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Crafty Portland

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After the baby shower I attended last weekend, I was able to spend a few hours exploring Portland!

First off I emailed Sister Diane over at Crafty Pod, asking if she had any recommendations for where I could stop, what would be a “must see” while I was there. She sent me the links to four stores and Powell’s.

Sister Diane recommended Josephine’s Dry Goods, Button Emporium, Knit Purl, and the Museum of Craft. JW and I took the Amtrak down to Oregon but once we were in Portland we rented a car. I didn’t mention that I’d have a car, so she mentioned places that were close to the station.

I knew there was a google map of crafty stores in Portland, and after a quick google search I found it at DIYAlert, click on the “Google Map of Crafty Portland.” (Created by Sister Diane a few years ago!)

Crafty Portland Google Map

I wasn’t thinking clearly and ended up trying to stay in a small area of town. After finding out that a few stores were closed on Monday (Button Emporium!), I ended up stopping at one quilt shop (who had a HUGE selection of Japanese fabric), Pendleton and Powell’s.

Pendleton is awesome. I love the blankets, I’ve started buying one of the sets of dishes for myself and I really love the fabric selection they have. At this particular Pendleton’s, they have huge bins of scraps for sale very cheap. You can buy a HUGE bag of zippers for a dollar, bags of scraps for a few dollars or purchase fabric from huge rolls.

JW - Cart

I spent a few minutes going through the scrap bin when one woman brought me a cart to stick JW in. He’s a happy guy so he was smiling and flirting with her. She threw a blanket down and put him in the cart, along with a hippo. He lasted in there for several minutes while I went through the bins a bit more and walked around looking at the fabric. Once he was done being in there, we finished up and went to the quilt shop.

Of course I would be somewhere with no way of getting large items back home. A block away from the quilt shop was an awesome looking thrift store with great furniture outside. I didn’t even stop as I didn’t want to be even more tempted!

The quilt shop had one o the largest selections of Japanese fabric I’ve seen in one space. Even on the shop hop we went on this summer, no store had that much. Japanese fabric can tend to be more expensive as well. And for the first time, probably ever!, I couldn’t think of a project I needed to get fabric for!

But Powell’s…was hands down THE best place ever. Ever. It is huge and wonderful and you could spend hours in there. I was in there for just under an hour and hadn’t even seen all that I felt I needed to see. I ended up looking in the children’s section for a few minutes then going to the quilting section. I was in the store for so long, I had to rush the rest of the time to get to the train station before the train left. JW and I lucked out, we were sitting in our seats a few minutes before it left. All sweaty and out of breath from running, but at least the train isn’t like the airplane, we showed up about 20 minutes before it was time to leave and were still allowed on.

I can’t wait to get back to Portland!

A Collection of To-Do’s

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Not having my own computer makes my collection of what I want to do just grow and grow. Now I have a laptop and have been all kinds of crafty!

Anyone else want to crochet fruit trivets and potholders?

Nevermind that I have at least four makeup/travel bathroom bags, I still want to sew my own dopp.

I have a couple of hoodies that I love, but I don’t want to wear them anymore ~ with some patchwork, they’ll be like new!

Modge podge coasters! Who cares that I have awesome Coach coasters I got for my brithday and a set of perler bead Super Mario ones too.

Most importantly – how to find time to do all of this stuff.

Kitchen Table As Sewing Table

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Once the kids and I moved in with Mom, she lost her sewing area. And I lost my craft room. So what did we do to make the best of it – set up shop in the dining room!

It’s been … well not a struggle, but we have had to figure out what works and what doesn’t in terms of storage. She has a hall closet that we use for fabric, supplies, etc., and we also have the bottom part of the kids closet as storage for fabric. She doesn’t do many other crafts such as making cards, scrapbooking, etc., so it’s mainly sewing in this house. I’ve managed to crochet a few things and we both do beadwork.

So we use the hall closet for storage – that stays fairly organized with bins and buckets. The space in the dining room surrounding the kitchen table though, that has been a lot harder for us to get under control. We’ve tried stacking fabric on a chair (yeah…that doesn’t work so well!), we’ve tried baskets, and then those end up stacked on top of each other, we tried putting things away and only getting it out when it was needed, that really doesn’t work well at all. Mom had the idea that she wanted a bookcase with cubbies in it for quite a while and we finally got one last week.

She wanted a mix of baskets and the fabric bins you can buy that fit the spaces, and ended up with six fabric bins because we had a hard time finding baskets that would fit. The one we used at the bottom sticks out a little, which isn’t too big of a deal since this sits in a corner and people don’t run into it. Now all we have is the basket to the left that holds the sewing machine quilt table attachment and the rulers. Everything else we are using and working on is in the bins!

So yay we are organized!

And the real benefit of being this organized – the little pile of fabric next to the sewing machine and red circle bobbin holder – Mom whipped out five matching needle holders and pin cushions.

As a sidenote, the green sewing machine up there is the Janome Hello Kitty. Alice got it for Christmas! She (and I) was SO excited! We got it out on Christmas day and set it up – only to have the thread tangle up if you even look at the machine funny. It’s a huge disappointment because she really enjoys sewing and I don’t want it to be a chore for her. It’s also annoying for us because we (Mom or I) have to quit what we are doing in order to try to fix it. I asked a friend who I know has the same machine only to be told that she had the same problem. So I am going to send it back and invest in a quality machine for Alice. Sure it won’t have Hello Kitty on it, and it won’t be pretty and green, but it’ll be a machine that works!

New Header Picture

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Yay a new blog theme! I’ve been wanting something different for a bit now and after helping my friend Holly with her new wordpress blog, I was inspired to just hurry up and change!

I made the header a couple of months ago actually, because I found the theme at least that long ago. From left to right the pictures are:

1. Pieces on a design wall from a quilt class I took. I can’t remember the name of the pattern but it was called a Ribbon class. I really want to work on and finish this quilt but can’t find it anywhere! I am sure it’s in the large storage unit, I already searched the small one.

2. My Dad’s blanket! I just finally finished and gave it to him when we were there a couple of weeks ago. It’s about time I finished it, it was supposed to be a Christmas gift!

3. A rag quilt for my niece’s son. Sure technically he could be called my grandson, but 1-I’m too young for that and 2-he already calls me Auntie. I’ve had this material for years and starting sewing it together last fall. Once I was working on it I decided to give it to him. This also needs to be mailed still!

4. Blue and Brown – this is from a kit I purchased. It’s the same pattern as the blanket I made for my Dad. I haven’t done anything with it since it is also in storage somewhere! I hope to find it so I can finish it this summer.

5. Horses, cream and brown blanket – this is a baby blanket for my youngest nephew! He was born in October and I started the blanket back then. I finished it not too long after he was born but hadn’t finished the binding until recently. Actually my Mom put the finishing touches on the binding.

6. The striped and car fabric is a pillowcase for Jake! And yes, the other stripe on the fabric is a pocket for him. He asked for a pillowcase and then said he needed a pocket too. When you ask why he wanted a pocket he has a few answers for you. I never made a pillowcase before this one and wow, super easy!

7. I’m not sure…

8. This is a picture of the kids asleep in the back of the van while we drove to South Dakota. It was last August when we were driving home because my Grandma died. I love the picture, they are so cute.

9. Picture of sign for Rosebud Sioux Reservation

10. The brown and pink card with a flower is one of (if not the) last card I made for a swap with friends. I made the cards while I was at a friends house. We tried to get together often so be crafty together – we moved from scrapbooking (her and another friend) to making cards (me) to making quilts for our husbands. I miss those crafty days!

11. The brown quilt is the one I made for Chris! This is a simple pattern – I think it’s the Turning 20 Again pattern. So easy. I didn’t use 20 fat quarters like the pattern calls for but that’s because I really liked a couple of the fabrics I found. He has this with him now.

12. The orange and blue is an Auburn University quilt I made for one of the guys that is serving on the ship with Chris. When we made the decision to make the guys quilts, I knew an Auburn one had to be made for him – not only did he attend Auburn, I’m pretty sure he has a tatto of the logo or something related to Auburn anyway. This is a Turning 20 pattern so it came together very quickly. He loved it and as far as I know also has it with him and is using it.

Getting Into Writing

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I bought a new journal yesterday. I have thoughts rushing around my head, sometimes jumbled, sometimes not. I’ve kept a journal for years, I still have the one from fourth or fifth grade where I complained about my brother and the fact that he liked Guns N Roses (who I would grow to love after a while). I look at my writing and want it to be better – not my journaling, journaling to me is just my story. It’s just me reading it so the fear of being criticized or someone asking questions isn’t there. I remember the time I found a boys name written on the back of one notebook I used as a journal – my heart beat sped up and I wondered if he read it and if he did would he tell anyone. After a bit I relaxed, never asked him about it and moved on.

Collection
Creative Commons License photo credit: Markus Rödder

I have journals that have just a few pages filled out, journals that I started to keep track of a vacation we took or with the intention of writing in it regularly. Obviously those plans never panned out.

Chris has been gone for a couple of months now and we have sort of kind of regular communication via email. But email doesn’t always help because he’s pressed for time. The time difference doesn’t help either! I’ve been doing fairly okay with him gone, I don’t think about how long he’s going to be gone, we aren’t doing a countdown or anything like that. The kids aren’t stressed about him being gone which I am so very happy about. Kids don’t really have a sense of time though. Once they start school (yep, they are going to public school this fall! I’m still nervous about it!) the topic may come up more often, but we’ll wait and see. It helps that we are right with family.

And so my new journal already has been broken in. I’d like to say I’ll write in it every day. But maybe I won’t. And maybe it won’t be journaling but I’ll actually be able to get back to writing. I’m reminded of my love for writing by being where I am now. Hopefully, that will come back.

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