A Bit of Everything

This is a blog with a couple of different topics. Most of it is about a trip we had to make yesterday. Our dear daughter-in-law and son own property south of Seattle and we went down to have a look at it between renters. This gives us a chance to go south of Seattle. They used to live down there. Our Grandson lived there till he was almost 4 so there are tons of happy memories!! To get to their condo, you pass throught one of my favorite Washington towns. It reminds me a bit of New England! I hope you enjoy seeing a bit more of the lovely NW.

This is a variegated thrush. It is new to the feeder this year. I think it has beautiful colors!

We are still in the Tacoma area. This is the Narrows Bridge and a view from the little sea-food shack where we enjoy having lunch.

Great fried sea food- not gourmet but tasty!

This is looking out of the window of the restaurant. All the pilings had sea birds sitting on them.

Here is one of my favorite houses.

I love the house and look at the view from the front porch!!!

Here is the backyard. Because it is near the water, the plants are almost a month ahead of the ones in my yard!

Main Street of Steilacoom.

Here's my second favorite house in the little town. This type of house is very unusual in the Seattle area or at least the part I have seen.

This is definitely not pretty but it has fun memories! This is where we took Caleb for ice cream.

We spent many happy hours at the beach. A train track runs through it and Caleb called it the Choo-choo train beach. His third birthday party was held here.
Thanks for taking a look and have a very happy St. Patrick's Day. A nearby brewery has wonderful corned beef and cabbage plus great beer! That's where we are headed for dinner!

Moss,Moss,Everywhere

Those of us in the Pacific NW who listen to National news have been hearing about the warm weather in many parts of the country. Now, I moved out here to escape heat so I'm not complaining. However, our winter seems never-ending . Yesterday we had snow. In fact a two lane highway on the west side of Hood Canal had to close for a few hours as it was not safe for driving. The mountains are full of snow-lots of severe avalanche warnings! For a rare treat, the sun has come out for a few hours. I decided to take the camera outside and take a few photos. Now I can't compete with some of the lovely spring flowers I have seen on blogs so I decided to celebrate our most infamous plant-MOSS.

Here is a view of the mossy forest from our deck.

This is my witch hazel now bare of flowers but still pretty thanks to the moss!

Two varieties on one plant!

I think this is really quite lovely!

Another variety

Three kinds in a small area!

This is the trunk of a maple tree.

Last but not least,even the street has a lovely green carpet.
Thanks for taking a look and have a great Fri.

Spring/Easter Woolpets

If you have followed my blog for any length of time ,you will have seen my Woolpets. These are all designed and made by my talented artistic daughter, Laurie. She and her husband Kevin have a great business called ,"Woolpets." As I have said before, Kevin is the business part and Laurie is the artist. Right now she is devoting her time to illustrating a children's alphabet book. (You can see it at the blog Hazel Basil Pudding Pie). In my attempt to get spring going here, I got out all my spring decorating things. Of course, that means my spring /Easter Woolpets. I hope you enjoy seeing them. I love decorating with them!!

The white wool for this sheep came from Laurie's real sheep named Hazel!

I used this adorable little bunny in a spring blog header last year.

He is my newest addition to my white bunny collection!
Thanks Laurie! I love you! Mom
Thanks for taking a look and hope your week is going well. Today we had rain, sleet,snow, and sun all in one day!!!

New Project

After much indecision I finally got my feeble mind to decide my next cross stitch project. I have spent a lot of time on The Scarlett Letter's Rebecca Robinson. It seems that every time I started to work on it, I found something else to do(all my little Easter squares!) I finally admitted to myself that I just didn't like the colors that she chose. I had sacrificed a huge piece of linen to this project , plus the SBA kept saying how much he liked it. One day I just admitted to myself that I was not enjoying this!!!!!! I think I learned a great lesson. Even when you do a reproduction, YOU have to like the colors. I'm not saying that applies to everyone. Some folks can do a reproduction and stick to it for the historic integrity-that's not me I guess! Well, I got an OOP Sheepish Designs on Ebay and I'm loving it. It's called " From Every Mountainside." I'm seriously thinking of doing a wall of patriotic projects because I'm drawn to them. I also have Sheepish Designs ,"Betsy" that I want to do. So I'm finally off that stuck place and happily stitching away. I remember Edgar's advice( at Blacksheep's Bit Of the Web") this is a hobby, you have to enjoy what you are doing!! Thanks Edgar for the reminder!

I'm being very careful with the colors and changing any that I don't like.

I used a dark Navy for the first border and a soft gold for the second. The linen is antique white.For some reason , there are lots of shadows.

This is a very interesting read. I guess you could say it's the Civil War from the perspective of the women. I like her quilting stories best when they have a historic component.
Well, thanks for taking a look and I wish you all a great week ahead. We are still very cold and wintery!!!! The SBA just said, " Hey, it's snowing!" My flowers are just sitting and waiting for some sun and warmth!

Snow and a little Northwest town

The first photo shows you what we got up to this morning. The snow was a sign of how chilly it was,but we had glorious strong sunshine so by now most of the snow is gone. I needed some linen to start my next project so we headed up to a little town called Port Gamble. A great quilt store up there is trying to meet the needs of cross stitchers and carries great linen and several kinds of floss. It is one of the oldest towns near Seattle. It is kind of odd in that you can not own a house in the historic area. You can only rent. The town is in a beautiful spot near the water. That's because it was an important lumbering town years ago. The town was modeled on a New England village. I hope you enjoy the photos!

Here's my garden!!

This sign gives you a bit of history about the town.

This is in front of The Dauntless Bookstore. Many old houses have been converted to shops and small businesses.

Love that picket fence!

Notice the pretty view in back of this house.

Love that trim!

Many weddings are held here in the summer.

Here is the view I was referring to.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this delightful little town . It's about 20 minutes from our home. We feel very lucky! Thanks for taking a look!

The Sewing Expo

Last week my dear daughter and I went to a sewing expo. This is a very well known event and people come from quite far away. Here was the problem for us. As for me, there were very little if any, needlework supplies. I'm not that much of a seamstress! I do sew for my home, pillows , bed skirts , etc. but that is about it and only when necessary. Laurie is a wool-felting artist. She was looking for things she could use in her designs and really didn't find anything. There were several great trim booths but you had to know exactly what you wanted. The event was a quilters paradise! It was extremely crowded!!!! We did have a nice day together so that was worth the trip. We decided that we will probably skip it next year.

Now in Washington, any event that is held at the Fairgrounds sells these yummy scones! We resisted!

Here are a few of my purchases. I never tried this but thought I might like to use this for trim. It can be dyed.

Looks easy!! We'll see!!!

Vintage ribbon in a color I love.

This was my favorite booth. They had tons of these great ceramic buttons. There were some for Halloween that were wonderful. I loved the spider ones. I have some ceramic Halloween buttons that I haven't used so I decided to wait on those. I can use these for my summer decorating. I have her card so I can order more.

Thanks for taking a look and have a great week!