West Coast Crafty

meetings, catalogs, datebooks + whales

I had such an awesome time at the Portland Modern Quilt Guild meeting last week! It had been way too long since I’d gotten to go to a meeting, after a few hopeful third-Thursdays-of-the-month got upended by some combination of work, late pregnancy, migraines, and the intricate, essential handoff of our two-year-old by 7:00 pm. I wish I had some great colorful photos to share but I only took two, during the super interesting color presentation, and my camera didn’t pick up any of the projected images from the back of the room… and then between holding Everett, a bag of his stuff, and a bag of my stuff, I didn’t get to take any more photos. I am keeping an eye on the PMQG blog and Facebook page for other people’s pictures and the full write-up, I’m sure there are some great ones from people who had the use of both hands all evening!

I did get to pick up my name badge (a perk of membership, along with great discounts at local and online stores) so I’ll just show that for now. It was such a fun evening and thanks to an ingenious icebreaker held on a giant map of Portland drawn in electrical tape, I even met some neighborhood quilters! We’re talking about getting together in between the official meetings for fabric shopping or sewing, too. Anyway, the next meeting is March 17 at PNCA, and I am bringing snacks.

I didn’t get any photos at Boomshakalaka, which was also awesome, for some of the same reasons (Everett sleeping soundly on my shoulder in his Rasheed Wallace jersey, plus an amazing, thick crowd). You can check out Pat’s photos over here, though, and they are great. I am looking forward to going back during the day and hanging out with everything – this is my favorite piece.

Finally, something I do have photos of: I got the PNCA Summer of Making catalog this week, and I am so thrilled that I am teaching a class again this summer, Log Cabin Quilting! It will be a two-day workshop with tons of hands-on designing, piecing and quilting time, so students can focus on what they want to make most. I’ll bring in antique, vintage and new log cabin quilts for inspiration, too. I think this will be an awesome class – I have loved teaching and taking classes at PNCA.

And I can’t believe my class is listed next to the one taught by my hero, Denyse Schmidt! I am already signed up for her Walking the Line: Working with Improvisation and Structure in Patchwork workshop and I just can’t wait.

I’m also looking forward to this spring and summer! My quilt book comes out a month from today which I can hardly believe. I was especially excited to fill in my July in my new datebook. Hooray for four different quilting events in the same month, and nothing boring yet! Thanks to the Portland Modern Quilt Guild, I am one of a dozen of us showing our quilts in a special exhibition of modern quilts at the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. Then I am teaching the next weekend, going to the regular monthly meeting the next week, and finishing the month with the improvisational patchwork class. Sounds good to me!

Also, I love my new datebook, which I got on our trip to Uwajimaya on Friday. I always feel way more organized with a paper calendar I can write everything in, especially a cute one with a bear + button cover. (Plus all the datebooks and calendars there are 30-40% off now.)

Okay! Last thing in the round-up is that we’ve made it to eight weeks of whale chalkboard menu planning – 40 successfully planned + cooked dinners (as of this Friday, anyway). To celebrate, I made a little photo collage.

We have had one failure, according to the photos it was Thursday, February 10 – I made grilled tuna just as the chalkboard said to, but it ended up being so fishy and gnarly we couldn’t really eat it and ordered pizza instead. But I think it still counts as an officially planned and cooked dinner, although a disappointing one! All the whales are in a set over here. I had been trying a new recipe each week, but that fell by the wayside early on. I am definitely up for trying new recipes, just can’t seem to do it every single week. But I’m looking forward to planting the garden and having more awesome stuff to cook with this summer… I’ll try the weekly thing again then.