Here in Oregon

Well, its raining. Surprise!

The wall work is progressing with the help of a tarp, but I am hearing mutterings about being behind schedule, and old muscles not enduring the work push as well as they might.
The grandkids, kids, food and hospitality is great. We will probably gain a few pounds as we do each time we come and stay. I so admire my daughters boundless energy and wish that I still had a larger portion of the same.

Yesterday, while Em was taking AL to the rock climbing class, she dropped me off at a quilt shop near Rei. This is a great quilt shop ( aren't the majority of quilt shops great?) because it has a different variety of stuff than I am used to looking at and I have suddenly decided that I need a key fabric for that vintage print, something that I just haven't seen yet.

Well, the weather ruined those plans. The shop was still closed since the last storm, awaiting power restoration. So out of sympathy, Em ran me by "Piece by Piece" quilt store near the University. 15 min mom! We had the whole gang due over for dinner that night.

Now it is really difficult to walk through a favorite eye candy, fabric store, with both eyes squinted trying not to see anything that was not in the shades of color that I am seeking. Oh, me. And I didn't find the shades of colors I wanted. Probably because they are slightly older colors than what are being used right now. So I grabbed a couple of new patterns and ran back to the car. I had fell in love with the shops "Steam Punk" quilt that they are doing a class on, so had to have that pattern and there was a nifty cut one from Sew Kind of Wonderful that caught my eye and would expand my use of the template that I have already bought.

Now, friends, I am begging to go back to the shop and buy a template that I barely glanced at yesterday, to use with Steam Punk.This is a Jen Kingwell design that makes me WANT to tackle my scrap mess and cut it up into some great body parts!

Tomorrow we head to the beach. It is on a rain cycle there and that is fine. Water belongs on a beach and if it gets alittle stormy, that would be great too. We are looking forward to the "Driftin" with live music, great food and relaxing. And I will probably wrangle a stop at a quilt shop that sees me every time I see that section of coast at Florence. Think I will leave my wallet in the car though and just take a designated handfull of cash inside while I do a quick browse. Its a small shop, but I always, always find stuff there.