Shop Hop Preparations & Father's Day

Emma and I worked on covering up her cork board that was covered with graffiti...she was obsessed with a particular anime and scrawled the names of all the characters on it in black magic marker.  I knew that she would eventually outgrow it, and I had this project in mind to cover the cork when she realized the error in tattooing the names of these fictitious characters on the board.  I dug through my stash gave her a choice of several Japanese-inspired fabrics, and she chose this one.  I also had her pick out a spool of ribbon from the craft store, which I strung it across, stapled the edges, and pinned it at the intersections.  The one thing I might have done differently is adding a little batting behind the fabric to make it a little more poofy, but otherwise I like the way it turned out.  When she grows tired of this fabric, I can easily remove it and replace it with another color and pattern of her choosing.  If she hasn't torn or tattooed this fabric, I can cut it into small squares and make it into a quilt later (I fully suspect that it'll have holes all over it from pinning and re-pinning).  I'll have to find her some more pins so she can attach more things to it, but in the meantime, she can tuck photos and papers into the ribbons.

I've been working on making quilt blocks for a baby quilt.   I was invited to a baby shower that is going on this coming weekend, but since this weekend is Shop Hop, I already have other plans.  I want to finish it up and have Kelly deliver it to the party on Saturday.  It's one of them new-fangled co-ed parties, so we were both invited.  I had found a quick-and-dirty method for making these Arrowhead blocks, but after making a pair of them, decided I didn't like having bias edges on the blocks, so I re-drafted the pieces and made the rest with quarter-square cuts.  I made two of each of these blocks, but then decided that I didn't want to repeat any of the fabrics in the top, so I had to make a few more to make 16 pairs blocks (32 total) and will be able to make two baby quilts. Now I can have a second baby quilt ready for the next expectant mama.  I'll probably take the leftover fabrics and use them in a scrappy border, but I'm not sure what I'm going to do for a stopper border...I think it needs to be something solid, or tone-on-tone, and I'm thinking it might need to be dark...maybe not black, but dark blue...or maybe cream or white.  I want it to be bright and cheerful, and black can set it off quite nicely, but I also don't want the black to make it dark...I'll have to interview some fabrics and decide what looks best.


Somewhere around here I've got some photos on a camera...Cammie's camera...I just have to find it and download them so I can share our weekend adventures at the family reunion.  By then it'll be old news, but there are some gems on there, I'm sure.  Part of our family adventure included me misplacing my debit card.  The last time I used it was at a fast food restaurant on the way home, and I haven't seen it since.  I'm thinking that either I dropped it in the car and haven't found it, or the guy at the drive-thru didn't give it back to me.  In any case, I called the bank and they verified that it hasn't been used since that date, so I cancelled it and went down to pick up a new one.  Easy enough.  I thought I'd have to wait days and days for it to arrive in the mail, but was told that my bank has the ability to make them up right then and there.  Magic!


While waiting in line to take care of this little piece of business, a little girl in front of me says, "Hi Mrs. [last name omitted]".  Turns out it was little Brittany from Ben's class.  She asked me to say hi to Ben, which was very sweet.  :)


Father's day was a hectic event...we watched Men in Black 2 on TV in the morning in preparation for seeing MIB3 at the theatre.  We got to the theatre with a good 30 minutes to spare, but the 2:00 movie was already sold out, so we got tickets for the 5:00 showing.  That gave us quite a bit of time for bumming around, getting some ice cream and candy, and a little window shopping.  Kelly picked up a copy of Seattle Weekly, which features an article about our local Evildoer, Rex Velvet.  He's the answer to the "superheroes" in Seattle, which he refers to as "silly nerds in tights".  He has a following and makes great You Tube videos.  Very amusing!


After the movie got out, we stopped at the store really quick, picked up some steaks and cooked them in the oven (of course it was raining), and before the dinner was even done, I started having blood sugar problems...I rarely have this kind of sensation, but I was shaky and had to sit down.  I figured it was just because it had been since noon that I ate, and it was just a granola bar at that...just didn't have enough fuel left to keep me going.  I had a few pita chips with some cheese on it and half a glass of milk, Kelly took over cooking and we finally sat down to eat at about 8 pm.  By the time dinner was over, I was feeling much better.


It's going to be a busy week with a lot of driving.  It looks like it will be just Linda and I, with Cammie and Lauri joining us one day each.  We plan on stopping at all 53 shops on the hop over four days...it'll be an adventure!  Maybe we can have dinner with a very good friend or two in Vancouver when we get down into that neck of the woods...