my friends. Ruth normally drives, but she worked all night so she was sleeping in the back. Caroline flatly refused to drive, so that left me. So, given that I not only had to be awake during the day, but also drive in Portland and Eugene, (I figure we are all alive and no close calls,) I did pretty good. However by the end of the day, I must have been off my rocker... I bought brown fabric. No, not just one brown fabric, but three. They weren't even warm colors, or golden brown... so how come I like them so much? Besides proof of my insanity, I am also including pictures of things I finished this week. One is a little kids/baby blanket that I donated to the hospital, this was made of leftover scraps from another project. The second item is a doily I have been working on for awhile, I really like the wheat pattern, and I love the feel of it. It is very soft, and made of 100% bamboo thread. In fact I like it so much I didn't even have it off the stretching board before I was taking pictures of it.

Should have been posted in July

I went to the beach in July, but I am a little late with the post, as I am sure you can see... Anyway, my mother heard all about the light house, the giant spruce tree and the Devil's Churn. So here is some photo documentation of my exploits. (Note for the tree picture, I am 5 ft, 6 in.)

Life in the Fish Bowl, part 1

So my Birthday was Tuesday and to celebrate, Thad and Becky and the kids took me out to Newport. We stopped at Glenn Small's church for the morning service, then headed to the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Raqelle wanted to show me the sea lions and the sharks, Titus added "in the water." We saw jelly fish (much better in smaller viewing, blurry if you enlarge), and giant crabs. You should see these crabs, they are HUGE. They are called Japanese Spider Crabs, and according to the sign can grow to have a 13ft leg span. The ones we saw had about a 4-5ft legs span, and they were still huge. (Note for size comparison 3yr old Raquelle in the bottom left hand corner of photo of rear facing crab.) We also saw a sea otter investigating us through the window.

Life in the Fish Bowl, part 2

My favorite part of the visit was watching them feed the sea lions. They were all trained to do tricks and on command would clap, wave at the audience, bark or do flips. Raquelle was very insistent that I see the sea lions and the sharks. So I have included a very blurry (please do not enlarge) photo of a shark and a sting ray to prove that I saw them. What can I say, the lighting was horrid for photography and speed of the sharks made it very difficult to get a picture that was actually recognizable. Raquelle held my hand the whole time we were watching the sharks so I wouldn't get scared.

Life in the Fish Bowl, part 3

Family Fun

Birdy

Sorry, forgot to put the parrot up. (Also part of the zoo installment.)

A Day at the Zoo...continued

Here are some more pictures, as it seems I can only put so many in one post.

A Day at the Zoo

I went to the zoo on Saturday with two girls from my youth group. I had a blast, my favorite animal was the polar bear, he was just so playful. There was also a cute little baby elephant. And we got to watch a show where they had the birds (eagle, owl, two hawks, and vulture) fly over the audience. After the zoo we went to the rose garden for a walk.

To Satisfy My Mother's Curiosity

I have been getting some not so subtle hints lately that I should post something on my blog. And my mother is curious about a quilt I have been working on and telling her about for several months. So, here are some pictures of that quilt, along with some other projects I have been working on lately.

SHE'S HERE!!!!!!!!

My new niece, Keziah Anne Charlick arrived at 10:38 pm October 29, 2008. She is 7 lb, 10 1/2 oz, and 22 in long. She is absolutely beautiful!!!

One down, ? to go

Here is the baby blanket that I made for Lindsey at work. She is due in about 5 weeks. She told me, boy or girl- it will be a Oregon Ducks fan (football), thus the green and yellow colors. And yes, I know that the team colors are much bolder, but I wanted to do it in baby colors. (The pattern had tassels on it, but I don't care for tassels, and especially not on baby blankets.) Now, if I can just get Becky's baby blanket done in time...

Feeling Adventursome

First things first, it is important for me to say that I never really figured out/got the hang of oil pastels. And every once in a great while I pull them out again just to see if I can make them do what I want. That said, this isn't really what I had in mind, but I decided that I liked it anyway. This is probably the most successful attempt I have ever made with oil pastels. (And it only required some very mild photo editing to disguise the fact that I still haven't figured out how to keep the page clean with these suckers. That and I forgot to sign it before photographing, oops.) If any other blatant errors are seen, I will chalk it up to the fact that this was done between 4-7am.

See, I did finish something

Ok,so its not really finished yet. But the top is put together. You can't see much of the border, except on the bottom, but it looks like that all the way around.

Quilt Block of the Month, number 1

Hi, for those of you who don't know, I signed up for a quilt block of the month club, it runs from July to December. I honestly have no idea what this thing is going to look like when its done, only that it will be in fall type colors. Here is month one.
This is all a direct result of one of my coworkers taking it upon herself to introduce me and one other lady to her addiction... quilting. She took me around on a "shop hop", which means going around to all the quilt shops on the list to get free patters and/or fabric to make blocks. The one we went on was a state wide thing over the course of two weeks. (No, we did not do all 39 shops, there was no way that we were going to drive across the state. We only hit 21 in the Portland/Eugene/Coast areas. And yes, I spent way to much money.) I picked up some patterns and fabric, if I actually get anything done I will post it here.
In other news I participated in I-Serve, which is a program at my church for community service. So the last weekend in June, I spent the day painting the boys bathroom at the local middle school. It was fun, (hot, muggy, and smelly, but fun.) A lady painting the girls bathroom was singing and it echoed into the boys bathroom, so I joined in and we had a lovely little surround sound thing going.