Feet & Forks hit Alki Beach Trail

The Feet & Forks (my walking and eating group) took the ferry to West Seattle today and walked a couple of hours along the Alki Beach Trail in glorious weather.

The paved trail runs between the beach and a bustling road lined with restaurants and housing. Our favorite house was what we called "the house of flowers," above. It has dozens of hanging baskets and flower pots. I wonder how long it takes to water them -- or maybe they're on an automatic system.  

Looking out over the water, we saw the Space Needle (above), the Seattle skyline, sailboats, kayaks, paddle boarders, ferries, eagles, sea lions and sun bathers.

My selfie stick came in handy.

Lunch was at Cactus, an excellent Mexican restaurant. I had my usual: chicken enchiladas with green sauce. Yum!

While we waited in the ferry line to come home, we looked into the water and saw thousands of little fish swirling around. It was mesmerizing. Then it was onto the ferry for the ride from West Seattle to Port Orchard and then a drive back to Gig Harbor.

Have a colorful day

California surprises

I've been missing on the blog for a week because I was helping my sisters with the final orchestration of two surprise family birthday parties in Los Angeles, with family coming from Minnesota, Washington, the Bay area and San Diego.

We actually pulled it off, with the two birthday boys being surprised!

Here's my mom with the birthday boys: my brother, Kevin, who is turning 60, and my dad, who is turning 86. They each knew about the other's party, but they didn't suspect that they would also be feted.

Here are the girls -- my mom, myself and two sisters. It's the first time we've all been together in about five years because we're spread all over the country.

And here are the guys. Above are my brothers in law, brother, dad and husband. Below is my nephew, Marc, making superb Detroit-style pizzas for everyone. His friend from L.A. also joined us because he loves Marc's pizza.

Besides the parties, the weekend whirl included Mexican lunch at Lupita's Mexican Grill in Redondo Beach ...

... hiking off some of the food ...

... and California sunshine.

It was a great three days.

 Have a colorful day

Glow

I'm a sucker for glowing colors, so I had to take some photos of my latest quilt glowing in the sun. I painted the fabric with Setacolor paints and added sparkle with foil candy wrappers, metallic mesh and lame.

I'm joining the blocks with a big whip stitch and hand-dyed perle cotton thread from Artfabrik.

I also love the way orange day lilies glow against blue-purple hydrangeas from our yard.

And last but not least, this Celtic band glows and shimmers with energy in a concert I saw last week at our little local Boat Shop (where they make boats). The trio is MAC (click here for bio), and they are fantastic!

Have a colorful day

Snippets

Here are some snippets of what I've been doing with my latest quilt.

Have a colorful weekend

Making a new quilt

I spent the last two days holed up in my studio working on a new quilt. First, I painted some cotton squares.

Then I pulled out the other ingredients from my stash of slivers, foil candy wrappers (which I've been collecting for more than 15 years) and fancy stuff like organza, lame and metallic mesh.

The next part is a secret, because I might want to enter the quilt in one of those shows that prohibit previous publication. But at least I've given you a color fix for the day -- and a reason to eat candy!

Have a colorful day

We Dyed Laughing, Take 2

Linda's apron says "Grandmas Gone Wild." It's true.

Has it really been five years since I blogged about STITCH's first dye party on Anderson Island?!  we-dyed-laughing.html Time sure does fly when you get old(er)!!!

This time, Andrea, our hostess, kicked it up a notch by pouring homegrown blackberry cordials on the deck while the fabric soaked in the dye buckets.

Blackberry cordials are served!

Two wild and crazy grandmas.

Mad scientists at work. That's Andrea in front.

Andrea's island home is accessible only by ferry, so we carpooled over and enjoyed the perfect summer weather -- sunny but breezy and not too hot. Linda and Anne (below) immediately took up residence in the deck chairs while the rest of us milled around the kitchen drinking coffee.

I decided not to dye so that I could just relax, visit, take photos and knosh. While the dyers met to decide on colors, I took my coffee outside to enjoy the Northwest summer day. There were two deer grazing in the grass below, but they were in the shadows and wouldn't show up in a photo.

Delaine and Anne took a little rest while waiting for the dye fest to begin. Ah, island life ...

The group decided on a bouquet of colors and then got to work, masks on when mixing dyes and gloves on to supposedly protect hands. Judy's glove didn't do the job, and she went home with a cerulean blue hand.

White-on-white design pops when dyed.

We wrapped it up about six hours later, full of good food, drink and friendship -- to say nothing of colorful fabric. Then it was back to the ferry, leaving island time behind.

Check out what other fabric artists have done this week by hopping over to Nina Marie's blog at http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2017/07/spoonflower-review-off-wall-friday.html

Cheers!

Sew Day color

Yesterday was Sew Day at my house, and with light pouring in through the windows we gathered for a portrait. Hubby was trying to get away, but I made him stay to take a few pictures of us.

Our hydrangeas bloomed just in time for me to pick a little bouquet. Berry (and cherry) season is in full swing here in the Northwest, so breakfast had to include some berries. We also had overnight blueberry French toast casserole, which I forgot to take a picture of but trust me it looked impressive. It puffed way up into a mountain of calories.

Then we had show and tell. First up was Carolynn with a gorgeous horse quilt that's she's giving to a cowgirl friend. Her swirly quilting perfectly reflected the swirls in the horse.

Then Linda J. brought out some canvas that she had painted, stamped, rubbed with oil sticks and otherwise embellished. She even made a cute little bag with some of it. Now I'm inspired to get out the paints, which have been languishing on the shelves for too many years.

After show and tell, we moved onto the back deck for some hand stitching in the shade of the big umbrella. It gets blazing hot on the deck (which faces south), so we huddled in the shade until the sun moved and chased us back inside.

I finally finished the echo quilting on my wool appliqué flowers (above), and I sewed the binding on yesterday. Below, Linda P. and Nancy work on more wool appliqué.

Then we moved onto the next round of eating: curried chicken salad, Greek pasta salad, watermelon, brownies and lemon squares! It was a good day.

Have a colorful day