Not The Lazy Days of Summer

our private road

First of all, it barely seems like summer here in the Northwest.  Our temps so far have only hit the mid 80's but we're supposed to hit 89 by the end of the week.  Mostly, we've been in the 70's.  Great weather if you aren't trying to grow tomatoes which like warm soil.  I gave up on tomatoes a long time ago... we just don't have the sun and even on the sunny days, the trees around us are too tall to let the sun hit the ground and warm up the tomato plants. My family in Idaho has great tomato weather.

It's been really busy (in addition to a recovering husband), I hosted a jewelry sale for Apparent Project at Rubystreet Quiltworks a while back on a Friday and thanks to the pre-Christmas shoppers, we made $526 toward the jewelry project in Haiti.

design walls with Haitian paper bead necklaces

The jewelry is made from paper and cardboard and is really pretty amazing.  You can see the paper tags hanging on some of the pieces, each tag has a photo and information about the artisan who made the jewelry.  The Project is all about providing income opportunities so parents can take care of their children and break the cycle of poverty.  The Apparent Project is awesome and very close to my heart.  Someday will be the right time to visit Haiti but in the meantime, I'm pleased to be able to wear and sell the jewelry!  You can check them out online, apparentproject.org or check out markethaiti.com which sells for Apparent Project and also features other products made in Haiti. 

The following day, I did a class at The Quilters' Junction in Centralia, WA which was a Christmas in July sort of project.

Jester Bags

I love these little bags, they make great gifts anytime and 2 fat quarters will make two bags.  I've been making these about 15 years since a woman in England gave me one filled with lavender.

Anyway, over the following two days, I did three applique classes followed by an all-day machine quilting class a couple days later.  I did have one class which cancelled due to only one sign-up but other than that it's been one class after another.  Unusual for me.  But as I was pushing to finish up samples for a couple more classes at Rubystreet, my main sewing machine totally quit on me so today I got to make a 'nice' drive into Olympia and then up to Puyallup to drop it off at a machine dealer/fixer.  When I drive up there, it reminds me of why I live where I do.  I'm really amazed at how people drive on Meridian, a main drag in Puyallup.  Years ago, there used to be a bumper sticker you'd see once in  a while which said, "Pray for me, I drive on Meridian!" and that was back before the traffic got worse.  I was glad to get home.

Anyway, the picture above shows a little bit of what I come home to... it's a remodeled shed which was originally planned to be a teaching space but it never worked out... my husband sold the travel trailer that used to sit off to the left and when the trailer was sold, my bathroom was gone and you can't teach most middle aged to older women without a bathroom closeby.  Mostly it just didn't work because of my location out in the boondocks.  I'm only 20 miles or so from Olympia and for us that's close.  My husband worked at Boeing in Seattle for years and drove over a hundred miles a day.  It's pretty much heaven here.

this was taken after walking Maggie up our road... our house is on the left

Peaceful.  A good time to get caught up on the hand-work.