The Polka Dot Debutante

Last weekend I went out to LaGrande, OR to teach the Round Division class to the Quilt Questers guild. Vivienne and I drove out Friday afternoon and spent the night with Mike and Earlene Lamb. They live in this wonderful house that is shaped like an octagon and has a gorgeous view of the valley.

We had a wonderful dinner with Mike, Earlene, Regina and Jeri. Good food, conversation and laughter.
The next day was the class. There were 19 students and everyone brought very different fabrics. We spent lots of time in the morning going through everyone's pile and refining their two complementary fabric groups. By the end of the day, some great blocks were up on the wall. Here are a few samples.

And finally, many thanks to Earlene for hosting Vivienne and I. We both had a wonderful time with you and the guild and hope to come back next year. Happy Sewing!

You just can't imagine how wonderful the Sisters Quilt Show is unless you've experienced it for yourself. About 1,000 quilts are hung from the buildings all through the little town of Sisters for one day. They go up around 7:30am and come down around 5:00pm. The sight of all those quilts on a beautiful sunny day is just amazing. And LOTS of people come to see them. Here is the view looking both ways on Cascade Avenue which is the main street through town.

This week I taught the Egg Drop Soup quilt on Tuesday and again on Friday. Here it is hanging in the teachers tent.

Even though I didn't make it myself, I also put the 25 Dresses quilt in the teachers tent. It is just so wonderful that I really wanted to share it.

This is Vivienne's "Memories of Sisters" quilt which she taught this week. It's also a pattern and the Stitchin Post sold tons of them!

I just had to throw in this great picture of my buds. I love my friends and we have such a good time together. To good times.

I went to Seattle last weekend for the big APNQ show. Friday night I participated in their new "Instructors for Hire" program and it went really well. I got four new bookings, gave out lots of brochures, and had a good time.
Because of copyright considerations, they ask that you not post pictures from the show so I can't put up pix of my favorite pieces. Instead I'll show you some pictures from the new Olympic Sculpture Garden. It is affiliated with the Seattle Art Museum and is free to all. It was a rainy, grey day but I really enjoyed our visit there. It's right down by the water and is just lovely.

This is the final report from Sisters. You are not going to believe it but between the four of us, we made 28 bags and 2 aprons! Yes, we are incredible, thank you, thank you, and we had tons of fun doing it all. One of us would try a new pattern and then the other three would have to make one too. And then there were the many variations that had to be tried. It was a feeding frenzy!
We also managed to walk to town every day, spend an afternoon in Bend, do two great hikes, and cook great food every day as well. I love the Sisters area so much. It has the best quilt store ever, The Stitchin' Post, beautiful scenery, and great weather. I didn't want to come home, well except to see that sweetheart of mine.

The Loot

My fellow bag ladies: Vivienne, Sue and Jennifer

And from Friday's hike, this is North Matthieu Lake

Heading back from the Lake on the Pacific Crest Trail with Mt. Washington in the background.

There is just so much going on I don't know what to write about first. But here goes. My wonderful hubby bought a motorcycle a couple of months ago. I have no problem with it; he used to have one when we first got married. The bike is a beautiful midnight blue BMW and is a pretty smooth ride. He left yesterday on his first big trip. He's going to Northern California to the Klamath River basin and camping and riding for a week with his friend Ben. Here he is leaving Saturday morning.

Here he is with all his gear. I miss him already.

Today I went hiking in the Gorge with my friend Viv. We did an old favorite and hiked up to Angel's Rest. It was so windy in the Gorge that we couldn't even walk out onto the bluff. I'm so puny, I probably would have blown away. You can see all the white caps on the river in this picture.

That's the bluff up there. We hiked right to the back of it but didn't go out to the edge like we usually would.

Finally, here is today's bounty from the garden. We have tomatoes running out of our ears. The first picture is the heirlooms and the romas. The basket in the back has all the goodies from the farmers market. The second picture is all the grape tomatoes, beans, and tomatillas.

We have this guy in Northwest Portland who has glued miniature statues of buildings all over his car. I LOVE it. I mean how cool would it be to totally turn your car into one big statue. Rick would kill me if I did anything like that but boy do I love that kind of stuff. I suggested a bottle tree in the front yard but he vetoed that idea as well.

In Houston, they take their art cars seriously. They have a museum dedicated to art cars. And they have an annual parade that is a big deal. Last year there were 250 art cars and over 200,000 spectators. Like I said, they take this seriously.

Here are a few of the cars we saw.

The detail on this car was amazing.

This one we saw just out on the street one day.

This was outside of the museum. Why the horse is there I have no idea.