I know it’s already February but here is a snapshot of all my finishes from 2021.

It’s so easy for me to forget about my finishes. I remember all my WIPS and projects that I work on and I’m sad that about that. But when I see all my finishes I am happy with what I was able to accomplish.

I have plenty of tops to quilt through and I hope to get all of them quilted in 2022. 🙂

Hugs

Melanie

Day 3 was the Monday of Thanksgiving week.

We were a little late on our itinerary since we got in to Eugene too late to visit University of Oregon. So on the morning of Day 3 we had a nice breakfast at the hotel in front of the river. I believe the Willamete River. I didn’t write it down so I could be wrong. Then we headed to University of Oregon. I could tell my son was not pleased. The school was okay, and the weather was nice – perfect, actually. But Eugene is too much of a small town for my son. He’s so picky. I loved it. Although if I was 16 looking at colleges, I would not have wanted to go to a small town too. Especially being from Los Angeles.

From Eugene, we went to Corvallis and visited Oregon State University. He liked the school better than UofO but Corvallis was even smaller than Eugene. He liked the weather better too, although I could not tell the difference. Next we headed to Portland. We got to Portland around 2’ish and we had such a heavy breakfast (really 4 meals for 3 people) that we weren’t really hungry for lunch and we were meeting one of my very best oldest friends for dinner. So, we went straight to the University of Portland. My son liked this school the best of all 3 schools. It was in a more urban setting, the weather was nice and cold, and he liked the atmosphere. Who knows how a kid determines what they like or not? I guess he could imagine going to school there. I liked it because their school colors are purple! My favorite color.

Afterwards, we visited Cheese and Crack, recommended by my cousin, and we all loved it. We enjoyed ourselves hanging around the area.

We picked up my dearest friend and went to Nongs for dinner. It was ok. They had run out of the dish they are known for and so we didn’t get to experience what we had gone there to get. But the company was good. Unfortunately we didn’t end the night well. We went back and our new minivan’s windows were smashed in and a few items were stolen.

It sucked. But these are times where I can be grateful for many things and whoever did this needed the items they took more than my family and I. It was inconvenient and not fun but a few years ago this kind of event would have been the end of my world. Instead we changed our plans and made the best of things. And I am so thankful for the luxuries and resources I now have that I didn’t have back then.

Hugs to all this holiday season. I still have the rest of the trip lined up to view and proofread and post so stay tuned!

Always,

Melanie

We headed out Sunday morning a little later than we wanted. But after a day with family and eating, I was okay with it before getting in a car for a long drive. Our goal was Eugene, OR to see University of Oregon.

The furthest north we’ve gone together was Redding, CA and there was a burger place we discovered. I found it and we enjoyed ourselves for lunch.

The drive went on and on. California is really big. But we finally made it into Oregon

Oregon has a lot of trees and small communities from what we could see off the freeway.

I found it very beautiful. I would love to come through and enjoy the campgrounds and trails at a more leisurely pace.

We had dinner at Bao Bao House really close to our hotel. We had watched the Disney short, ‘Bao’ on Disney+ the day before and we were in the mood. The food was exceptional. The flavor explodes in your mouth with every bite.

It was about 8:30pm when we drove into Eugene so we found ourselves a hotel along the river and decided to save the college for day 3.

Melanie.

My youngest is a junior in high school and with Covid we’ve not been able to do the things we did with my daughter. So we packed up the car and headed up to the PNW (Pacific North West). But first we took a pit stop in the Bay Area to wish my mom a happy 70th.

She would not appreciate a picture of her here so instead you get a cutie picture of my niece and my doggie.

It was nice being with family again.

This was yesterday. And today we are getting ready to head up to Portland.

🥰

Melanie

Monday was supposed to be a night at Mindy’s putting together her new-to-her frame and long arm. But after exerting ourselves Saturday to disassemble and then on Sunday at our cushion class, she didn’t have time to get the new home of the long arm cleaned. So we decided to hold off until that was done. Instead I worked real hard on my cushion class..

I got all the blocks done Sunday evening and lost one of the blocks. I found it Monday underneath one of those other blocks. And I was able to finish putting this little top together.

It took all of my sewing time Monday evening to put all these blocks together. I couldn’t believe how long it took. Isn’t that always the case?

Tuesday evening (tonight), I started on Step 2 – Flying Geese. I was able to get 2 of the 4 geeses sewn down.

Here’s what they will grow up to be:

You may think I’m speeding through and that I’ll have it all done by the next class. But, once the geese are done, I need to do a pineapple block little top. Then, I’ll need to sandwich all 3 pieces (separately), machine quilt them, then do some decorative hand quilting. So you see why I’m a bit stressed to get this all done. I hope to finish geese tomorrow night. Thursday is knit night so no quilting then. And then Friday night start on the Pineapple block. Depending on how long it takes to do one block, I may just do that one and have background fabric all around it. Or continue to do all 4 pineapple blocks. I don’t know. I’ll need to sandwich everything and do the machine quilting, and decorative hand quilting all next week.

Happy Crafting!

Melanie

A couple of months ago, the hubby and I and some friends trekked ourselves up to Fresno to check out the Blooming Trail. I’ll talk about that experience another time. But on the way up, we stopped at Moo Creamer in Bakersfieldm CA for lunch.

My friends and I found this spot while on a quilt retreat in 2019 (before all hell broke loose and all our retreats got cancelled) and we’d been dying to go back since.

The food was excellent and it was nice to know that it wasn’t just a fond memory and wonderful quilty weekend that made us feel like it was a great place to eat. It actually was a geat food experience. It was a little uncomfortable because their mask adherence and social distancing standards were not the same as in LA so we were a little uncomfortable. (they had indoor dining). We chose to sit outside in the far corner with about 6′ to the closest person. Thankfully our waiters were somewhat compliant with the mask wearing. Most of the patrons were not wearing masks and I felt like an outsider.

On to the food.

Hubby got French toast with honey butter (extra) and a side of eggs. The French toast was so very good. If we were not in public, the hubby would have done his happy food dance.

I got a couple of dessert stuff. I wasn’t hungry for lunch as I had a late heavy breakfast. I’m not so attached to Moo Creamery’s regular food (lunch dinner breakfast) – Don’t get me wrong, it’s good. It’s just not worth the calories, the money, and the room it takes in my tummy. Espeially when I can fill my tummy with desserts. So I got the sticky toffee pudding and the affogato.

was very similar and also very good. it had the same bread used on the french toast with pecans cinimmaon whip cream

affogato was our top choice our first time coming and it was

as good as expected. a definite pleasing sensation.

spicy garlic fries – was also good but I could have done with out it. i can’t eat spicy so …

February is almost over and I’m finally getting to my crafty plan update. I went into extensive detail on my plans here, for quilty here, for knitty here, and for cross stitch here.

Here’s the short list:

Quilts –

• Jan Krentz – Diamond Star
• Bonnie Hunter – Grassy Creek – this is the only project I’ve made any progress on and I’m on clue 4. See here for the most recent post.
• Scrappy Stars Around the Corner
• Dancing with the Stars
• Radiant Jewel
• Gardenvale
• Allietare
• Civil War Diary Quilt

Hand work

• Hawaiian block – finished top. At the moment, it’s hanging around where I can enjoy it. I think it will be a pillow but for now I’m letting it sit while I contemplate what I want it to be.
• Raining Cats and Dogs – I work on this every week but it’s a slow slow process. I’m stitching the buttons on and doing some laborious hand quilting. This is going to take forever.
• Rainbow Garden – I’ve not touched this in about a year.
• Simple Days BOM – I started this and you can see my update here.
• Halloween quilt – I’ve not touched this in many years. 🙂

Handwork was not on my crafty list at all but it seems that is what I’m drawn to at the moment. We have to go where the creativity takes us. 🙂

Knitting

• My Weasley Sweater – my Q1 goal was to knit the back and I finished that. So I’ve set this aside until Q2.
• 24 days of Christmas Shawl from Jimmy Bean – finished! I’m working on weaving the ends.
• Water Lily
• Beanie for Kayla
• Tranquil Mist
• Orient Express
• Blue Hat

Cross Stitching

• Gamer Nouveau – I’ve worked on this almost exclusively and I’ll need to provide you with a more current update. I worked on it so much I have no urge to stitch on this at all. But I’m so close to a page and row finish that I’m feeling like I may just keep going until I do.
• A Stitch In Time
• Shades of Red
• Autumn Owls – a bit of work on this. Not enough to see much of a difference
• Titania
• Tsuru kame – a couple hundred stitches put on this one. Again, just not enough to actually see change. 🙂
• Unicorn

And I realize that I didn’t even mention my to be quilted list… here.

• Staycation is done… practically. The binding has been sewn on by machine but I’m working on applique’ing the label. My goal is to get that finished before we head out of town on Friday.
• Good Fortune
• Glam Clam
• SoCal Quilt Run Area 4 Mystery Quilt from 2012
• SoCal Quilt Run Area 4 Mystery Quilt from 2012
• Provence
• saved top from the august treasure hunt some years ago

I hope this isn’t so boring for you as it’s simply a short (but very long) list to quickly refer to everything I’m working on.

Happy Crafting!

Melanie

Last Sunday I posted that I really don’t enjoy making masks. Early on I tried a bunch of different kinds. I can’t tell you what they were called but some had 4 different templates to cut out and took forever just to make 1 mask. I don’t have a lot of crafting time and I was very against using my little bit of precious time doing something I didn’t enjoy doing. Later on I saw this mask tutorial on Facebook and while not perfect was much quicker to make than others. And my daughter likes this mask than any of the other masks I made. My husband will use what I make him as long as he could find them. But he really likes the ones that we got for free from various places. My son doesn’t like the ones I make and that’s why I don’t make him much of anything. He doesn’t mean to be mean. He’s a teenage boy. Enough said.

My daughter is leaving for Boston in a few days so I spent the last few days making masks for her. It’s been several months since I made the last set and I had forgotten some of the tips and tricks that I knew when I was making masks more regularly. I decided to make this post so I had a place to look and remind myself when next I make masks.

I bought some of these fabrics for my nieces and nephews and my daughter will get to enjoy some of them even though she’s 19! But her mask recipe is… 11″ x 6.3″ rectangles. If you looked at the tutorial you would know what these mean. The diagonal she prefers, and actually fits me and my son is 2″ down and 2.75″ at the top (from right to left). Here’s where I have to be careful, the crease in the middle, needs to be .5-.75″ from the center. The tutorial is .75″ but I feel that makes too big of a crease. The .5 might be a bit small so somewhere between would be just right. For my daughter, if I do a quarter inch seam for the top and the bottom, it’s a perfect fit. But I feel like it’s too bulky with all the fabric. I like to sew an eighth inch seam as that helps reduce the bulk inside. But the problem is that the end result makes a slightly bigger mask. It tends to cover her eyes. So, I need to do the quarter inch seam despite the bulk. If I am making it for me I want to do something between the quarter and the 8th inch. If I am making it for my son, the 8th inch seam seems to be fine.

The next issue is the elastic. My daughter likes the elastic at 6.5″ for each ear. This works for me too. This is too small for my son and I really need to figure out how long it needs to be for him. I will get a chance to figure it out since I will need to make my son some plain black ones at some point. He keeps misplacing the free ones he gets from various places.

Happy mask masking, if you are still making masks.

~Melanie