I have been busy in the quilting studio and in front of my sewing machine but now Christmas has come and gone and I'm ready to start some new projects.
Some of the Christmas gifts I made this year were for family and a few friends.
Kiddo Placemats: All three great nephews and niece received a placemat for their breakfast. I think they turned out so cute. Here's Kayden enjoying his waffles. I love personalized placemats for kids. We didn't grow up using placemats and I always wanted them. Finally got some for the grandies :)
Microwave Bowl Cozies: These are so fun and easy to make. I'll post the pattern next week. I made a couple for the house--kept them because one corner of the first one wasn't sewn well so I couldn't give it away. And then I made one larger, thinking it needed to be. But it didn't. So I kept them :) My fella loves them! I made one for all four nieces. Here's Ami enjoying hers.
Coaster: I made a batch of coasters and gave them to some of my friends when we got together for an annual luncheon. Last time I made them cozies...perhaps that is what my nieces will receive next year! I also gave one each to my sons and my sister. It was fun to make these scrappy coasters. I used lonely little spare blocks I had hanging around. Now they all have homes and are happily absorbing fluids that are dripping down the sides of mugs and glasses and cups.
I made pillowcases for my nephews. Nathan is a huge University of Oregon fan, so made him a Ducks case. Danny graduated from Western Illinois University where he played football, so made him a purple and golden case. And Ope graduated from NYU Medical School, so his was purple and white.
Richard's Quilt
Thre was one last thing I made for a gift. I made my good friend a quilt. Boy howdy was he surprised. He's such a good guy, he deserves every gift out there. Except ice cream.
I didn't make as many quilty gifts this year. I was busy with student and clients quilting. So not as much was made; just enough :)
Magic Boxes
So now what? I have two projects I am currently working on. My Winter quilting class is making Magic Boxes, a free quilt design from Donna Jordan of Jordan Fabrics. It is a fun string pattern design that, when put together, makes these fun squares.
BOM
The second project is a Block of the Month project through Facebook. I created the overall quilt pattern using different sized blocks that are on Marcia Holmes' website Quilter's Cache. In December 2020 we will put it all together. Here's our first block. It's called "Another Star."
Both projects will take some time to complete, so I will be working on other quilty stuff all year long.
People who live in arid areas of the U.S., like Southern California, don't understand how we Oregonians can ever leave the house because it rains and rains and rains. How silly. Meanwhile, I am not sure how anyone who lives in Georgia in the summer can ever leave the house *wink* But we do. We have real lives and do things. Portland averages 43 inches of rain a year; the national average is 38. Between Seattle and Portland, it depends on the year. Seattle's average is 38 inches a year. But Seattle rains more days with lighter rainfalls. Portland has more rain per day, but less days raining. Of course, most of us are without an umbrella in both cities because umbrellas are for tourists ;) Okay now that we have that out in the open, let's get hiking! A little rain shouldn't stop you from getting out in the elements and checking out the sights. We would select a spot to hike around, grab a few extra towels and some water, put the harness on the pup and hit the hills. We felt like we were unstoppable! We also thought we wouldn't find many people along the trails. We were wrong! It seems like rain brings everyone out. Boy howdy. Columbia Gorge is a great hiking place. Plenty of trails for the kids and the dogs and you to run off some winter steam. There are 11 hard trails and many easy children and old people like me trails.
(Photo: Chris Henry / Kitsap Sun)
Silver Falls State Park is an incredibly beautiful hiking area, with more than 24 miles of walking trails. The park has 10 waterfalls, dog-friendly trails, and an off-lease area but note that some trails dogs are not allowed, including in the canyon.
(Photo: bobcat)
Sometimes we simply drive over to a Portland park that we had never walked and played around through the spaces. We live near Pier Park in the North. We were enchanted on our first visit. The park is almost all shade, with Douglas-firs, sequoias, madrones, and cedars forming the canopy. All those trees help keep the rain out of your collar. There are over 90 acres of park that hold many interesting aspects, like moss engulfed power stations. Conjoined is Chimney Park, an off-leash dog park. There is now a steel truss bridge from one park to the other over the train canyon. This is part of the 40-mile regional 40-Mile Loop trail system. The trail eventually will connect Cathedral Park to the Smith and Bybee Natural Area and Kelley Point Park. Pier Park is one of my favorite parks in Portland.
(Photo: Jensen Adams)
But so is Forest Park. Incredible hiking trails. Incredible views. With 5,200 acres, it is one of the largest urban forests in the United States. It has more than 80 miles of trails. You can hike day-after-day and see something new each time. Overlook the Willamette River. Hike to the other side to the Pittock Mansion. Find an overgrown castle. Forest Park has everything a rainy day can offer.
So get up and get those kids and pups out of the house for some fresh air and puddle splashing. Enjoy your Sunday Funday.
Cutting school to drive to the beach in my '56 Chevy-yellow bug and selling dandelions for
pennies and nickles to get a couple gallons of gas to get home.
Racing
up and down the hills around the vineyards with the little triangle windows turned all the way out so that Cindy and I could pretend we were race drivers.
Moving to Oregon and
throwing a rod near Bakersfield. That stop allowed my Aunt Ruth to watch Chris take his
first steps.
Playing around the curves near Reed College on my way home from PSU, every time thinking of
how Steve taught me to take curves.
Traveling up and down I-5
corridor. Chugging up over Grapevine and flying down.
Buying a New Beetle, insisting it had a stick because that was how beetles should drive, but sorely missing the trunk in the front.
The Internet opened to the public in 1991. My younger son was already playing computer games, having bought his first computer with money he earned as a Bottle Boy at the neighborhood market across the street from our house. He quickly moved from games he loaded from a cassette tape to exploring MUD rooms online through the Internet. My friend Scott introduced me to the Internet in 1994 and showed me how to talk with people through Internet Relay Chat (IRC).
My first computer was a 1994 “pizza box” Macintosh Performa. I walked into Computer City, looked around, pointed at a computer, and walked out carrying my treasure. It had 4MB RAM—four megs of RAM!—with a modem that whipped through the telephone lines at 1200 baud. I was cookin!
In
1994 there were no web browsers like Fire Fox or Chrome or Internet
Explorer. There were no search engines like GOOGLE. America On Line
(AOL) was not yet a public site but like other chat programs such as DELPHI, self
contained. In order to explore the ‘Net, we used early versions of
search engines like Archie and Gopher, which were not necessarily user
friendly, especially if you weren’t computer savvy. We learned code
like /nick pollyanna on the IRC program and moved around. I remember
the first time I forgot to use the proper code to send a text and the
phrase “You are not talking to anyone” popped up on my monitor screen.
I was so embarrassed that I shut the computer down immediately. Who was watching what I was doing? I hadn’t yet realized
that it was the computer that was watching me; I was alone in my
house.
And then it happened. I discovered channel #41plus. This was a group of people who were around my age hanging out on IRC chatting away. In the beginning the majority of the people on the channel’s were educators, engineers, and geeks. We had soooo much fun. I realized I could be as strong a woman as I was rather than allowing the men around me offline urging me to be needy and weak so they could take care of me. It was sad to watch women online later on to be those people, the image of a woman from the 50s. How sad, when we could be liberated from those chains and be who we were.
Discovering #41plus was perfect timing. I couldn’t wait to get home from work and start chatting. I had recently lost my best friend, moved away from my other close friends, and worked too many hours to get to know my colleagues very well. I was ripe and ready for Internet friends.
Even though we were from around the world, many of us would get together for a #41plus party. The majority of the time the parties were held at amsel’s in San Jose. Oh! pollyanna was visiting! Let’s have a party! Oh! Saline is visiting from Australia! Let’s have a party. And party we did. So much to talk about. Playing on the channel while we partied with channel people at amsel’s. San Jose. Dallas. Tucson. Phoenix. Kentucky. Have party, will play! I have had the privilege to have driven across the United States many times, meeting hundreds of my IRC #41plus friends. Dated a few. Brought one home.
We all had nicknames and that's what we called one another. It was interesting that when we moved away from IRC into other social media, we didn't know one another. On Facebook we have real names...who are you, we would ask? Hi! I'm "pollyanna." I'm "Lman." I'm "kammie." I'm "nolte." Not until THEN did we know with whom we were chatting :)
I do miss those carefree online24seven days laughing and chatting and private messaging with such a diverse group of people. But the friendships live on. When driving down I-5 I try to meet up with kam and Lman. Heading east, I try to visit whomever is on my route. I keep up with amsel and Camie and Citrox, with JimCat and Miranda and Moochie. So many more.
Back in the early-mid 90s, there was nothing more exciting than to hear that modem squawk as it connected to the Internet on dial-up. Every time I heard that connect I would think, "A new adventure awaits!"
Like many other cities worldwide, Portland Oregon brings in a gorgeous locally grown fir tree and sets it up smack dab in the middle of downtown. The tree, which is in the middle of Pioneer Courthouse Square, is a 75 foot Douglas fir donated by the Stimson Lumber Company, located just a few miles west of the city. Like other cities, we have a huge lighting ceremony that starts the holiday season. Nothing weird about this... What makes Portland different than most cities is that it had something else decorating the square as the tree was being decorated. It is something that I doubt hangs around Trafalgar Square in London.
We had a giant blow-up Poop emoji.
Yes, you read that correctly. A beautiful giant blow-up poop emoji, with a little movie theater and information inside.
According to the Oregonian, the "big brown inflatable spectacle, provided and organized by Poo-Pourri,
was designed in part to support World Toilet Day, an international
annual event that works to drive attention towards the global sanitation
crisis."
I didn't know there was a World Toilet Day.
A giant inflatable poop emoji was sitting in what we consider "Portland's Living Room," which perhaps could be considered a different room from now on.... A giant inflatable pooh in our downtown is simply one more way we are keeping Portland weird.
