Saturday, March 19, 2016

Sold!


 
It appears that our house in the redwoods has sold.  We never got it listed, but a relator asked if he could bring some clients over and they fell in love with our house.  After a bit of negotiations back and forth, they agreed to our price and we all signed the first of lots of paperwork. It's not really sold until the escrow closes, but the family that is purchasing it has seen the reports and still want to move in on April 28.  Not much time to wrap up everything in CA, pack up the last of the household goods and clear out Bill's garage of his tools and things.  It won't take me more than a few hours to box up the house and my clothes, but Mr. Scottie Dog has a lot of stuff.  Tools from his dad and grandpa, left-overs from 45 years of running a construction business, treasures and trash.  I've already sorted through my stuff and the household goods and furniture.  What we are keeping is already in MN waiting for us.
 


The house looks kind of small compared to the redwood trees!

Mr. Scottie Dog built the rock wall with rocks from special places....coral from Maui, obsidian from Lake County, CA, rocks from Lake Selmac, OR and more. He did a great job on the brick and concrete front courtyard too!

The house was pretty small when we bought it in 1984.  Only two bedrooms and now it has four bedrooms and three bathrooms.  He's a marvel!




It's going to be hard leaving the wonderful shower he built for me, but I know that if need be, he'll build me another one in MN.

So it looks like we are finally wrapping up the Northern CA chapters of our life...a place we started our lives together in 1972, raised our lovely girls and made  so many wonderful friends.  So many warm memories. On to the new adventures in MN with our ever-expanding family.  Grandpa and Meemaw are coming!!!!! (finally!)




Saturday, March 12, 2016

The Splendid Sampler


 Back in January my good friend Pat Sloan announced she was sponsoring a sew-along with her friend Jane Davidson from Australia.  They had gathered over 80 quilt designers from around the world to provide a total of 100 six inch block patterns to be called The Splendid Sampler.  The first block pattern (two each week) would appear on Valentine's Day.
This sounded like fun so I joined a FaceBook group that now numbers nearly 18,000! I've had so much fun making these blocks.  I am making them in shades of black, gray, cream/whites with a touch of accent color....I call it Baby Poop.....it's a form of mustard.  Here are a few of my blocks. 
 



I will probably put all of these together with a thin black sashing between the blocks.  I'm really pleased.  As a quilter one of the challenges of this project (and one of the joys!) is that we'll be using lots of different techniques.  Piecing, hand applique, hand embroidery or maybe doing the hand techniques with the sewing machine.  I'm taking one block at a time.  Just like my life.  One day at a time.




    

Friday, March 11, 2016

And Time Marches On!

Long time, no blog!  I know, I know I've been silent too long.  I've been asked again and again what adventures Mr. Scottie Dog and I are on...and the truth is that we are still in Eureka. Just two more walls to paint and two rooms to carpet and the remodel will be done and the house will go on the market, right?  Well, the answer is maybe.  Maybe it's already sold, maybe not.
To backtrack, we took a lovely trip to Gold Beach, OR for my birthday in January.

 

 


Ireland's has many different kinds of accommodations and over the years we have stayed at the RV Park on the beach, a newer lodge room with an Ocean view, a regular motel room and our favorite places to stay is in one of their eight rustic cabins.  These were originally built in the late 30's and are so charming.  We stayed in #5 and our table had a view of the Pacific and their beautiful gardens,  Despite it being the beginning of January we were able to utilize their barbecue and Mr. Scottie Dog cooked up steak and lobster! Each cabin is well-stocked with firewood and of course we enjoyed the fireplace. Oh, joy.  It was a grand time to get away.

I've  been sewing quite a bit since I came back to Eureka.  One project has been a quilt for Anastacia for her 5th birthday in October. Anastacia likes all things orange, owls and the chickens that live at their house.  So this quilt has lots of orange chickens, an orange owl and lots more orange things.
Here is a chicken (obviously NOT orange) sitting on a nest. I know they look like French fries now, but after the quilt is washed they will fray and look more like a cozy straw nest.  If you lift up this chicken's wing, you will find small orange baby chicks. 

More sewing pictures tomorrow.