MOLLY QUILTED

I finished off the quilting on Molly.  I only had two and a partial rows left to do.  And, of course, I ran out of bobbin two-thirds of the way through the last row.

I used pantograph "Paisley Playtime".  I really like it.

Number 8 done.

BUNNIES AND OWL EYES

I was out into the studio early and finished off the Bunny blocks for Fancy Forest before our morning walk with the dogs.  There's a lot of little tiny corners cut off to make these blocks - and it was almost painful to not save them.  They are too small to reuse.  Get over it.

Off we went for a walk in Discovery Park then breakfast at Portage Bay restaurant in Ballard.

It was a beautiful morning.

Jelly, hanging out the window - Life is Good.

Afterwards, I came back and started on the Owl blocks.

I was hoping to get the eyes done, at least.  But, there are a lot of parts to the eyes and I got confused and had to unsew and resew a few pieces - mainly the ones that had directional fabric.  I left them with one more row to go around the eyes - and I didn't take a picture.

BUNNY EARS

I worked all afternoon on the next block in the Fancy Forest - the Bunny.

There are a lot of parts to these guys.

I got them more than half done.

What's slowing me down is that I'm sewing together the leftover triangles that are cut off.  I'm conflicted about this new way to make half-square triangle blocks.  Used to be that you cut triangles and sewed them on - not anymore.  Now they cut squares then sew them on with a diagonal line and cut off the excess - lots of waste.  Which is good and bad, depending on which side you are on.  As a previous quilt store owner - it's a great way to sell more fabric.  But, as a frugal quilter, who can't throw anything out, it seems such a waste - unless I utilize all those leftover parts.

I'm putting all of the leftover parts into a bin.  I'm actually thinking I'll make something from all of it...or put it all together for the back.

 P.S.  There were some cut-off triangles that are too small to sew together - I'll toss them - I haven't yet.  But I'm sure I will...sometime soon. 

FOXES!

I finished up cutting out the background fabric for Fancy Forest and moved everything back upstairs.  It's a lot cooler today.

I sat down at the sewing machine, thinking I'd whip out the little foxes.  I thought there was only 8 to do, but was surprised to find out there was 16.  It is the easiest  block, but it still took me all morning to make them all.

I'm not going to post a picture of them.  It's a surprise.

I'm excited and want to get working on the rest of the Fancy Forest!

CUTTING FABRIC

I got all of the 40 fabrics for Fancy Forest cut and sorted into bags this morning.

I worked outside on the picnic table.  It was really nice and cool this morning.

Unfortunately, I broke my favorite ruler, my Omnigrid 6" by 12", and I dropped the rotary cutter with a brand new blade on the concrete, which caused a nick in the blade, which leaves a thread or two uncut every pass.  I hate that!

After lunch I got a few more rows of the pantograph done on the Molly quilt.  It's coming along nicely.

TOO HOT

I spent the morning working on the pantograph, but in the afternoon it was just too hot to be upstairs in my studio.

So, I took all the fabrics I had gathered for Fancy Forest quilt, plus a cutting mat, rulers and rotary cutter and a wool blanket to use as ironing mat along with my iron, outside to the picnic table under the gazebo.  I thought it might be nice to be outside.  Wrong.  It was way too hot outside too.

I left it it all out there - it was too hot to drag it all back upstairs.

I ended up going inside, where it's air conditioned, and finishing the binding on my Improv quilt.   I put it into the washing machine afterward.

SOLAR ECLIPSE 2017

Up early and out the door of the hotel by about 4:30am on this day of the Eclipse - we are heading south to get as close to the center of shadow (Path f Totality) as possible.  We didn't know what to expect.  The media has been warning about 100's of thousands of people all heading for the center.

We made it to Stayton Oregon by about 7:00am where we found a Safeway with a Starbucks.  The parking lot was full and the lines were long, but everyone was having a great time.

While standing in line, we had conversations with people from the UK, some from Switzerland and overheard conversations that sounded like they were from South America. 

We drove around town for a while and settled on the corner of First and Cedar and set up our chairs in the back of the pickup.

Here's a screen shot from Nasa's site - the red line is the center of the Path of Totality going through Stayton.  We were just a little north of the center.

I brought my Improv quilt to work on the binding.  I thought it should go to view the eclipse with us because I had quilted a motif into that reminded me of the sun.

While waiting for the big event, I sat in the back of the pickup and worked on the binding of Improv quilt.

There were people set up all up and down the street to view the eclipse.

We set the thermometer in the bed of the pickup in the shade.  This was several hours before it started.

The first glimpse of the eclipse starting.

You could feel the temperature dropping and see the light changing as the moon covered more and more of the sun.

At totality it definitely was colder.

 I didn't try to take any pictures of the eclipse - you can go see the pictures the professionals took.  We just enjoyed the experience.  For me, I was overwhelmed with emotion at the wonder of it all. 
As the moon moved to completely cover the sun, the crowd erupted in cheers and clapping.  
During totality, when you could safely remove the eclipse glasses and look at the sun directly, I used my binoculars to get an amazing view of a moving aura that extended much farther than I could have imaged.  Around the edges of the moon you could see the bright orange flares of the sun. 
Our world became dark, there were stars in the sky and the street lights came on.  There was a calm quiet as the world stopped to experience the event.
It truly was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

This photo was taken by Rod Chandler (a cousin) - I borrowed it. Look him up - he's a great photographer.

I grabbed a quick shot of some of the crescent shaped shadows as we packed up to head out.

Immediately after totality people started leaving town.

We finally found the traffic nightmares we had been warned about.

Somewhere on I-5 northbound.

The lack of sleep finally caught up with Hailey on the way home.

It took us about 7 hours to get back home, twice as long as it should have.

This was the coolest adventure I've ever had - loved it.

GOING TO OREGON

We left early on Sunday morning, heading south to Oregon.  We are aiming to get to the center of the eclipse shadow, just south of Salem.  It sounded like lots of people were headed for Eastern Oregon.  We opted for the west side because there are more roads and options.

We left at 3:50am

First stop, Starbucks in Tukwila

Next stop, picking up granddaughter, Hailey (8 yo) in Rochester.

We arrived in Clackamus at about 7:30am - there was no traffic to speak of.  We didn't know what to expect.  There was a lot of talk about massive migrations and traffic backups - that's why we left so early.  Clackamus is the closest place I could find a hotel five months ago.  They were either sold out everywhere or way overpriced.  We still had to pay $175 for this room, twice what it would normally cost.  We couldn't check in until 3pm, so we had some time to kill.

Well, what's there to do in Clackamus?  Not much...

We went for a walk at close by 3 Creeks Natural Area.  

On the way back out, we came upon a movie set.  They were filming a low budget alien spacecraft crash site.  We stayed and watched for a while (we didn't have anything else to do).  It was interesting.  They are a local group of guys that make these films and post them on youtube under the name Skargoz. 

Those are some of the parts of the spaceship crash in the background.

We watched the actors as they played the panicked astronauts running from the aliens.

With not much else to do, we went to the local mall and went to the movies.  Darrell and Hailey saw Despicable Me 3 (Darrell says he got a good nap in), while I went to see Dark Tower (being a big fan of Stephen King's Dark Tower series I was a little disappointed - this movie has little to do with the books, but it's okay as a stand alone story - why do they do things like this?).

After the movies, we went to Fred Meyer to buy a thermometer for tomorrow then we drove around for a bit (there's not much to see in Clackamus) and finally checked into the room at 3pm.  Once settled in we went out for dinner at Red Robin, then back to the room for an early turn-in - gotta get up early tomorrow, too!

GETTING READY

 I took a few days off work to get things caught up and organized so we could leave early on Sunday heading for Oregon to view the solar eclipse on Monday.

I've been working on the binding for this huge quilt.  This is the back of Wallflower.

I finished the quilting on Improvisation #1, LA007. 

Putting the binding on Improvisation #1.

I finished putting the last border on Molly.  I had to buy a layer cake just to get a few more pieces of the tan fabric so I'd have enough fabric - they were all out of yardage.  Here it shows all those 10" pieces.

I made and loaded the back for Molly.  It will be ready to load the quilt and start on it once we get back home.

398 INCHES OF BINDING

I put the first stitches on the binding of the Wallflower Quilt.

The circumference is 398".

This may take a while.

A TO Z QUILT

I bought this cute panel and four charm packs of 2-1/2" squares and made this little quilt in a couple of hours.

I took it to work and got the binding finished.  

IMPROV ON EDUARD

I finished my Improv quilt from a class with Debbie Jeske.  I made a label and pieced it into the back and loaded it up on Eduard to quilt.

I'm using the Westalee Circle Ruler, I just purchased, for the first time.

There was a slight learning curve, hence I had to pick out half of the first circles I tried.

 The ruler is actually pretty neat and simple to use, once you figure it out.  The only thing I don't like is putting that big tack through your quilt.  It leaves a big hole.  Hopefully, it will disappear.