The Beach

After the pool on Friday we drove down to Seward so Audrey could spend a long weekend with her Grandma. The sun was shining and the drive was gorgeous (of course I forgot my camera and my sunglasses at home). After watching all that beautiful scenery I was dying to get outside for a while, so once I got back to town I stopped by my house to pick up my camera and galoshes and headed for Kincaid park.

The trail was still frozen, but I headed down to the beach anyway. Saw a little munching moose about 100 ft. off the trail.

She was was not concerned with anything but what she was eating and didn't have any friends with her so I continued towards the beach.
The view was gorgeous,

the beach was deserted,

and the melting ice chunks on the beach made it sound like I was inside a can of soda.

Not a bad way to spend an evening, in my opinion =)

H2Oasis

Audrey and I met up with our friends Laura, Rachel and Brian at H2Oasis (the indoor water park) this morning for a little fun in the pool. Much to my surprise Audrey loved the kids water slide- I think she would have stayed there all day if she had the option.

Another One Bites The Dust

Thanks to my friend Laura and her extra sewing machine I was able to finish my dad's quilt! Laura and I have been having all day sewathons for the past few Mondays and yesterday I finished quilting the outer border and put the binding on my dad's quilt. One UFO down and about a million to go- but you gotta start somewhere right?

The Camcorder That Ate Easter

I was going to upload a cute video of Audrey searching for Easter eggs, however it has somehow disappeared from the camcorder- along with the video of her driving a power wheels VW Bug. I really hate my camcorder right now. I am still holding on to the hope that the videos will magically reappear somehow. Cross your fingers for me.

My Dad's Quilt

This is a quilt I started for my dad's 50th birthday (he will be 52 this June). It is a very simple top from a pattern by Dina Pappas using her fuse fold & stitch method. The main blocks are screen printed silhouettes of loons on a lake with smaller blocks used as cornerstones between the sashing and the rest is all batiks. The top went together in a couple of hours- the main hold up has been the quilting. I've quilted wall hangings before but the only bed size quilts that I've done were quilt-as-you-go like in Crazy Shortcut Quilts. Sooooo.....I've been putting it off...but I finally bit the bullet last week and I'm fairly happy with the results. I stitched in the thin black outline in the large silhouette blocks and 1/4 inch inside the sashing rectangles. In the inner border I did sort of off-kilter squares that turned out really well (as long as you don't inspect my stitches per inch =P ). The outer border has been more troublesome. My plan was to stitch up the center vein of each leaf printed on the outer border but I'm not sure I like how that is turning out. Meanwhile my sewing machine started skipping stitches (I messed up the timing on my machine the other day while doing some decorative stitches-my needle fell out mid stitch) so I'll have some time to contemplate what to do about my border while my machine is in the shop.

The Other Quilt on my Bed

This sampler was a graduation gift from my co-workers at a quilt shop I used to work at. The main fabric that everyone used in their blocks has 2000 printed all over it (the year I graduated high school) and some of the blocks used gold & green- my school colors. The quilting was done by my mom- feathers in the outer border, hearts in the inner border and writing (a dedication) in the sashing between the blocks.

My Couch Quilt

This is a quilt I made for myself a couple of years ago. I picked out the colors so it would go with my couch but I sleep with it on my bed every night (along with one other quilt, two comforters and four other blankets- I'm very cold at night...OK...I'm cold all the time). It is a quilt-as-you-go just like the ones in my book but I did the cutting a little differently. Instead of doing one cut at a time I made all of my cuts at once- as you can see some of the cuts don't go all the way across the block.

Here is a cutting diagram for the first six cuts- there are actually 10 cuts per block, but I ran out of room in paint when I was creating this diagram- but you get the idea anyway. It's much more of a pain in the butt in my opinion than the way we do it in the book, but it looks closer to a crazy quilt to me.

Fun With Bath Time

Audrey loves to rub things in her hair. This is somewhat aggravating at dinner time or when I'm trying to put lotion on her, but quite convenient at bath time =)

Animal Dreams

I finished reading the book "Animal Dreams" by Barbara Kingsolver earlier this week. This is the fourth book of hers that I've read ("The Poisonwood Bible", "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and "The Bean Trees" are the others) and I've decided I'm just going to have to buy every book she's written. I love how she incorporates environmental and and social issues into her fiction, and her nonfiction that I've read has completely changed how I think about and buy food. In "Animal Dreams" she talks about water rights and the effects of mining on nearby water supplies. I found this especially interesting because in high school I took a field trip with the geology club to a coal mine in Alaska and it never even occurred to me to think about the impacts that this mine has on water supplies or the surrounding wild life. My only thought was "Wow, look at all this cool machinery they get to use". Ms. Kingsolver's books definitely open my eyes to issues that I was oblivious to before, and if you have a chance you should definitely read one of her books.

Hydrangeas

This is one of my favorite quilts that I've made- it's from a pattern by Bella Nonna using these little fabric flower petals that they sell. You just attach them to your quilt using steam-a-seam or fabric glue. It's so simple and the quilts turn out so beautiful. In the close up photo you can see the amazing job my mom did free motion quilting it for me.

Charity Quilt Auction

Today Audrey and I met my dad and my friends Laura & Brad for breakfast at Snow City cafe downtown (Ryan and I agree- they have the best hash browns in Anchorage). After that we headed to the charity quilt auction for Catholic Social Services to see a quilt that my mom donated and all the other lovely creations that people donated. We also saw a beautiful quilt by my friend Ms. Kathy Harte that Laura was especially taken with. Of course while we were downtown we had to stop by my favorite place: Virtu













Above left: Quilt by Kathy Harte , Above right: Quilt by my mom, Left: My dad, Audrey and Laura- all bundled up for the walk downtown