Last Evening in Seattle

 

We went & saw “Secretariat” today at the theater. It was a nice movie. Later We met the girls for dinner at Dragonfish, which is just across the street from the Camlin. Warren ordered a beer. It was HUGH!

 

Michelle held it up to give some perspective to the size of this mug.

We’ve had a fun weekend, now it’s time to go home to my cat & reality. Back to quilting & work. & yes, dear sister, I see you & mom in my face too!

2 More Party Pics

 

This is from Michelle’s camera. Us 3 girls, Grammy (me), Darian, & Michelle.

Below is the final arrangement of Michelle’s mushrooms.

Tea Party for Darian’s 16th

 

This morning Michelle & I went over to Volterra in Ballard, we set up for Darian’s Mad Hatter Tea party. Above is Michelle the owner, watching my Michelle  set up the mushrooms she had made for decoration. It was a beautiful space & the food & service was great.

Darian, of course came dressed as Alice.

 

Michelle was the Mad Hatter. Warren the White Rabbit.

 

Well, I was the red Queen, & the photographer. This is the only shot I took of myself. I’ll probably be able to get one from Michelle tomorrow.

The girls were all cute. They ate, & laughed & sang & danced.

Here are Michelle & Darian & Jon.

Darian got a lot of really nice gifts, & some gift certificates. A Play Station & art supplies. Here she is with the Slytherin tie that we gave her. Yes she wanted a Slytherin tie.

Seattle Weekend

 

We got to Seattle yesterday. We’re staying at the Camlin as we usually do when in the city. It’s part of the Worldmark properties of which we are owners. We’re here for our granddaughter, Darian’s 16th birthday party which happens this weekend.

We walked up the street to Mexico Cantina at the Pacific Center, where we met the kids for dinner. Michelle had just gotten out of work, & Jon just got home from Finland, the last stop his latest Posies tour.

I had a really nice salad. Food has always been good at this place.

This afternoon Jon picked us up & took us over to the Gibson Guitar place, where Michelle’s art show is hanging.

These 2 were my favorites in the show.

Probably because I love these colors so much. Like the trees in the city right now, all reds & yellows & oranges.

We met Darian the pirate after school, & went to the Harry Potter exhibit. Of course they wouldn’t let us take photos inside, but it was fun & interesting for a Harry Potter freak like me to get to see all of these props & costumes from the movies that I love so much. Some of the textiles were really beautiful & I wish I could’ve taken close-up pictures.

Before we left Anchorage, the weather forecast for Seattle was rain every day through the weekend.  They were wrong.

Afterward we went back to the kids place & went to their local pizza place  for a nice dinner.  The salad & pizza were great. Now we’re ready to crash into our food comas. No hot tub tonight, we might drown!

Ready to Leave

 

I made a new set of earrings & a pin to take with me to wear this weekend, as I can’t find the other black set that I made. I tend to take my earrings out wherever I set down for an evening, & they get put in my pocket, or purse or cup, or…well you get the idea. Who knows where I left the last set. They are probably in some of my summer clothes under the bed. It was faster just making something different.

 

Broccoli tried to pack himself today, when I got the suitcase out. He was trying to be nonchalant about it.

 

This last  piece, I thought might make up for anyone who didn’t like the Emo Vampire bit. It’s Bryson Andres, a local kid here in Anchorage, who is amazing with his electric violin. He played at our last hospital Christmas party, & here he is playing one of my favorite songs. …enjoy!  & I’ll write next from Seattle!

Odds & Ends

 

Broccoli  seems to be living the life…he sleeps as every cat does, about 20 hours or so per day. He really is liking his cat bed these days.  I think he heard Warren say we should get rid of it, because he hadn’t been using it.

Below is a future project. The top belongs to my friend Kathy Jolman. She wants me to quilt it. Here is my first attempt at sketching what I might do with it. Note that it is a rough sketch. I’m thinking snowflakes for those corner blocks. I’ll design 4 different ones by cutting them out of paper then stitching the design on the paper & tearing it away. Do you like it Kathy?

  

Thursday we’re heading down to Seattle for My DGD Darian’s 16th birthday party. It’s an Alice In Wonderland Tea Party. I have been shopping for our costumes, & making things for them. My DH will be the White Rabbit. We’ve ordered a top hat with bunny ears, & bunny slippers to be sent to Michelle’s. Today I went to the local Value Village & bought a vest for him, & made him a bow tie.  I’m going as the Queen of Hearts. I had talked to my hair dresser about spraying my hair red with the colored hair spray like they use at the Fair. She recommended I buy a cheap wig instead. She said I may be red until Christmas if I use the spray. VV had wigs for less than $5.00. I also both red fishnet stockings (I used to wear fishnet stockings all the time in High school!). I got red eyelashes too. I’ll post pictures when we get to the party!

This last picture is something to do with my Fiberactions piece for next month. I’ve been having fun with it, & am very close to being finished. No there isn’t any air brush thingy! Stay tuned for the reveal in November!

Last, I wanted to add this parody. Now please understand that I love the Twilight series, books & movies too, but I thought this was pretty funny. Enjoy.

Big Bibs

This is Lin Wince, former fashion model for John Robert Powell. She graciously modeled one of the large “Shirt protectors” that we (ALCQ – quilt guild) were making to give to a local nursing home.  This was at out Thursday meeting.

Today I finished off 13 more, just doing the top-stitching & adding Velcro closures.

Yes the Frog quilt on the previous post was a baby quilt for the client’s grandson.

Frog Quilt Finished

 

I finished the frogs today. Simple bubble stipple background & when I finished all the background, I took it off the longarm, & outlined each frog on my Bernina using Monofilament.  It’s not something I use very often, but I thought it was appropriate for this scenario. Jawan had wanted me to secure the frogs & her hand stitches with the machine, but I didn’t want to detract from her hand work, so I made it invisible!

Gifts in the Mail

The first picture is something I’ve been wanting to play with for ages, & I finally ordered it for the next Fiberactions Blog Challenge. The word this time is “Transformation”. That’s all I’m going to say about it for now.

This next package came from Judy Grant. She has such a pretty blog, & I was lucky enough to win one of her prizes from her Blog-anniversary!  Some day Judy & I are going to get together to play! She lives just a few miles from my brother’s home in Michigan, & we have at least one friend in common from nursing that we know of.  There are likely more.

The 3rd package was a book I ordered so long ago that I had forgotten about it! I had ordered it directly from Gloria Hansen herself, & she had emailed me right away to let me know she was out of town & would send it out when she returned in a few weeks, which was just fine with me. I want to really read & study this book, this winter, after I finish my next certification class in Advanced Cardiac Life Support. This will be my winter treat!
I have made it past the illness already. I had called in sick for today, when I was feeling so bad yesterday, & I am glad I did. Last night, around 1230 a.m., my DH flushed the toilet, & we lost all water pressure. We’ve been having issues with the water ever since the guys were doing the rock-work on the house, & they left the hose running for 2 days, until our well virtually ran dry. It is a slow recovery well, & usually isn’t a problem for our general needs, but leaving the water run the way they did, got dirt & air  into the water lines. Last night seemed to be the climax. All water stopped upstairs. After running around, disconnecting the faucets, flushing the lines & reconnecting, we got a clump of dirt out, & the water pressure came back, better than it’s been in months. Problem solved by 130 a.m.! I was  glad I didn’t have to get up for work this morning.
My appetite was back by 1 this afternoon. Darn it!

Sunday with Friends, Monday in bed

 

Happy Birthday Sweet 16!!! My Dear GD Darian! We’ll see you soon!

 

Yesterday we went to a beer tasting dinner.  We picked up our friends, & I became the designated driver for the return home, as I don’t care for beer any way. On the way to picking up Ellis, after picking up James, we had a small delay in traffic due to Mama moose herding her 2 youngsters across the road.

We got to the restaurant, & they started serving the beer & food pairings. It was 6 beers & 5 courses. I stuck with soda water for myself. The food tasted great, but by the 3rd course I couldn’t eat any more. I was feeling too full. I drove everyone home, & we got home around 1030. I started getting sick around 11, & spent over half of the night in the bathroom. Warren slept while I…. well you get the picture. I’m still not feeling well, but think I will probably live. I’m pretty sure I was poisoned, but can’t figure out way the DH didn’t get sick too. Oh well.

Next up in the studio is a small quilt which I hope to get done in a few days so then I can work on the next BIG one, belonging to Cyndi. I’m looking forward to that one. This one I hope will be fun & fast, but I’m a little worried about the frogs. They are fused on then hand stitched, & I don’t want to mess them up.

They are a little stiff, & I don’t want to make any mistakes, as ripping will not be an option. I’m going to doing some drawing on the photo first, & proceed with caution. Any tips from you out there?