Melody's Scarf Goes to Seattle

This lucky pig at Seattle's Pike Place Market got to pose with my "Eternity Scarf" that I special-ordered recently from Melody Johnson, of art quilt fame. Here's a link to her blog, where you can drool over some of her other knitted items: http://fibermania.blogspot.com/  I picked my favorite shade of green and she whipped it out in no time. We art quilters love anything having to do with color and fiber, which includes yarn.

 
The cool thing about this scarf is that it can be worn lots of different ways. In the picture above, I doubled it around my neck for warmth while having my iced mocha at Starbucks and showing off the fun little bags made by another quilter friend, Nancy.

It can be looped around the neck AND the head, a feature that came in handy on the ferry to Seattle when the wind picked up. It can also be worn like a necklace in one long, dramatic loop. (I didn't get a picture, but that was the option of choice for indoors in Seattle.)

And here it is with another lucky pig inside Pikes Place Market.

Have a colorful day!

The Nuts' Excellent Vashon Island Adventure

The Twisted Nut Stitchers (they hate that name, but I like it) set off on another excellent adventure last week, this time taking the ferry from Tacoma to Vashon Island. That's the island in the distance and that's us gracing the front of the ferry. Instead of stitching, we were going to shop at Island Quilter and exchange our homemade Christmas ornaments with each other.

Before shopping we needed sustenance, so we stopped at a cute little shop for lattes in these very shapely insulated mugs. I also had a Magic Bar (about 1,000 calories of chocolate, nuts and sugar).

Then we went next door to the Vashon Bookshop, where we immediately spotted this cozy crazy quilt folded over a comfy couch. Here's a closer look:



The Nuts are especially attuned to crazy quilting because we're crazy ... and also because this past year we joined a crazy quilt club that met monthly at the Shibori Dragon quilt, yarn, bead and embroidery (what more do you need except chocolate?) store in Lakewood, WA. We learned how to properly piece together fabric scraps into pleasing blocks and how to embellish our blocks with embroidery. So we could appreciate the stitching on this beauty.

Lo and behold, when we exchanged our ornaments over lunch they were all made with crazy quilting and/or embroidery:

... except for mine, which I made from a pattern someone gave me way back in the '90s at my quilt guild in El Paso, TX. Mine use squares and rectangles that are folded and stacked on top of each other to form a star, then the points are tacked together with a little thread:

Vashon Island has a laid back, artsy, old hippie vibe that makes you feel like curling up in a soft chair in one of the stores or cafes with a cup of jo and a good book while listening to the rain outside.

It was an excellent day!

Quilt, cookies, and a puppy

I made this little quilted wall hanging today to donate to our

Gig Harbor NewNeighbors holiday bazaar sale.

If anyone buys it, all proceeds will go to the

NN Helping Hands, which in turn benefits the needy.

I could also see it as a

holiday table topper,

with a little plate of cookies in the center

and the four hands reaching for them.

And speaking of cookies, take a look at these

vegan beauties

that Julia made today!

Now that you're feeling all warm and fuzzy,

here's today's parting shot:

Beth's cute little dog, Tess,

who patiently sat on her lap yesterday

all through our book club meeting.

Have a colorful day!

Our Great Northwest Highs!

My walking buddies gave an impromptu and very enthusiastic performance of my song last week during our hike on the Cushman Trail.

My latest newspaper column is a take-off on the song "My Favorite Things," the one that starts: "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens ..." For the blog, I present my lyrics along with some of the thousands of photos that I've taken since I moved to the Northwest in 2008. Enjoy!

"Our Great Northwest Highs"

By Sherrie Spanger
Text and photos
Copyright 2010

Rainbows on cedars and moon light on harbors

Pale pink and red roses climbing on arbors

Lavender clouds streaked in tangerine skies

These are a few of our great Northwest highs.

 

Summer sunset in Gig Harbor.



Ferries and fog horns and funky beach houses
Eagles and otters and seagulls surround us

Snow-capped Olympics with clouds sliding by

These are a few of our great Northwest highs.

Julia relaxes on the ferry to Seattle.




"Snow-capped Olympics with clouds sliding by ..."



Rhodies and garden slugs, big fat hydrangeas

Moss-shingled roof tops, wet ferns and bright zinnias

Kayaks and sailboats and birds flying by

These are some more of our great Northwest highs.



"Big fat hydrangeas" from Nancy's garden.




Keith kayaks here two years ago on the winter solstice. It was only late afternoon, but look at how dark it was.



(Refrain 1)

In the dark days

When the rain falls

When the sky's not blue

I slosh into Starbucks, pull out my gold card

And order my favorite brew!



Bridge between Gig Harbor and Tacoma.




This was actually somewhere in Wyoming as I was moving out here from the Midwest. I stopped at every Starbucks that I could see from the highway.



The original Starbucks in Pike's Place in Seattle -- always a crowd.



Our wonderful neighbors named Dick and Rosemary

New friends and warm hugs and fresh Rainier cherries

Apples and blueberries piled into pies

These are a few of our Gig Harbor highs.

"Our wonderful neighbors named Dick ...





... and Rosemary"

Fresh local fruit fills pies all summer and fall.

Street fairs and Halloween down in the harbor

Beatniks at Skansie, but Elvis was wilder

Strolling on Cushman as summer air sighs

These are some more of our Gig Harbor highs.

Beautiful Gig Harbor.



Dungeness crab cakes, grilled salmon, clam chowder
Ice cream at Kelly's as evenings turn milder

Mussels and geoducks down on the beach

These are some delicious Gig Harbor treats.

Salmon rules in the Northwest.

(Refrain 2)

In the dark months

Wrapped in gray skies

When it spits all day

I simply remember our Gig Harbor highs

And then I will be OK!

Walking in the rain at Chambers Bay.

Sea stars, anemones, barnacles, crabs

Kopachuck Beach in the summer is fabs

Rich intertidal life, herons, blue skies

These are a few of our great Northwest highs.

Sea star on a Gig Harbor beach.



"Kopachuck Beach in the summer is fabs ..."





More fun on Kopachuck Beach during a low-tide walk with Harbor WildWatch.

 

Mastering roundabouts -- not always easy

Training for Turkey Trot, getting quite wheezy

Herons hunched over, high-pitched eagle cries

These are a few of our Gig Harbor highs.

I found this scene right below our house.

I don't care for rain but I do like the rainbows

Don't like the gray but I guess that's how it goes

Living out here is a give and a take

When it is wet I get Cutter's Point cake!



"I don't care for rain but I do like the rainbows ..." This one is on Wollochet Bay.



In the dark days

When the rain falls

When the sky's not blue

I slosh into Starbucks, pull out my gold card

And order my favorite brew!

Make that a double -- somewhere in Oregon.

Mt. Rainier viewed from Gig Harbor -- always spectacular.

Have a colorful Northwest day!

Unconventional quilt binding

Detail of one of my unconventionially finished art quilts.

My old article for Quilting Arts Magazine about non-traditional quilt binding techniques just popped up in today's free e-book offer from Quilting Arts. Mine is listed as Project 2, and if you're interested, you can read about it, and 11 other articles on finishing quilts, here:

http://quiltingarts.com/Quilt-Binding-Finishing-Methods/?utm_source=WIR&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=QR101211e

Have a colorful day

The holiday rabbit

Even Bunners is getting into

the spirit of holiday colors.

Here he is snuggled in a sweater

as soft and white as snow,

accented with a lovely berry red scarf.

And here he is dressed all in red.

Bunners loves your comments,

so keep 'em coming!

Have a colorful day!



'Tis the season to be gaudy!

It's beginning to look a lot

like Christmas:

Gaudiness is in the air

... and in my house.

Every year I try to decorate tastefully for the holidays, and every year I end up in a cloud of glitter, fuschia and lime green balls, and a general mess. I always have great visions of creating either a (1) cozy, homespun, green and red Christmas with homemade quilts and ornaments, (2) an elegant shimmery gold and white masterpiece, (3) a contemporary light and bright chartreuse, fuschia and turquoise piece ... and on and on. The problem is, I always end up with a tacky hodge-podge of stuff I got the year before at 90 percent off after the holidays. 

So this is what I faced this morning after pulling out just a fraction of my accumulated holiday "decorations." The Starbucks mug was a recent Goodwill find at 59 cents, and I refilled it all morning to keep me going on the "decorating."

This is normally where I paint my fabric (on a plastic-covered pool table), but this week it's been Santa's workshop.

I'm not showing you this stuff because I'm proud. I'm showing you because it's colorful, and that's what the blog is about. If you're looking for tasteful decorating ideas, you're at the wrong place.

First I tackled the easiest area: the stairway landing window that my daughter has to look at every time she goes down to her room. She hates clutter and tackiness, so I kept it simple. Two little trees, no lights or ornaments, and the antlers and rocks that are there all year anyway. I was itching to stick some fake berries and glittered pinecones all over the ledge, but I didn't, because I'm a good mom.

But the kitchen is MINE, so that's where the glittery limey and turquoisey snowman went. (And this one wasn't cheap.)

I filled a glass candle-holder with these "jewelled" fake fruit beauties. I love looking at the sparkle.

The livingroom turned into an unfortunate explosion of fake red and gold items ...

... except for this PEACE candleholder, which would fit into the cozy theme.



Instead of a big tree, I have about nine smaller trees clustered throughout the house. One of these years we'll go back to a big tree so I can hang up ALL my ornaments. (Noooo, my daughter is thinking if she reads this!!!)

Out front, I pulled out the last of the frost-bitten summer plants from the big porch pots and restrained myself from turning them into another explosion. Instead, I just tucked in some REAL moss, REAL evergreen branches and REAL pincecones and shells, all from our yard.

Then I found the pillow covers I made last year from this tasteful red and green fabric and put them on the porch loveseat. But the sleigh was a 90-percent-off bargain from JoAnne's last year.

The only Christmas quilt is this top (above) that I sewed about 15 years ago in the Jewel Box pattern. I still haven't gotten around to quilting and binding it.

Finally, here are the sentimental and homemade stockings that I love. The one on the left was knitted for me by my aunt when I was a little girl; the middle one was knitted by my mother for my daughter for her first Christmas; and the one on the right was quilted for me by my sister Terry. They're all very special and sentimental, and that's what I really like about this time of year. (And the glitter.)

Have a colorfully gaudy day!