A Couple of Finishes!

Last summer this little lady started learning how to embroider with the help of Hoop-a-Loops, and when we were visiting last fall, she finished her second piece of stitching which I brought home to make into a pillow. And finish it  I did finally this past week with the help of some perfect fabric that I found at one of the quilt show boutiques and a great button and some dark green piping courtesy of JoAnn's. 

Said pillow is winging its way to the Midwest.  I hope she likes it.

The fabric! (The bow below is the correct color.)

Can you see the turtle button?  This project was more difficult than the first one, and I think she did a great job, don't you?

Meanwhile, I finished another hat which should fit the intended recipient much better than the last one!  Hope you all had a great holiday weekend.  The countdown to Christmas begins tomorrow, so I need to get back to work. Ciao!

Busy! Busy! Busy!

This time of year is always a bit crazy, isn't it?  No matter how early I get started, it seems like the calendar speeds up faster.  We've been preparing for a special choir presentation, doing some unplanned for baby sitting, volunteering, lots of stuff,  including holiday knitting....... And so it goes. Each day is gone in a blink of the eye. On Halloween, we always celebrate our first meeting in 1964. The flowers Dick brought me are still nice almost a month later! (Lots of interesting plant painting in this bouquet, eh?)

This hat turned out way too big for the person it was for, so I'm making another smaller one.

When the youngest grandson saw the rainbow socks, he asked for a red pair.  Hope these fit!

I was in the midst of holiday projects, when DD#1 requested hats and socks for a teacher's baby.  This little infant is facing lots of challenges at birth, so these projects come with lots of good thoughts and best wishes.

A couple Fridays ago, Becca and I went to the annual Block Party Quilters show.  Most of my photos didn't turn out because I was using a different camera, but luckily these two did:

The Camp River Ranch blocks on this t-shirt quilt brought back lots of fun memories of Girl Scout campouts with the daughters.  They both enjoyed summer camp there, too.

This was my very favorite quilt of the whole show.  It's been years since I put on a pair of skates, but I sure had fun when I did!

Yesterday when we were coming home from volunteering at the hospital, the moon was just rising. Close to the horizon, it looked huge.  This photo doesn't beging to capture its beauty.

Tonight the moon will be full, so I hope you can take time out from the season's busyness to enjoy it, too.  And most of all, have a very Happy Thanksgiving! 

A Weekend at the Beach~

Since our choir didn't sing on Sunday, we went to the Tolovana Inn in Cannon Beach, OR, for the weekend.   The weather for our drive down was pretty good, and we had a  tasty lunch at our favorite restaurant, Cousins .  We also love to stop at the viewpoint above the Columbia River where you can see for miles.  Once in a while you can even see Mount Hood, but not that day.

We should have gone walking on the beach the minute we arrived, but by the time we were unpacked, it was already starting to get dark.  That white spot in the grass is one of three wild bunnies that roam this part of the property.  We also saw a black one and a white one  from our window before we walked across the parking lot to dinner at Mo's, a great spot for chowder.

On Saturday morning we woke up to rain and lots of wind.  After breakfast, we decided to go into town and get some Haystack bread.  Of course, we also had to stop at Coastal Yarn and Center Diamond, the quilt shop.  Then we decided to go to Ecola State Park and saw a couple more wil bunnies en route.

The park is on a bluff above the ocean, and wow! It was incredibly windy. We could hardly open the car door.  In the past we've seen elk there, but those animals have more sense than to come out in that kind of wind.  So we went back to our condo and spent the afternoon reading. By then the rain was come down sideways, and these sea gulls kept the bunnies away.

I also did a lot of knitting and finished a couple of projects, a pair of socks and a holiday hat.

Of course, the rain quit on Sunday, since that was when we had to leave.  After we packed up the car, we took a short walk on the beach to see Haystack Rock where the Puffins nest in the summer!  (The hill in the fog is Ecola Park.)

Apparently, Bunny was feeling better about the weather, too, and made an appearance to bid us farewell.

S/he even let me get pretty close but was much more focused on munching the tasty grass than worrying about me.

Now we're back home, and surprise, surprise, it's still raining!  Enjoy the week even so!