Under a Blue Moon

Two color quilt challenge

In what can only be described as a moment of utter lunacy I signed up for my sister Nicole’s two color quilt challenge. Maybe I misread the guidelines but I’m pretty sure I read that the finished quilts were to be unveiled on August 1st. I just didn’t realize that meant THIS YEAR.

I better pick up the pace. We are supposed to post our progress on the first day of each month so I have just under two weeks to do what? Does pulling the fabric out and piling up on my dining room table count as progress?

I’ve decided to do a pale blue and cream two color quilt. I think I may take out the fabrics with a lot of coral in them – I’ll wait and see how it’s shaping up when I get the pieces cut out and a block made.

And for full disclosure I will be making a quilted tabletopper – not a full sized quilt. My attention span can only handle crib sized quilts and tabletoppers.

I love that Acorn Quilt pattern. I hope it’s not too ambitious for me.

This fabric has been curing for a couple of years now. I’m going to have to try to find a few more fat quarters of pale blue fabrics to round it out a bit more.

Haunted strawberry house

We have driven past this house hundreds of times over the years. The kids in the family called it the haunted strawberry house because it was surrounded by strawberry fields and there is a strawberry stand just a few hundred feet to the right.

It’s actually called the Redman House. It was built in the 1890’s for a man named James Redman. In the 1930’s the house and surrounding property was sold to a prominant Japanese family.

During a very ugly, never talked about phase in our American history the family was shipped off to internment camps. They somehow managed to hang onto the house and returned to it after WW II.

I don’t know when it fell into such disrepair. It was red tagged by the county after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake but a group of investors bought the house and land and have had plans ever since to restore it. They aren’t making very quick progress.

I’m always a little surprised to see it still standing when I drive by.

I was trying to get a shot of the Castroville sign without a port-a-potty in the picture but the traffic was heavy because of the yearly artichoke festival. If you love artichokes thank a Castrovillian.

We had a really fine day of driving through Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. We wanted to check out an area called Corralitos. We just drove semi aimlessly. Where ever the road took us.

We ended up Nicki’s house were she had an absolutely divine dinner. I can’t wait to recreate it myself. She served grilled chicken with buffalo wing type marinade, served with a blue cheese sauce and salad made with fresh, grilled corn, tomatoes and avocado. It was very Summery and delicious.

She could have just rested on her laurels at that point but she finished the meal with a lemon icebox pie that we ate out on the patio, watching the stars come out.

It really was a perfect weekend.

Roadtrip

Rick and I decided to escape the heat and take a weekend drive near the shore. We are going to head out early on Saturday morning (alas – not in the car pictured above. That belongs to my brother in law Doug. We’ll be in my standard issue, very boring Honda) and go over the Santa Cruz mountains and wend our way behind Freedom and Watonsville in an area called Corralitos.

We are still on the prowl for areas to live closer to the ocean and our loved ones. Of course the housing market decided to be uncooperative so we’ve delayed our plans a bit but we are still looking, getting the lay of the land, so to speak.

This is where I hope to have lunch:

This is the view from the outside eating area at Seascape.

After our drive (and perhaps a stop or two at some favorite shops) we are going to head over to my sister’s house where we will have a wonderful meal and spend the night. Maybe sit outside and look at the stars.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Links

I’ve decided to make a change on how I manage my links on the sidebar.

When I first started this blog I used my list of links more like my own personal favorites (like you have with your browser) rather than a way to share other sites with anyone visiting here. I have found that lately there are many blogs that I visit regularly that haven’t made it to my list – mostly because I’m too lazy to update it regularly.

I remember how thrilled and validated I felt the first time I saw my own blog listed on another blogger’s list of links. I must have gone to her site ten times a day just to see my little blog name in print. Imagine my chagrin when after about two days she removed it. Talk about deflated.

What I am going to do is list reciprocal links. If you give me the honor of listing my blog on your list of links then I want to return the favor.

The links listed now are the ones I know about – if you have me listed and you don’t see your blog listed please leave me a comment or drop me an email and I’ll add you. I find that I discover some great new blogs (to me anyway) from comments left here.

I have them broken out it categories that are pretty self-explanatory. Bon Vivants is where I put blogs like mine – that cover a multitude of topics. And look at Gourmands – poor Mimi must be pretty lonely out there, all by herself. If you have a food oriented blog let me know!

I think there are a ton of wonderful, lesser known blogs out there that we are missing out on. I’m hoping that this will shine a little light on them.

Beach glass

Seaglass always gives off an aura of its watery origins; cool, calm colors, undefined edges. Scoop up a handful and hold it up next to your ear and you can almost hear the gentle lapping of waves.

My youngest likes to take off by himself and head to a secret spot somewhere north of Santa Cruz and south of Half Moon Bay and spend a few, solitary hours in the meditative process of gathering seaglass.

He has quite a collection of it – it would probably fill a half gallon milk carton. I keep urging him to experiment with jewelry making but for now he is content just to gather and admire.

In the meantime, while I wait for his creative spark to fire (or for him to get tired of me going on about it), I’ve discovered one of my online friends has an Etsy shop, KahiliCreations with designs, while not made from seaglass, evoke the same calm, cool, watery essence.

Her work stands on its own but she has gone one step further and given each a name, in Hawaiian, that perfectly descibes the piece.

Can’t you practically feel the sand between your toes?

Edited to add: Whoops! My bad – I posted a link to a contest that was over long ago in March. I thought it was May. I need to slow down….

Well. Where did the time go?

This is the state of my ~~studio~~ kitchen at the moment. I have an assembly line going to create the rest of the tags and I’ve taken over the entire counter. I just have to apply the embellishments on the tags so I’m in the home stretch.

I don’t know why I took a week off posting. Work was at a crescendo this week, which is part of the reason. The other reason is, well, crafting failure. Takes the wind right out of my blogging sails.

Last year I saw a beautiful frame at Anthropologie. It was dove grey with white, raised scrolly designs on it. It was really pretty (comes in yellow and green too, I think). It was out of my price range but it kept thinking about it. Then I decided to see if I could recreate it.

I went to Ross. I know! And found a likely candidate for $8.99.

This frame is a wee bit more dimensional than the Anthropologie frame – which had more of a two dimensional look to it. But what the heck, it’s only $8.99.

So I painted it grey. Then tried to paint the raised bits white. I wish I had taken a picture. Let’s just say it didn’t work out. It was hard to know where to put the white and where not to.

I decided to try something out of my comfort and normal decorating zone and repaint it turquoise. I saw a picture of an ornate building in some Carribean country and wanted to recreate that vibe.

Umm. No.

We just aren’t turquoise people around here.

Thank goodness it’s just paint. I still wanted to elevate this dumb old frame to something other than it’s typical, baroque origins. So I decided red.

Maybe not.

Sheesh – can we just get a breeze around here?

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