When life hands you lemons....

Make lemonade! Or, Lime-ade

Having a ball with Jack

Hey everyone - Jordan here. I thought I'd go ahead and start adding some posts as well. Here are a few photos from a photo session I had with Jack on Sunday. I thought I'd experiment some with the camera and tools on our computer.

In this first shot you see him patiently waiting for the ball and thinking "throw the ball...throw the ball...come on and throw the ball...just throw the freakin' ball...throw the ball..."



Jack's especially good at photos when you have a ball in hand (or in the air, on the ground, within smelling distance...)

Once the ball has been thrown a bit, it lands on the other side of the fence near the creek. Of course, being the good dog owner I am, I make him anxiously wait as I snap a photo (actually a few photos, but I'll just post one of our favorites).



Once I finally finish making him wait and give him the ball, I'd say he qualifies for the happiest dog on Earth. What do you think?

Grand Opening of "The Garden Spout" in Portland Oregon

My great friend Hank Carver is having his grand opening today at The Garden Spout in Portland. The link is on the right of the page here. I encourage all of you faithful readers to check him out today if you can. I believe there may be some great things in his store to checkout. I wish I could be there to encourage him today as he opens his doors to the public and begins a journey into self-employment. If I were there, I would be encouraged to check out anything to start some early spring propogation for my garden. Perhaps some grow lights, and some warming blankets to start my seedlings. I have also heard he has some neat Venus Fly Traps! The Garden Spout is directed towards indoor gardening and hydroponics or soiless gardening. If you haven't the space outdoors to garden, may as well take advantage of every corner inside your home. Good luck Hanxta! I miss you, love you and wish you all the best! Now, everyone, go check out his store! 503.803.7970 for his location in SE Portland.

I'm feeling thorny!

I came home today from driving Jordan to work. His car is in the shop yet again and I have today off work, so it worked out well that he could get to work and still get his car worked on without having to take a day off or work from home. Between the costs of his car right now and two major home repairs that need done (fireplace and barn roof), we're crunched on money. So, I had some extra energy that needed burning off thinking about it all. The weather did not hold out for me. Its cold, and it's rainy...and right now as I post this, I'm soaked and craving a hot shower...but so far, even the heat of our home is stinging my back, so it may be a bit.

The neighbors property has quite a bit of berry bushes on it, and they were creeping over our fence. I figured that the chore needed to be done..and it was free! If we ever plan to replace the fence, which it definitly needs....okay, I won't even think about more home repairs....I just won't....a shower will do me good...a shower will do me good....

What I mean is...if we ever decide to replace our back fence, keeping berry brush clear of the property line will help.

Now I have one heck of a burn pile. Berry brush burns, right? Please gawd, tell me it burns.

I have a question. I have a large amount of yard debris piled up in a corner of the yard left from the previous owners. We've added branches to it, but mostly it's yard clippings...and they've made a mess of things, I see there are companies out there that clear yard debris for a price. Since we've no truck available to us, are they worth the cost? A compost pile to me, should be in some sun to get some heat on it to break it down. Am I wrong?

Jordan, can we get yard debris pickup at our house? That may be some sort of a start.

Okay, another question. We haven't run our mower yet. Does anyone know if the John Deer can handle breaking down small branches and pine cones and such? Is it going to mulch it a bit? Or will it just refuse to do anything with it and spit it all back up all over our yard? I can pick up the big branches all around and add that to our growing burn pile....but the small branches, long as my arm, thin as a pencil stuff....do I gotta?

It seems that we're doing a lot of cleanup for this home, and repair right off the bat. Its good though, and only sometimes frustrating...like after being burglarized...an added expense we were not expecting.

Onto that shower!

Hikeroo

This weekend we decided to try to get to know the area some more, and we needed to stretch our legs again. This time, we tried hiking to Heather Lake. We found it on a google match for hiking in Snohomish Co. and it was ranked as "easy." We're not sure what the hell hike they were talking about because though this was not an impossible hike, it was not easy. I put it up there with hiking to the top of Multnomah Falls. Many switchbacks, steep inclines, hiking through large rocky puddles, and stepping up high lifts. It gave Jordan's knee a bit of a pain by the time we decided to turn around and just come back to the car. We got only a couple miles in when we got to fallen trees across a snowy trail. Folks were hiking out with snowshoes, poles and the like. We were told that beyond the fallen trees was a beautiful Heather Lake another mile and a half in and we'd be in about four feet of snow. I'm not sure if the path was covered or cleared since we did not go on. We had only anticipated an "easy" hike, so we were not prepared for bad weather on steep slopes. We were both wearing the equivalent of tennis shoes and had little protective gear about us. The hike itself was immensely quiet, which was relaxing and largely unpopulated. The fragrant smell of pine was delicious to breath in. Getting our heart rates elevated and playing around with climbing on things was a lot of fun. The website we saw said that the hike was 4 miles round trip, but we really think that they were off somehow. We're going to try again in the later Spring when the snowmelt has occured. We've so far heard that the hike in is worthwhile. Later that day, we found a small interpretive trail for Mill Lake or Pond. Jordan took the second to the last photo. Our only complaint is that we shot during the daylight hours and we could have done better nearer to dusk. The sky was so white, we're wanting to see some color up there. The sky was lacking in color at that time of day, but we had to shoot if we were going to shoot and there ya go! I took the other photos. Enjoy!

My first quilted blanket

Amy Butler from Midwest Designs is one of my favorite designers of sewing patterns so far.
http://www.amybutlerdesign.com/products/patterns_top.php

I have only a few of her patterns, but definitly want to support her making more. I've purchased and created a quilted baby changing pad, and it's corresponding diaper bag, and put it away into the hope chest for the future if there ever is a need. I posted pics awhile back when my Mom and Dad came to visit and Mom and I sewed that set together. I loved making that stuff, it was a lot of fun. I'm not overly joyed about Amy Butler's line of fabrics. I keep finding others that meet my tastes a little better. She's definitly into some retro fabric styles which draw my attention to being interested in her patterns in the first place, but I just haven't found any that make me think " I must HAVE that!" The most local fabric store carries about four of her fabrics but they don't really match any decor we have, or clothes I wear. I think it will be a while until I can catch onto her fabric tastes.

I have been wanting to sew her "On the Go, Comfort Throw" set, and last weekend I finally picked up some fabrics to put a set together. The pattern again, took some tweaking ( just like her diaper bag did). It said in order to create the borders, that I cut them out first in rectangular strips. Then, cut the miter edges. After that, attach all the sides together. I was then to attach the border ( a fabric donut by now) to the middle block of fabric. When I did this, my corners got all bunched up. I've attached borders before...and even mitered the edges, but not in the order A.B.'s design said to do it. So, I took it apart, and attached each border panel to the middle panel, THEN attached all my corners, sewing out the mitered edges. Next time I won't even cut the mitered edges...I'll just use the strips and cut the miters after I sew them out....Anyway, once I got the top done, it was time to mark my quilt lines. Jordan helped me use our yard stick and make the criss-cross pattern in the middle and the lines that go all the way around the quilt on the outer border. I tried to do it myself, but fabric shifts and two people weighing down a yardstick worked out much better. Thanks Jordan! Once we got it marked, I attached the backing and batting and set up to quilt my blanket. It worked out beautifully! The lines were just right and I'm just so pleased. It took one day to make the top, and two leisurely nights marking out the lines and one day to finish the blanket and cut out the parts for it's carrying case. I put together the carrying case in about two hours the next morning, and I love it. Its lined in silky rayon so the blanket just slips right in, and it's got three pockets that I got to use designer stitches on. Now I'm ready for a picnic! Thanks to my adopted "Aunt" Pat, we have the cutest little picnic basket in cheery periwinkle. Thanks again!



I took a quilt class in the past, but it was only a class on how to create a quilt top and how to finish the edges, not on how to actually do the quilting. I did love learning the quilting technique. They recommended in class that we send off our quilts to be quilted by a professional. Now that I've done this method, I can't see why I'd do that unless the quilt really warranted a designer touch like waves or something really cool and wacky like I 've seen. I do not have the hands yet for whimsical quilting, but for lines and stitching in the ditch, I think I have a lot more confidence now. Sending off a quilt to a pro would cost around 80.00 on up depending on the size of the quilt top. After spending so much money on fabric already...I'm happy making my mistakes at home and saving a few bucks to use on more fabric. I may even grab that old quilt top and finally finish it up.

Next on the sewing list is to finish up the baby set. There is another fabric that I want to use to make another changing pad that Mom and I found, and I need to make their corresponding carrying cases. In the comfort throw set, there is also an accessories bag, eye pillow and pillow case to do, so I'd like to get these all done to complete my sets. They are all really small projects, so should be fun to get some immediate gratification...course, working three days on a project isn't so hard either.

All this and I'm still trying to learn how to knit my first scarf. I would hope that would be done this week, my gawsh I think I've been working on it and setting it aside for three weeks!!! That's just crazy! Then I can get onto learning how to make the hat! I'll show pics when it's done. It's not that big of a deal, it's just knitting, no pearling. I got inspired to knit from my Grand-mother in-law Carol. I saw her using a circular needle and it got me interested enough. I picked one up and asked one of the gals at Ben Franklin how to knit and off I went. I made a LOT of mistakes on it, and had to tear it apart completely the following day. I was making a kite! It was getting wider and wider and wider and...well, you get the point. The gals there at BF all laughed at me and asked, "how many stitches did you start with?" hmmm...you know, I didn't know? They all thought that was hilarious. So, I learned that you keep an even pace by counting how many stitches you have every once in a while and if it's off, you GO BACK and correct it. I've gone back about 20 or so times so far...but I think I could be hooked on knitting too. I don't think I could do garments, but scarves for sure, they are an easy thing for my hands to do. The gals at BF promise that doing the hat will be just as easy...but I think I get to introduce another needle into the bunch and don't get to work on my circular one. Ah well....I'm not too old a dog yet that I can't learn a new trick here and there. Like I say, I'll post pics when it's done hopefully with more detail than this blanket shows, but I was in a hurry before work today. I finished it up yesterday morning, but didn't get a chance in any light to take a photo to share with ya'll. You can click on the pic and it will be larger to show detail of the blanket and it's carrying case showing off Amy Butler's pattern in the front pocket of it.

That's about it from up here in Monroe. See ya in the funny pages!