A trip without handwork...

I was just kicking myself on our trip to Oregon because I didn't take the time to take some handwork to work on in the car. I usually get so much done on our car trips, but not this time. I did manage to slip in tons of stuff to read, but it didn't feel as productive. So when I saw this pattern at Jodi's Quilt Shop in Florence, OR, I knew I had to make it. I just love it! There's no way I'm going to wait for another car trip though to start working on it. The pattern is printed in red and white and looks darling, but I may experiment with other colors, maybe blue and white or brown and cream. The pattern is called The Quilt Shop and is part of a series by Cathy Parker and her website is quiltingbeedesigns.com.

Oregon Coast

Back to real life after a fun 10 day family vacation to the Oregon coast. We had never been there before and it was so much fun exploring. We started in Portland and worked our way down to Florence and then across the state stopping near Bend. The big hit was the wild dune buggy ride along the sand dunes near Florence. A professional driver took us on a ride that rivaled some of the best theme park rides and we'd all definitely recommend it to anyone going to Florence. There are 2 dune buggy rides-one is a site seeing tour, more sedate type ride. The other is called the wild and crazy ride which is what we opted for. Lots of laughing and screaming. I'm the screamer in our family. The coastline is gorgeous. There were lots of quilt shops along the way. While we stayed in Florence I went to Jodi's Quilt and Fabric shop and Joy of Quilting. Each quilt shop is so unique and of course I found something I couldn't live without in each. But for now, back to the laundry and school shopping. The kids start back to school next Monday and many UFO's will become FO's.

Flag Quilts

In our June meeting, my quilt group, Material Girls, Diane B. taught us how to make these cute flag wall hangings. The fabric is just torn into strips, glued onto a light background, sandwiched and then hand stitched down. Buttons are added to represent the stars, loops are added to the top (some of us made the flag so it would hang vertically and some horizontally-both look very cute). It was so easy and fast. It's hung from a stick from Diane's yard and the wire is curled by wrapping it around a dowel.
The second flag is one of those wall hangings made by pushing fabric into a styrofoam board that has a quilt design cut into it. There's a website called Quilt Graphics that sells the boards. It's fun to do and my kids have even made these. You push the fabric into the grooves with an ordinary kitchen knife. You can even use just a plastic knife. I know there are other companies that sell these too. Check into it. They make fun gifts for your non-quilting friends too.