Life In Color

Quiet

Usually I have no excuse for forgetting to blog for a few days, but right now I do. In the Bj-just-can't-get-a-break category he is away attending a funeral... times two. His maternal grandpa has been fighting throat cancer (note: if you smoke look this up, maybe you will finally quit—it's terrible!) and lost the battle last week. His poor mother has been there for weeks helping and giving comfort to her family and is so exhausted, I am sure. The day after his grandpa passed away his step-grandpa, with whom he was quite close, as Bj's mother's parents have been remarried for many, many years (30+?) died. That one was a bit of a shock, especially so close to the other. He has flown to Florida to be with his family. We had hoped to go but wouldn't you know it, Girls Gone Wild film there this week, and ticket prices shot up to $1,400. I am happy he got to go, and his grandmas (and one great grandma!) are too. 

It is not nearly as sad to me as Grandpa Garrison, since we talked to him daily and were caring for him, but every time there is a death in the family I just want to hold my own so much closer and have been doing that these last few days. Of course my silly little monkey keeps me quite entertained, telling me this and that in a language that is just out of my reach:

 

Maybe she'll be a professor? A professor of awesome! Of course my sweet friends and family always come through for me, I just do NOT know how I got so lucky. Last night Sciarrino spent the night, and helped out today even though she spent much of it with a terrible headache (a cold's fault, not Tuesday's!).

 

My mom and step dad took me and Tuesday out to my anniversary dinner (three years, crazy!). And Bj sent me the most wonderful flowers and note. It was so good I had to ask if he found the text off the internet, he swears he came up with it himself, well done darling! I wouldn't be me if I didn't squeak in a little bit of crafting to stay calm.

 

It's not too late to join Penny's Quilt-as-you-go Along! These blocks are so fun, and use up lots of fun scraps that you've been saving, the green is from high school 12 years ago—do you recognize the shibori Erin? I'll put more details up on my flickr page. Oh speaking of being all over the web, in case you haven't noticed in the sidebar, I'm finally putting my two year old twitter account to (good?) use. It's quite fun actually, now that I have Tweetie. I even started an account for Ribbon Jar!

I don't know when I'll have time to blog again, gosh Bj sure does a lot around here! I'll try to check in, and for my sweetie 2,817 miles away:

 

We miss you so much we over corrected this photo to show our love!

I'll take you up on that!

My friend Tracy was lucky enough to stay in a beach cottage all this last week and had a few extra rooms. She wondered if our little family would like them to keep her and her little cutie company while her husband had to return to work. Needless to say we jumped at that! Bj had to finish up work, of course, so we didn't get to leave until after five on Friday. It was a super quick trip, but so fun. We picked up pizza at a great little place I can't even find online called Humble Pie Pizzeria (thank you Yelp!) in Lincoln City and headed to the cottage. Lachlan who was almost asleep when we got there eyed Tuesday suspiciously, but finally warmed up to her babbling and toy stealing. We went to bed late and had a little bit of a rough night (teething again I think). But it was all worth it. I was joking with someone who said that it's usually the Oregon Coast, but the Beach if it is not raining. Well we went to the beach alright:

 

Can you believe that?!?! It was only a three block walk too:

Lachlan moseys down to the beach. Seriously this guy is so mellow and cute it just completely cracks me up—I love him!

Tracy let me try her Ergo. I love it so so much!

I couldn't even feel her in it. I kept asking if she was really ok back there, it is so comfy! The kids loved the beach:

 

What a long way we've come from the "I don't want one single grain of sand on me" days in Hawaii.

That's right, I guess she's a true Oregonian. Laughing hysterically at the waves and running as fast as she could towards them. 

I had to take off her pants because they were getting so messy. I tried to get her to stand on my feet because the wet sand is so cold but she was fearless! These were the best pictures I've ever gotten from this point and shoot (who knew it had a beach mode?) so I had to share a bunch. I took zero today. I didn't think you'd enjoy seeing me slumped over the computer doing inventory/tax stuff—yuck. We did take a walk in the pouring rain to round out our very Oregonian weekend. I hope yours was also full of outdoor wonder—yes to spring!

Where did the week go?

I'm not sure. But hopefully my weekend will be filled with lots of:

 

(I've managed to cobble together a decent set of "light" scraps for the quilt a long)

 

Of the brights I still have way to many. Of course I should be working on this long neglected project:

 

But my new yarn:

 

And some liberty (pulled apart from a girls XL dress at Target):

 

Are calling my name. We'll see what wins out. Any projects on your weekend to do list?

The dreaded before pictures

When ever I take on a new project I tend to get a vision pretty quickly of what I want. Which means pretty quickly I get sick of looking at the "before". Bj and I have had plans drawn up to tackle the last remaining bit of cottage work, and it's a big part—the yard. People our yard is not looking good. When I bought the house it looked like this in the front:

  

(you can see the whole place here—time warp!) Then I chopped everything down (yes, I was called  a tree hater). Now it looks like this (well, in September it did):

 

The tree had to come down, not just for the porch, but because the roots were growing into the foundation, I did not want to cut it. The bushes were old crusty things so those went... leaving a very bare front yard. One that, as you can see is mostly dandelions. But my friends, that is just to keep up appearances. The backyard is truly scary:

 

and:

 

oh, it's going to get worse:

 

the ghetto shame of it all:

 

Yes there is garbage, and weeds, weeds, more weeds. 

I took all these pictures last year hoping HGTV would come transform it, but no dice. Now that we have a plan in place I keep clicking my heels and hoping it will magically be done already. But everything in due course. Right now we are the pick pretty plants phase, which is fun, and a little overwhelming. I know what I want: cute, modern, country, cottage, good-smelling, veggie-producing, eco-friendly, semi-native, low-water, awesomeness. I just am not sure exactly what plants those are. So we've been walking around the neighborhood snapping pictures, going through my magazine tear out file and checking out books. I have a list going: lilacs, clematis, roses, alums, maybe a coral bark maple? I would LOVE to know some of your favorite plants. The landscape designer (yes, a professional. If there is one thing my professional interior designer mother has taught me, it's that a professional will think of about a million things you never will) Tina will let us know if the plants won't work in our area, or certain parts of our yard (like under our black walnut maple that I like, thank you very much). So please let me know. Oh and if you do want to go to my mother's blog, she's looking for help picking out a new tree—Tex are you out there?

Scraping with Sarah

And once again I only have pictures of the aftermath, Sarah, how does that always happen to us? Sarah and I had a day planned out to scrapbook on Saturday, just the two of us, and it was so much fun. It turns out when I pull the chair out of the craft room you can fit a long folding table in here and two messy scrapbookers really well. I need to get better at taking pictures of my layouts (super fail) but here they are:

 

All of them might look a little wonky. I asked Stephanie how she took pictures of hers and she posted this link. I am doing that, but I think I still have a few things to work out. 

 

I know a whole sheet of patterned paper, what?

 

Two pager - yeah! I dug into Sarah's thicker collection:

 

Speaking of scrappy hats, I finally got a picture of my quick moving daughter in her newest tri-peak (three months after I finished it):

 
(more photos on my ravelry page)

 

This layout and the next are not from Saturday but I never posted them. The other guy with Bj is Carmen's husband, aren't they cute?

 

And one about the Ribbon Jar. While I was at my mom's a few weeks ago and the power was out I flipped through my three-up photo albums and put post-its with journaling on the photos I wanted to scrap. It made for quick, easy and fun scrapping this past week. Oh and I almost forgot this:

 

Sarah and I did some pre-scrapping based off of a Studio Calico idea. It was fun, and I can't wait to use these, although I think some will be part of Emily's prize for winning the guessing contest (the tree was 97), what do you think Emily?

The other thing I did this weekend was make a few changes on my blog. I am going to do pictures a little bigger (actual pictures, not scrapbooking layouts). I also added a fun link list on the sidebar that I plan to keep updated with little gems of the internet. I will change the title with the date updated so you can see if there are new links to check out (Amber Loves List). I added a copyright, which I have been meaning to do forever, but if you ever want to use an image just let me know. The last thing I did was add a link list called Lately on the Nightstand. It's an Amazon Affiliate link list. To be honest I'm not really sure exactly how it works (if you have to buy the item shown, or just place an order after clicking, I can't seem to figure it out). I've been linking to Amazon with my affiliate ID for over a year now and have made a whole $10.02, so you know, rolling in the big dough. :) I don't see the list affecting the site at all, I really wanted to put it up because I think we read some interesting things, and having the pictures is nice. Making enough money off of it to pay for the blog itself would be great, but I don't see myself putting up adds or anything like that. Who knows though, for now this is enough and I hope it doesn't bug anyone. Now should I change my five year old banner? Hmm kind of sounds like a lot of work :) Pro blogger over here, can you tell? :)

Be a Joiner

Yesterday Sciarrino and I drove up to the first meeting of the Portland chapter of the Modern Quilt Guild. I didn't really know what to expect, having never been in a guild of any kind before. I was hoping that I would meet some like minded fabric lovers, and guess what I did! 

We did a show and tell, although I didn't bring anything. This quilt in particular got me thinking. I don't have any white on white fabric and very few light colored fabrics of any kind (hello Life In Color?). But I really loved this "low volume" idea. And the quilting was so so beautiful:

 

This picture just does not do it justice. The quilter is Rachel (aka 2ndAveStudio). I hope she brings this back in washed up because it looks like it is going to do some amazing things. If you have a guild in your area I would recommend going. Here is a link to the national blog that has a sidebar list of specific guilds - new ones are being started all the time!

In other sewing joining news I am going to join Sew Take a Hike's quilt as you go along (starts tomorrow). It sounds really interesting, and would be a good fit, I think, if you are a beginner or someone who doesn't normally quilt your own tops because you are only quilting smallish squares at a time. Check it out here. 

I'm hoping one of you will want to join in as well. I have tons of awesome (I think) scraps, but practically nothing in the light colored/white background section, which you need for these quilts. If anyone has a lot of that type of scraps and wants to trade for a bag of colorful stuff let me know! 

 

Here is my big bin of scraps to hopefully entice you. And Penny has a few pictures up of what the less bright scraps should look like on her post explaining the quilt along. So, anyone in? 

Teaselwick Wools

I could also title this post My Friend and Next Door Neighbor Opened a YARN SHOP and I am The Luckiest Girl in The World, but I'm never really sure what letters to capitalize with a long title like that. So yes, my neighbor Tracy (who is also my friend but I have another friend named Tracy so I call her my neighbor Tracy) opened a yarn shop in town! Let's see I just googled it and it is 1.5 miles away by walking. Hello! Is this not awesome. Rhetorical, it is totally awesome. The only other yarn shop here (in Salem, Oregon in case you're wondering) closed last year. Yarn is one of the only things I hardly ever buy online (besides that Sundara craziness I hoarded while pregnant). I love feeling yarn, being inspired by the samples and books in a yarn shop, and talking with the shop workers and patrons. So ya, I'm psyched. I thought I blogged about it before but I can't seem to find any reference. I happened to check my stats the other day (which I never do) and it showed 40 people searching for yarn shops and getting to my blog in a week. I don't know how that happened or what they were searching for: shops in Salem, Oregon? Portland? The Willamette Valley? Online? Or just plain Awesome Yarn Shops (hehehe how's that for some keywords :), but they come here. Soon I'll have a little badge over there (if I knew how to make arrows one would be pointing to the right), but for now here is a link to her blog: Teaselwick Wools. 

 

The first time I visited a month ago (see above - I was posing with a sling to show Ceara that they can be classy - Yes Emily I got the Sakura Bloom) I disgraced myself by having Tuesday wear this not handknit hat and you know what when I came back yesterday:

 

I freaking did it again! So that must mean I need more yarn. Plus St. Patrick's day all green yarn on sale. I am so there!

 

The shop is really filling up. Tracy has excellent taste, which is a good thing, but can have drawbacks, like me buying way too many books because she has tons of great ones that I haven't seen anywhere (I'm still loving this one that I made Ceara's hat from).

 

This is wool from Oregon - some kind of lovely unspun stuff that looks (and fills) so yummy! The shop is in an old Wool Mill (Mission Mill) so very fitting. Please check it out if you are in town and so inclined. 

Of course I had to congratulate Tracy on her new venture and when I saw this fabric I knew I wanted to sew her up something. So I made her a bag to carry knitting and stuff to and from her shop.

 

and the inside:

 

We were trying to get more pictures outside, but someone wasn't a fan:

 

Imagine a better shot of the inside where I made a pocket with a contrasting lining and added one of my labels (my birthdate printed on this twill). 

 

Up close of the fabric.

 

This was my first bag like this (I used this pattern - horrible cover art, I know, but the pattern is great) and I learned a lot. Like I should pre-read the whole pattern. I don't know how many times I have to be told this to get it into my head. It's a good idea with any project in any medium, and I still fail to do it. If I had I would have known to move this little patch further away from the edge of the outer panel so it wouldn't get caught in the corner. I gave Tracy a verbal lifetime repair coupon when I brought her the bag, so we'll see how soon I get it back. I think doing a few of these at once would be best, so you could press all at once, baste all at once, and sew all at once. 

Now I just need to start knitting all of this yummines:

 

if I don't get distracted by this vintage barkcloth panel from Tracy's parent's house (she got it when her dad passed away - these were their curtains!!):

 

Like I've said before: project overload!!!

Goodbye Tree - Hello Giveaway

GOOD JOB EMILY - YOU GOT IT ON THE NOSE. THE TREE WAS 97 YEARS OLD.

Remember when I said our power was out? This is why:

 

Dwarfs their house a bit huh?

 

This is my neighbor's tree AFTER a whole day of trimming, and it actually looks pretty good here. This giant cedar was neglected by the city (in our town those areas in front of sidewalks are managed by the city), so it got all wonky and out of control. My neighbor wanted a branch cut that was on his house, the city said no and ended up cutting down the whole tree. Um... logic? Anyway it's been quite a process, they've been at it for eight days now. 

 

They come and cut and then in the afternoons/evenings the juvenile detention boys come and cut it up for fire wood and haul it off to give to needy families (when things go on in my neighborhood I like to talk to the workers, but I'm not that nosey, I swear!).

 

End of the week last week. Tuesday has been loving watching all of this from our little window upstairs. And by loving I mean fully body spasms of happiness. Today was the big day. They still had a few branches to get down.

 

They used a pulley system to get all of those down, it was actually pretty interesting, but I never got a picture of it. Once they got to this point they used wedges. This was about when the guy got his chainsaw stuck.

 

Which I found amusing. Until he started hitting it with an ax. I was sure I was going to see blood.

 

But he got it figured out. Here the tree is all wedged and ready to go.

 

I also didn't think this idea of using the power pole for a pulley set up was the best, but

 

it worked. And did this to the sidewalk.

 

And rumbled our house. But the big show was to come.

 

I thought it would be a while and all the sudden I look outside and it's like this so I run to grab my camera. 

 

just in time.

 

 

 

boom

 

I happened to snap this:

 

The boss drove up just after it happened and the worker there is giving a thumbs up. Of course I had to go check this out myself (Tuesday was napping). I'm sure you want a good scale shot, well don't worry because I am the nerd who is going to fulfill your wishes. 

 

The guy's response to taking my picture? "um, ok." You can't see the guy just out of frame who lit up a cigarette right after the tree came down. Hmm. Of course I had to ask how old the tree was (they weren't going to check!). The guy said as long as the boss wasn't looking, checked over his shoulder and counted for me. He told me his estimate and explained some tree growth stuff. Then he told me that my neighbors will probably have to wait to get new trees planted because he had already planted his allotment (only 250 trees) around town. Boo on that. I'm glad this is down for my neighbor's sake, it was so scary every time we had ice storms and our street was littered with the smaller branches. We all kind of felt like it was only a matter of time. 

Oh and I asked what they were going to do with this big log. I thought they would sell it to a mill because it's beautiful cedar. The guy said that no one would come get it because it would cost a lot to get a self loading log truck in here. Plus he didn't think there were any more mills in the area that could take logs this big (forestry is a big industry here but it's a very managed thing so no old growth like this is being cut anymore). So this too will be cut up into firewood for the needy. Now, I'd like to know how heavy this this was! Isn't nature the coolest?

SO how old do you think this thing is? I'm 5'4" (what? I'm wearing clogs!). I don't have a specific prize in mind, it could be a bundle of fat quarters with a tree theme, or some handspun, or fiber or scrapbooking stuff... I have a lot of crafty goodness in here, so I'll quiz you and pick something good. Guess away, if two people guess the right age I'll put the names in a hat and pick one. 

edited to add: closest either way wins, and I'll leave this open until Thursday 11:59 PM (pacific).

For the girl with the most energy

Tuesday seems to have the most energy of anyone in this household. Thank you for all your well wishes, Bj seems to be on the mend, but still has to get checked up on (again). He is mighty sore, as you can imagine, so, sadly, the little bits of sun we had did not result in family walks, but instead couch time and ice. 

 

This little monkey does not know to be slow and careful and she's had me running around playing all weekend. In between great long naps for which I am very thankful. We did manage to get out of the house on Sunday - I had to check out Liberty at Target.

 

Glad we went when we did as most of it seems to be sold out by now. I got two sweet little dresses for Tutu, one for this summer, and one for next.

 

I just love this 3T sized one I got:

 

I just loved the fabric on these. Not quite the Liberty fabric that sells for oh-my-goodness-how-much? a yard, but it did wash up like a dream.

 

And also this cute little bikini:

 

To be one..

I was hoping for something for myself but nothing fit me right (super narrow shoulders are to blame). And our Target didn't have a lot of the things anyway (and no men's). Still it was fun. Even though I continue to not finish projects I have added another one to the pile. 

 

Drafting a pattern from this hand me down wrap dress. I thought it would be easy enough. I have all the pieces cut out now and am going to try my hand at sewing together a sample. I have plenty of fabric to cut into since Sciarrino and I went to a Fabric Depot sale:

 

Hopefully more progress on my many project fronts to come!

Incidentally

Oh man, Bj is the worst at telling me when something goes wrong. THE WORST. I love him but, well take a look at a conversation that we had earlier today:

phone call from Bj a half hour before he is supposed to catch a flight home (he flies to Seattle to go to meetings - yes he has a large carbon footprint)

Bj: "I've been involved in an incident. I need you to get me our insurance information, our car insurance. I thought I had it in my wallet, but I don't."

Me: "Oh my! Honey are you alright? Just tell me first if you are alright."

Bj: "I think I'm ok, ya, they checked me out I'm ok."

Me: "Ok, let me grab Tuesday and go out to the car and get it."

Me: "Was anyone else in the car with you? Is everyone alright?"

Bj: "I wasn't in the car. Oh wait, I don't need the info I'll talk to you later."

Me: "Wait? What you weren't in a car? But you were hit by a car? Bj, what?"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is about as good as when he called me while I was at crew practice (we couldn't have our phones with us) to tell me about a doctor's appointment he had. This was his message: "Hey honey, I have to go to Salem to get looked at. But I'm going to be in the hospital so I won't be able to have my phone. Talk to you later." Fun times.

Bj did call back after a few sweat inducing minutes. He had been pulling bags out of the trunk of his rental car when he heard shouting and then crunch, he was pinned. The FORD F150 (!!!) that pulled up behind him wasn't really in park like the driver thought so it rolled forward and squashed my sweetie. Bj is tall so I didn't need to worry about his man bits (totally my first question), instead it got him right at the knees which is super painful. He's all swollen and bruised, and we have to go to the doctor tomorrow to make sure he is alright. I'm sure he's going to be, and then I'll have a nice big laugh about it. I mean come on, when you travel do you ever think about getting hurt, maybe even paralyzed (I like to think worst case scenario when Bj leaves my mind wandering between calls) in a rental car parking lot? Me thinks not. The odds of that have got to be really REALLY bad.