May Madness

 I'm gonna throw a bunch of photos at you.

May has been super busy and I think The Daily Drizzle is finally fizzling out. Another of my favorite Iris above with the Bearded Iris close behind. That will be the end until next year.

  My friend from Kyoto sent me some special items for my birthday earlier this month.
She is getting to be an awesome airplane spotter.
 She found a keychain of the Torii Gates which was one of my favorite sites in Kyoto.

 My sis sent me a Marimeko plate. Also, the cute dish towel on the left.

I had to have a huge talk with myself. I've been hoarding pretty dish towels lately because a certain someone in the household doesn't understand kitchen rules. I made myself put it out anyway. And I ended up shout-ing it, as there are already scorch marks and tumeric from our curried chicken. (le sigh)

I made two more Clothesline bowls for easy peasy gifts and they were well received.

 This was my birthday/anniversary dinner. Yummy. Steamed clams on zucchini noodles. I think I need a spiralizer after all. Super delicious. Just a savory wine sauce instead of a cream sauce.

My iphone isn't great at capturing Mt. Hood in the distance. Lots of snow this year.

  I then "Gave" myself another gift of clumping bamboo. My friend, Teresa, mentioned she had five varieties and I penciled her into my birthday week off.

If you've ever had the joy of dividing bamboo... I took a sharp shovel with me and got a teeny bit of four of her varieties. The black bamboo would have needed a pick ax. ...and maybe very strong young men.

Nearby her is an old favorite restaurant of mine (and hers). My hubby and I came on the very first warm and sunny day and ate our dinners.
The sliding doors were open to the dappled shade along the Sandy River (very high this year).

My hubs had the famous chicken and dumplings. Which I can no longer eat (flour). My dinner was very tasty too. For the life of me, writing this, I can't recall what I ate.

I got to some of my weeding during my week off, but there is still lots to do.
Below are three medium sized blueberry plants. It has been so soggy that this section had to wait until the ground dried out a bit. Maybe in a week or two.

Right to the left of the weedy area is a section that looks all pretty in it's new barkdust coat.

The other morning, I awoke to this pretty picture out my bedroom window.
The Stearman got pulled out for some air.
The pink early morning air with my lovely Weigelia in front

Part of my birthday week was volunteering for Junk Refunk. A local business owner that is an Annie Sloan stockist put it on. Cheryl has previously done two street markets in town and brought a lot of people (and their money) into Canbyland. She needed some help so I volunteered.

I had forgotten how much I love volunteering. With my job, it's nearly impossible to commit to anything except getting through the long work days.
 
This one vendor, who is local, makes these awesome crowns. Because I was The Most Awesome Volunteer - ever-.

I have some escalating family problems, one in crisis mode. I also have one of the four clerks MIA for an indefinite time at work. Overtime will be the norm as if it wasn't already.

I am going to unblog for a while. I'll still be on Instagram more frequently (RocketGirl50). If you want to see my photos, that's a good place right now. I am seriously time challenged right now.

Trying to find time for sewing and unleashing my creative juices just got harder. If I do find a chance to make anything, I will try to blog just because I like the documentation and my notes.

Next week, I'll be visiting DD in Alaska, so I may have another go at blogging by iphone. Or, not. Photos seem to be more permanent on the blog (as a storage solution). We'll see how it goes.

We plan to go halibut fishing out of Homer and also a flight seeing trip around Denali. I'm especially looking forward to  Denali as this has been an awesome snow year up there as well.


Keep well and have a delicious summer.

Half Day Off Work

 Canbyland enjoyed a third installment in our stormy winter today.

It's very unusual for the Willamette Valley to get three snow storms in a row. Typically, we will get  a (single) serious ice storm every ten years or so. In between, we get mild winters, or gray, rainy winters, or one inch of snow which causes the nation to poke fun at us Oregonians as life comes to a complete standstill.

Over in Central Oregon, they are digging out from five feet of snow - also somewhat unusual.

In any case, I drove 20mph to my job this morning in the snowy ice only to have most of the package deliveries cancelled. Taking my chance, I asked if I could go home and if, (IF???) I had to come back for the afternoon. I usually work a 12 hr split shift with an hour or two (or three) for lunch in the middle. I am so tired of these continuous 12 hr days. And they have been seven days/week for what seems months.

Once home, I put away my 1000 airplane ornaments and the rest of Christmas.
And then I got the phone call - to stay home. There might have been a praise god in there.

I have plans to clean my house this afternoon after another episode of Downton Abbey that I am binge-watching on Amazon Video.

 My friend in Finland surprised me with some Moomin cups and bowls. Probably because I served her coffee in my other Moomin coffee cups....when she visited back in September.

Plus some Marimekko fabric to play with. Today I decided what I would make her with some of these beauties. I'm not ready to turn my sewing machine back on yet but I do have next week off work to do some family interventions with my little sis from Minnesota.

We'll have to see if I can carve out some time.

When I am doing continuous overtime, I sometimes buy myself a gift. The last time was my Pfaff sewing machine. This time? A 2hp Vitamix blender.

Boy howdy, can this machine pulverize celery, apples, zucchini, bok choi and other fun, healthy vegetables. And the clean-up is so much faster than my old way of making green juice.



***Why is Oregon the laughingstock of the nation during snow?


Because one inch of snow creates *ice* as we don't usually get below freezing. We have mountains, curves, and very few straight roads. We cancel school, work (Except for where I work), and all other activities.

The black ice hides under the snow dusting and creates havoc for drivers. Because we don't get much snow and fall under freezing temps often, Oregon doesn't really have snow plows, or other snow removal tools. We might have leaf blowers but few snow blowers.

Oregon is also raised green so we can't salt our roads like other states do. Salt kills vegetation and poisons our rivers.

After our last big ice storm nine years ago, Canbyland bought a plow attachment that can fit on a big dump truck. It was quite controversial at the time as we didn't need it for another nine years.

Generally though, most communities are ill-prepared for snow and ice and so we just cancel activities instead. Who doesn't need a snow day as an adult?

****Do I really have 1000 airplane ornaments? Ahem, I haven't ever counted them, but my kids will say I might have a few too many. My collection will be worth millions someday or I might be buried with them...

Marimekko Pattern

I've had this red & white striped Marimekko make-up bag forever.
I've only had the bicycle oilcloth for a few years.

I've been wanting to make this zipped bag with gussets for a while. My last bag gave me an idea to fuse the lining to the outer fabric.
With this small gusseted bag, you finish the raw edges with twill tape/bias tape/whatever tape.
I made a pattern off my marimekko - basically a large rectangle and a tiny rectangle x2 for the gussets.
I used adhesive spray to bond the lining to the outer fabric and I love that it stays put.








This was a fairly easy zipped pouch to make. It opens wide enough to dig around - I usually travel with my Marimekko filled with toiletries. It would be easier with two bags.

The narrow gussets created several moments of hand-sewing which involved a thimble to get my needle through the oilcloth easier.

A sneak peak at some HST (half-square-triangles) that I am sewing.
Have 45 out of 81 done. (What was I thinking?)

I'm using a layer cake of Road 15 by Sweetwater that I bought with last years Christmas gift card to Fabric Depot.  I usually buy yardage to make my little doodads - this is my first foray into quilty-type fabric buying. Maybe I'll get some charm squares next time....

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I have exciting news - the Lucky Lindy quilt I found at an estate sale yesterday for $65 - which I didn't have?  My Creative Friend went back today and it was still there!!! She talked them down to $50!!!

She's the best friend ever.
Then she brought me some RetroClean and the whole quilt is soaking in my bathtub right now!