A Day for Everything

It was a beautiful day to take a drive to Silverton, Oregon yesterday for the Stitches in Bloom Quilt Show. I'll have some pictures of the show for you in separate post(s)...yes, multiple posts, just as you suspected. For now, I'll just tell you about yesterday.

It was a rare sunny day in January, and it was warm enough to be out without a coat. My drive to Silverton takes me through Mt. Angel, Oregon, which is the home of the Benedictine Sisters and the Queen of Angels Monastery. As one drives through town, the steeple of St. Mary's Parish Church towers above everything else. While I've driven through Mt. Angel many times, yesterday I decided to drive up to the church to see it.

I wanted to go inside because it looks as if it has some amazing stained glass. As I walked around the structure, checking doors, I noticed the cornerstone indicating the church was built in 1910, however, the parish was founded in 1881.

Although I walked around the whole church, I could not find an unlocked door. Nevertheless, you can read more about the church and see a few more images of the inside right here.

When one reaches Mt. Angel, it's only about ten more minutes to arrive in Silverton and the Oregon Garden where the quilt show is held. When I walked in from the parking lot, I noticed this sticker in the back window of someone's car.

The quilt show is held in the Grand Hall of the Oregon Garden. It's a small venue, and it was extremely crowded yesterday. Also, pay attention to that row of windows across the top of the building. When the sun is shining, the bright sunlight shines on the quilts inside and makes it impossible to get good pictures of any of the quilts on that side of the building.

I was in and out of the show pretty quickly. Huge crowds give me the heebie jeebies. And that was just fine because it was such a beautiful day, I decided to stroll around the garden for a while.

At this time of year, there are no flowers and virtually no leaves on any of the trees, but it was still pretty. I especially enjoyed the reflections of the blue sky in some of the water features.

Here's a very pregnant cedar tree.

I believe this is pyracantha.

And, this being Oregon, moss is well represented on anything that doesn't move.

More blue sky reflections in this pretty bird bath.

After my walk, I drove directly home. The paragliders were out in force at the top of our hill. 

It's always fun to see them.

When I got home, I filled the birdfeeders. My little buddy was happy for some dry weather, but more importantly, he was happy to have someone come outside with him.

I wanted to tell you about these weeds that grow in abundance in our yard this time of year. In the spring, they flower and produce the most annoying "pop" pods that throw seeds everywhere when you pull them up. For now, just the greenery is showing. I read about these on a blog recently. They're known as Hairy Bittercress, and they are among the first edible greens to make an appearance. The blog I was reading even gave me a recipe for some deviled eggs in which to use these. I might give them a try, just for grins. Besides, it would be gratifying to pull these suckers up and eat them.

After I'd fed the poor starving birds, I went inside to survey my haul from the quilt show vendors. I was on the hunt for some fabrics to use in a Maggie's kitty pawtrait. These are the ones I picked up. The one in the lower right is actually a gun metal gray color, so I'm not sure why it's showing up so blue. I couldn't fix it in my photo editing software without turning everything else orange.

The colors are nice on the right side, but I really bought them for how they looked on the wrong side. I imagine I must have looked funny at the quilt show, opening everything up so that I could see the wrong side of the fabric.

With the fabrics already in my stash, I think I have the palette of Miss Maggie now. She politely stood next to the sliding glass door so I could see her many colors.

But then that scalawag of a cat approached the window. This is how they check one another out most of the time...with a protective shield between them.

You can see Smitty loses interest pretty quickly, while Maggie holds a grudge.

Aside from those fabrics, I picked up this pattern from Amy Bradley Designs. I've seen this online, but it was cheaper at the quilt show yesterday. You can probably guess why it appealed to me.

There are lots of possibilities with this pattern, and you can kind of mix and match the applique motifs to fit your needs and desires.

I have at least one plan for something I want to make, but it'll have to be a secret surprise for someone for the time being. I won't get started on it for several months anyway.

The only other thing I did yesterday was to finish off the third block for "It's Raining Cats and Dogs". The lighting in my sewing room is really messing up the colors in my pictures. I need to remember to make an adjustment on my camera to get rid of the orange tinge in everything.

When I had the fusing done, I was able to finish the top-stitching too. Also, I added hot fix nailheads for the doorknob and the dog's eye.

These are the three blocks I have so far for this quilt, and that completes the top row.

  

So today, I'm ready to move along to a project that's fresh off the backburner...the Mulligan Stew quilt. You can read my blog post about the inspiration for this quilt right here. There are 60 blocks altogether. Prior to putting it on the backburner, I'd completed the first 15 blocks.

My goal is to do five blocks in each sitting, and so that's where I'll start today, with blocks 16-20. I last worked on this quilt in March of 2014, and so it'll be good to get it back in the lineup and make more progress on it.

That's all I have for you right now. When I close this out, I'll post the first images I have from the quilt show.