Saturday, August 29, 2009

THE ONLY WAY TO GET CAUGHT UP....

...is to write 2 post in one day! Hopefully, I will not let myself get so far behind again!!

This post will have lots of pics. of quilts and vacation.
Gary and I flew to Portland at the beginning of August. Lea picked us up and we went straight to Multnomah Falls, my absolute favorite place!! That was the first time we had such a hard time getting a parking spot. (of course, we've NEVER gone on a Saturday!!!)


Then we went to Ikea. Love that place. Got fabric to make some bags. I may have get some more online. Really impressed how well it washed and dried and absolutely no bleeding. Then we went to Fabric Depot for a couple of hours. Needless to say, the extra suitcase I brought was well on its way to getting filled up. (Please don't remind me that I said I was trying not to buy any more fabric this year, I'm not listening!)
This is the quilt that was in the "extra suitcase". In case you don't know about this "Mardi Gras" quilt, the blocks were made for me in the Birthday Block Swap on about.com 2 years ago.

This is the back that I made completely from my stash.
And here is the label showing all the blocks that I made for the other particapants in the swap.








Here is the latest baby quilt I made for Baby Andrew. (the S is for his last name!) We were able to visit Andrew and his mom, Kaye, in Salem. Kaye even took us to Greenbaums, The Quilted Forest. Great shop in a building with a wonderful history. I loved their original brick wall and all the original cabinets.
After our day in Salem, we were off to Seattle for a couple of baseball games. Definitely got our money's worth with one of the games, Mariners vs. White Sox. It went 14 innings with Jr, as in, Ken Griffey, Jr. making a hit and getting a runner in. Great game.
The next night, we saw Mariners vs Yankees. It starting pouring a couple of hrs before the game, so we got a little wet trying to get in the stadium. I had a guy sitting next to me, that took up his seat and 1/3 of mine :-( and the Mariners lost. So we really didn't enjoy the game as much as the night before.


This was in one of the corridors of the stadium. They took license plates from the states of each team. It was really cool.


We also rode "The Duck" in Seattle. That was a blast! I had pics to post, but I just lost them!



On our way back to Portland, we stopped at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. It was real interesting. We watched them make a complete piece, about 2 hrs to make. It can also be viewed online. Check them out.
Our time went much to fast. Lea is already planning our trip for next year when we will be going back to Canada!

Now, I hope I am back on track! Till next time..................













I'm trying to catch up!!!

Sorry I've been MIA for so long. I've been busy with pillowcases, applique and quilting and LIFE!! But I did want to share some of our vacation pics with you! Lea came home for 2 weeks in June and we spent some of that time in Austin. My family lived there in 1965 for 9 months and I had never been back. So Lea and Gary surprised me with a trip there. We would have all enjoyed it much more had it not been so HOT and dry!!! And of course, most things we did was outdoors.
We toured the capital.




These are the door hinges. Very impressive.













And I fell in love with the flooring in one part of the building. This is a reproduction of the original. There's a quilt in there somewhere!!












We took the "100" steps to the top of Austin! The view below was beautiful, but it was soooo hot that day, that we couldn't wait to get back down and get something to drink!!


A great view from the top.
We even made time for BBQ at the County Line on the Lake Restaurant. After you eat, you can walk out on the decks and feed the multitude of turtles. Great BBQ!
Then we ended one of our afternoons by the river waiting for the bats to go out on their nightly hunt. I tried to upload a video that I took, but I couldn't get it to post. If you want to read about it, you can find it here. http://www.austincityguide.com/content/congress-bridge-bats-austin.asp They just had a story about it on HLN an hour ago!!
We did find where I had lived, but all that was left was the sign for the trailer park! The section has been closed off and is a "green" area. It was nice to see Austin again!