Claiming my blog!

I was so sad when I heard that Google Reader was closing down. Thank goodness there are smart people out there that make it easy to transfer the blogs you follow from one reader to another. 

I chose to transfer the blogs I follow to Bloglovin' and I am so excited! I haven't had much time to read blogs for awhile. Bloglovin' makes it easy to read the blogs I love to follow. I am slowly catching up on all the posts I need to read. 

Hopefully I will soon start posting again here on Dear Spring Green! 

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Project #2: Finishing a Pillow

I was super lucky and was able to take Elizabeth Hartman's Free Motion Quilting class at Modern Domestic. If you have never taken a class there, and you are a local, you should!  Our class was a nice small size, and I felt like I had lots of time to ask lots of questions and get help when I needed it. Elizabeth is a wonderful instructor and I wholeheartedly recommend her class!

My pillow!

We spent the first day cutting our fabric and learning how to practice quilting with a walking foot. On our second day we practiced quilting on a second quilt sandwich with our free motion, or darning foot.  

This was supposed to be wonkier lines.
I learned I have to start really wonky for them to stay wonky as I go.

I had ordered a free motion foot and a walking foot years ago, knowing that someday I would want to use them to quilt something I had finished. I was pretty nervous to put them on my machine, but after the first class I came home and hooked up the walking foot. It was awesome! And after the second class, I came home and hooked up my free motion foot, and it was awesome too!

Pebble quilting!!!  Oh I was super excited to learn this one.

I finished up my pillow at home, and took it to our quilt guild meeting for show and tell. Yay! I had something to show! Not a quilt yet, but I'll get there.

Stippling.  The hardest for me!  I held my breath the whole time I did this square.
It turned out much better than I thought it would.

The fun part of this is I did most of it with little ones (literally) tugging on my sleeves...and pants. So if I can quilt like that, imagine what will happen if I have a little time to myself.

Leafy vines! I wanted to try stars on vines, but the ones I did looked like sad wierd triangles.

I am super happy I was able to take this class. I know I will be able to keep practicing the techniques and improve with time. What is your favorite quilting (or other!) class you have ever taken?  


Today I am Grateful for:
1. Sewing!  Quilting!  It makes me happy.
2. PMQG.
3. Learning new things.
4. Living so near PDX.  So many amazing ladies belong to my quilt guild!  I am lucky!

A Royal Garden

I love royal weddings!  I remember waking up early to see Prince Charles and Lady Diana get married when I was a little girl.  Now, I am going to get up very early to see Prince William wed Kate Middleton today!

Our flowers last year!

Molly and I have been picking out our seeds for our flower garden.  We have been royally influenced in our choices this year.

Sweet William is going to marry...

Flowering Kale, I mean Kate.

She is as sweet as an English Daisy.

She will become a part of the Royal Family!

The Archbishop of Canterbury will marry them.

And they will live happily ever after in misty Anglesey, Britain!

Are you looking for something cute to do with your little ones to mark the occaision?  Look here! (And then look at the other ideas to the right!)

Today I am grateful for:

1. Tivo.  If I don't get up early enough, Tivo will record it for me!

2. Summer is coming!  We can plant soon.  I have big plans for the garden this year.

Vancouver Adventures

We had a rainy spring break week.  I wish the weather had been better, but we had one day (sort of) with sun.  I think Mother Nature must be holding back for a super-terrific summer she has planned for us.  Right?  (Say yes.)


We decided to stick closer to home and have our adventure here in Vancouver.

The Pearson Air Museum is close by, and we went to visit!  It is located in a large hangar in Fort Vancouver, near Officer's Row and downtown Vancouver.  

The rudders and tail fin wiggle on this one! The propeller spins too.

Helicopter!

There are plenty of cute things for little ones to do, and lots of really great information for older children and adults on the history of flight, and specifically the history of flight in the northwest.

Here is part of the museum.  There is so much more!

The museum is housed in this hangar.

They even had a Snoopy plane.  Molly is pretty crazy about Snoopy ever since her Grammy showed her "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown".  She thinks Snoopy is hilarious. Though I am not sure she was as impressed with the Red Baron plane as I was.

As we walked through the parking lot when we were finished with the museum, we smelled something wonderful.  I had heard that there was a wonderful bakery nearby, so we followed our noses.

The Julia Bakery is located not *too* far from Pearson Air Museum!  We had to get out the GPS to find it though :).   Molly chose a cookie, I had a blueberry scone, and Marshall had a bun with prosciotto, ham, and olives baked inside.  We all liked our choices. 

Mmmm scones!

Today I am grateful for:

1. Healthy kids!  I am probably jinxing it, but everyone has been healthy for awhile.

2. Family to share holidays with!

3. Intermittent sunny weather.

4. A great crafting room to sew in.  I know I am lucky to have one!

5. My Dads!  I have two, and one has a birthday today!  Happy birthday Dad! (Ha, just realized he used to oversee/something the Pearson Air Field when he worked for the city.  What a coincidence!)

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord!

Psalms 150:6

Project #1: Ironing Board Cover

I finally got my first project done.  I wanted to do one a week, ha ha.  Oh well, it is a start!

I love that iron holder thingy- it is from IKEA.  So are the wall hanging containers.  But they are super old.  Now they have these...

I recovered my ironing board.  It was an old cover, one we had had since we got married (10+ years old).  At Christmas I had ironed some fusible interfacing the wrong way - down - and it had become sticky.  So as a temporary fix, I put a piece of waxed paper on the sticky spot.  And then it wasn't fun to iron anymore.  Not that it ever was fun, but it was even less so when I was dealing with the wax paper and sticky spot.  


So!  A new cover became one of my project goals for the year.  I wanted a bright spot of yellow in the room and I had these in my stash.  Perfect.  Except the polka dot was too short.  I remembered seeing a picture of a pattern from Cotton Way of patchwork ironing board covers, and I thought oh!  I can do something simple to make my fabric stretch. I added the gingham to make it a bit longer, and it worked!


I followed pretty much the same pattern for making the cover as I did here when I made the mini one.

It sure is bright and pretty- and I am enjoying being able to iron things again!


Today I am Grateful for:
1. A sunny spring like day!  We went for a long walk and the flowers and trees were awesome.  Yay spring!
2. Jack's teeth.  He is getting some new molars, and so nursing is off and on, but I am grateful he will be able to chew things up better with his new teeth.
3.  My little girl is four.  Oh my.  This deserves it's own post, but oh.  Four.  So big!

Brought to You by the Letter D

Daffodils! Donuts!  We went on another adventure this past rainy Sunday. Molly is getting used to the idea.  When she got into the car after church, she asked, "Where are we going on our 'venture?"

My little yellow flower in the daffodil field.

So off we went to pick daffodils!  This is a great little Vancouver spot that was written up in The Columbian (our local paper) last year.  Each dozen you pick costs only 50 cents.  My favorite flower is the daffodil (Wait...I am lying, I love lilacs too...so maybe they tie for my favorite flower).  It's so fun to fill the house with their happy sunny faces in the spring.  Molly and I cut 48 daffodils and had to stop because our hands were too cold- it was pouring rain.  I am thinking about going to get more this next week.  It is so nice to have fresh flowers in the house!  If you go, bring a plastic bag and a pair of scissors for easy cutting and carrying.

Doooonnnuuttttssss (ala Homer Simpson)

Next, we accessed our app Portland Essentials and off we went in search of donuts.  The Helen Barnhard Bakery has been around since 1924.  Helen started the bakery in her kitchen.  The little bakery was super sweet (har har) and by the time we got there, our donuts were even half off!  And delicious!  Another D!


I wanted a cinnamon roll, but they were all sold out.  So darn (D!), we will have to go back.  Oh dear (D!).  Someone stop me.


Thanks to Evelyn and Another Yarn for all the great ideas for new things to do in Portland! (See comments last post.) My list is growing!


Grateful List:
1. I am thankful for all the people out there who can help everyone effected by the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  It is times like this I want to be a doctor or a nurse.  Or a nuclear physisist.  You know, one of those.  So I could help.


2. I am grateful for Jen.  She told me I can do it (no TV for Lent) and I am.  And it is not that bad, but every once in a while, I have to take a deep breath and step away from the remote.


3. Inspiration. I wish I could do this in 40 days.  Even though I can't on that level, I can go slower, and make it happen!  It might take me a bit longer.  I am okay with that.


4. Spring! The croci (I looked it up) are beautiful and purple, and the daffodils, well, I already covered that!