Go West (Blaine, WA)

We have moved from central Washington to the west side of the Cascades.  Going over the North Cascades highway never gets tiresome.  Of course, we have only gone through this mountain pass a couple of times.

North Cascades Highway

We spent a couple of weeks in Concrete, WA.  We enjoyed eating at a few of their restaurants and viewing the first and longest all-concrete bridge built in 1918.  I could not get a good photo so click on the bridge link to see a photo.

Concrete's Historic Byway

Concrete is a small town not too far from Sedro-Woolley where they were celebrating "Blast From The Past" with a car show, a downtown street festival, a quilt show, and many other activities.  We could not have asked for nicer weather to enjoy the outdoors.

Despite the sunny day, I preferred the indoor activities a lot more.  I did mention a quilt show, right?

The "Blast of Baskets" quilt show was put together by Woolley Fiber Quilters (love their name!).  They did a fantastic job of displaying over 200 quilts inside the Three Rivers Inn Restaurant.

Not a whole lot of floor space, but enough to be comfortable for viewing quilts and taking photos. 

 It was hard to take straight on photos of the larger quilts, but I managed from different angles to get most of the quilt into the frame.

I'm posting only a small amount of the quilts that I enjoyed viewing.   To see more quilts, click on the Woolley Fibers Quilter's link above.

 I love this "COW-LENDAR".  I spent some time looking at each cow.  My favorite was the June Bride.

Below is the People's Choice.  I can see why.  Beautiful color combo and applique!

You know that I love to do most of my work by hand, so I really liked the little 'Hand' displayed on the name and description tag.  It made it a lot easier to find the handmade over machine work.

I wish I could have got better photos of the following embroidered quilts.  It was a little dark in this area.  I was so surprised to see the same pattern I had bought hanging in front of me!  While getting my nose close to the stitches (forgot my eyeglasses) and discussing the quilt with another guest, the assistant mentioned there was a second one further down the row in blue.  She could not decide which one she liked better.

Not just one, but two "A to Zzzz Snowman" Quilts!  Oh My!  I got stuck in my own loop when I kept going back and forth between the two.  Which one did I like better?

I finally took a photo of both to put them side by side when I got home.  I still can't say.  How about you?  Do you like one more than the other?  I love both of them, but for me to make this quilt in only one color would be a major challenge so I will stick with my multi-colors.  By the way, I have only finished the "A" block.  I have a lot of embroidery to do before this one is finished.

It is bad enough that I already own two quilt patterns with detailed snowmen to embroider.  Then I saw this one.  Isn't it adorable?

It is probably a good thing that I have not been able to find this pattern online.  The quilter named her quilt "I Can Build a Snowman".  So far, I haven't had any luck finding these cute guys online.

I like the way the quilter added sparkling snowflakes into her quilting.  It looks like they are falling all around the snowman.  I never thought to quilt over the embroidered design, but it seems to work quite well with this quilt.

On The Cutting Board
While in Concrete, I finished a few more Happy Campers.  The first one I finished was a custom made for a wonderful Camp Host back in Crescent Bar.  We used some fabric that she was using to decorate her motorhome.  Her sample fabric is a lovely piece with a fruit orchard theme with many colors.  We had no problem matching fabric colors from my limited stash.

I wanted to represent Florida in some of my Happy Campers so I came up with this design with a Flamingo and a palm tree.  The aqua stripes with the pink polka dot came out the best.  Now, I wish I had bought more than a fat quarter of this fabric.  I have just enough for one more in this size and a top for another camper.

Of course, the blue and yellow one looks pretty good as well.  Reminds me more of the sunny hot days of Florida.

I also made two new horse trailers.  Here's one of them.

And another bear with a dreamcatcher.  I was lost as to what I should make with this dark chocolate fabric.  I think I finally found the perfect match for it.

I plan to list the new Happy Campers in Etsy this week.  In the meantime, I am trying to finish a few UFOs that have been taking up space.  Time to get them done!
Happy Quilting!