Flame Wave Socks

The pictures are a little frumpy but the socks are cool. I had been carrying this yarn around on various road trips this summer and just did not start in on the knitting. Finally, I switched to a toe up method and that did the trick.

The pattern is Flame Wave from the book, Favorite Socks. 

 

Ski Patrol Party

Fire breathing dragon

Here is a scroll of pictures from our recent family trip to Oregon. We drove down with the camper to attend an annual reunion (the 42nd!) of a group of Dave's college friends. They were all on Ski Patrol together at Mt. Hoodoo in Oregon, back in the day, and gather every year for a weekend barbeque. It started as a end-of-season banquet, evolved to a kegger, brownie bash and now has morphed into a mellow, camp out with grills and lawn chairs. 

It is a great group of friends and it is always fun to catch up. We stopped along the way to see other people and places - my cousin, my sister and her family, and old friends from Juneau. Ferries and freeways, a sunny day at the beach, single A short season baseball in Eugene, swimming in a reservoir, sock knitting on the road - it was a lot of activity for me! Fun! We were glad to have Ray along; he is still our boy, but now such a mature young man that we know our time together with a child is drawing to a close.

Raymond

The King Swing

BFFs

Small Mats

I often make small mats as samplers before or after larger projects. The first one is made from scraps left over from cutting triangles for my shot cotton quilt. The blocks are made by sewing onto muslin foundations printed with a rubber stamp. These can be sewn by hand but I liked the precision of the sewing machine. The binding is another shot cotton but striped!

  
I had a couple of stacks of fabric ready to cut and I used the triangle mat below to see whether I wanted to make a large quilt out of isosceles or equilateral triangles. Actually, I wanted to make one of each but just getting started on the isosceles sample convinced me to switch over to 60 degree angles instead. The piecing was more enjoyable, by far, so the equilateral mat got finished and now I use it under my laptop. It is made with Kate Spain Terrain scraps with a charcoal background.

 I used some vintage (ha! - more like old and ugly) fabrics to make a mat of tumbler blocks before I made a pillow for my mother-in-law. Again, the mat enabled me to see how the blocks fit together while sewing them up and showed me that I would enjoy the process. These mats all just turn out the size they want to be; this one is a nice size for a place mat. But it isn't very attractive and there is only the one, so it has a home in the man cave, on a table under the popcorn bowl and the basket of remote controls.

This last mat was made out of some orphan blocks given to me by a friend. I just had to make them into something.

Camper

 

We bought a used pop-up camper for our pickup truck last month. For several years, we have talked about various options for camping that would provide us a bit more protection from the rain than our tent. We considered a pop-up tent trailer, a small RV like a Roadtrek and a small hard sided trailer like a Scamp. But, on our recent camping trip to NE Oregon, we met a couple who were spending five summer months living out of their pop-up on the back of their truck and we decided that it might be the best option for us. Nothing to tow, not a third vehicle and we already had a pickup.

These campers are built to be light and are pretty expensive to purchase new. Dave looked around on Craigslist and was able to find a 2010 model right here in town! The price was reasonable, too. He had to install some custom brackets and had Ray help him install some air shocks on the truck but it is all fitted out now. It costs us some gas mileage on the road but the ride is really stable. The queen sized bed is comfy and, though there isn't a ton of storage, it seems to have enough. It is easy to put the top up and take it down so I think we will be pretty happy with our new rig! 

 

Our first trip was an overnighter, camping in a field near Leavenworth, WA, at the Overland Expo Rally. Dave has met some of these 4WD, off road types on some of his motorcycle trips and they have a nice magazine, The Overland Journal. We were just there for the beginning of the weekend - likely more folks arrived and lined up to camp in the meadow, side by side. It was a good shakedown trip - Dave and Ray each won a new shirt from rally sponsors.  

 

Triangle Quilt Top

The triangle quilt top is up off the floor and all sewn together. It has been folded up and is waiting for the next step, which may be awhile. The weather has been warm, the house is not air conditioned, there have been camping trips and work and school is starting soon, so there are lots of reasons not to dive into a large, hand quilting project. It can sit on the shelf for a bit.

Prince Charming Quilt

 

Hello, Frog Prince! Glad you are finished!

I was prepared to write up the story of this quilt now that it is complete but I found a pretty complete status report already on the blog. 

63" x 77"

I decided to have this quilted professionally by a longarm quilter and am really happy with how it turned out. She used an allover pattern on the main patchwork section with some grey variegated thread. The thin coral border got matching thread and some swirls - then it was back to the grey in the piano key border with some wavy lines.

Hey, I'll just post all the pictures. No extra charge...

 

Moda Dottie extra wide backing - Steel