Quilt maker Block Party Portland

Last fall, in the midst of putting the house on the market, starting the building of our new home, and who knows what else, I was talked into attending QuiltMaker's Block Party in Portland. At the time I had no idea where we might be living when March rolled around or if we might even be in the midst of moving but the lure of being able to attend one of Bonnie Hunter's classes led me to caving and attending. I am SO GLAD that I did!
Wednesday morning saw us literally stuffing the back of the Toyota with everything that two quilters would need for three days of classes. It was almost an embarrassing amount of stuff and neither one of us thought to take a picture. The weather going down was horrible. We went through several large cloudbursts with rain so heavy you couldn't see. Add to that, I was driving the Bearded One's car which I don't drive very often and the windshield wipers work completely opposite of my car! Needless to say, we finally arrived, managed to check in despite the fact they had lost our reservation and then braved Portland's rush hour traffic to make a quick stop at quilter's Mecca, Fabric Depot. Everything in the entire store was 30% off. EVERYTHING! I think the recent checks I have written for retaining walls and fencing had some influence on me. I only spent $36 -- a new record for me in that store. It probably helps that we only gave ourselves one hour as we had to get back for the evening lecture and trunk show which was Bonnie's.
I took classes from Julie Herman, Gudrun Erla and Bonnie Hunter . What fun they all were. Julie Herman's Hex N' More ruler is brilliant. You can cut 4 different shapes in 4 different sizes. I foresee using this ruler a lot. Gudrun's class was a lot of fun and wow! Between all her patterns, books and fabric lines, I have no idea how she does it all. Then there was Bonnie's class, what can I say? She is simply amazing. Such a fun teacher, so generous and helpful. I'm really looking forward to cruising to Alaska with her this summer.
All of the sponsors for Block Party were beyond generous. We started off with a tote bag full of goodies and each day we were gifted with yet more goodies. One of those fat quarter bundles are Kaffe Fassett. The other is Ty Pennington and all sorts of other fun stuff. I can't wait to cut into some of this...after the big move which is now scheduled for the week of April 22nd.

On Friday I saw something in the local Safeway grocery store that I just had to have. On Saturday I went back to get him and to my delight he was even on sale. I brought him into Bonnie's class, Winston Ways and he quickly became our mascot and block model. He was also dubbed Winston in honor of the quilt we were working on. Here he is at home meeting Arlo, a.k.a the other Spotted One.

Almost There

Well, the house is nearly complete. Here it is before the garage doors and front door have been painted. The garage doors will be the same lighter gray that's in the peaks. The front door will be a nice dark wine red. At least that's what the color chip looked like that I passed along to the builder.

The interior is being worked on now. We haven't been over to actually see the house in a few weeks but have been told the cabinets are in and the granite counters were supposed to be going in this week or next.

Our next big expense is outside. We had to have retaining walls built between our home and the property next door as the builder had to dig down more than he anticipated. This left a 5 ft. difference in elevation between the two lots. We needed the retaining walls before we could install the fence to contain a certain Spotted One.




The wall between our house and the neighbor to our north. The property line is above the wall.


The wall wraps around to the back with a second one helping out the steepest portion of the backyard slope. Between the retaining walls and the fence which is next up, we are now calling the Spotted One our $13k dog.

I'm eagerly looking forward to getting over there in a couple weeks to see everything for myself. The sewing room floor is done but the pictures that were sent to me aren't worth sharing.

Our actual move is scheduled for the week of April 22nd. I'm SO looking forward to finally being able to unpack and get settled for good.