Category: Aboriginal Fabric

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A Little Herding, a Little Conversation, A Little Wensleydale Sewing


Rico had his weekly sheep herding lesson down in Molalla at my friend Trudy’s place today… where we helped with lambing a few weeks ago. It was a new experience for him as he got to work in a great big field with hills and valleys, lots of trees and sheep he’s never seen before. And he did a great job.

Here’s a little bit of video from Rico’s working today.

I’m so happy with how his driving is coming along. That’s when he moves the sheep away from me. He’s looking so good and it’s so fun to see him so cool and collected, and to see all this training coming together so nicely.

I have him entered in another sheep herding trial next weekend. It will be fun to see how he does.

When we got home a co-worker came over with her dog for a play date. We had some unexpected, frank and very interesting conversation. It’s a coworker I don’t know very well and don’t have much opportunity to interact with. It was really good to get to have this conversation. I’m looking forward to more.

After grabbing an early dinner since we missed lunch, I headed out with the boys for a three mile walk. It was warm but cloudy. I had on a long sleeve t-shirt with a sweatshirt over the top and it was too much! We definitely have a change in the weather on the way.

I had really hoped we’d actually have a little bit of spring before summer arrived.

After giving the boys some dinner I sat down on the sofa and found myself nodding off. I kind of went with it for a while and then decided I needed to get my butt up and sew three more Wensleydale blocks before I was out cold. Why three? Because that would put me at 50 blocks done.

So I hit my sewing room and sewed up the final three lighter batik blocks that I kitted up last week.

I pulled the rest of the blocks off my design wall and stacked them up in sets of 10 so I can keep track and know when I have 60 blocks.

So, that means I have ten more blocks to sew. I think I’m going to toss all these blocks up on my retractible design wall tomorrow to see if I need to make more dark blocks or more light blocks. I’m pretty sure it still needs more dark blocks to go with all these light blocks I’ve been making.

I’m going to remove the paper from six blocks that are waiting… as soon as I finish this blog post. I calculated the other night that it takes me about four minutes to remove the paper from one block. I’ll finish these up as I watch some pickleball tonight.

I was tidying up my living room last night and realized that I had never taken some Australian Aboriginal fabrics out of the box they were delivered in. I bought these online a couple of months ago.

I have no idea where I’m going to put them. The plastic bins that hold my Aboriginal fabrics are already too full.

After a good night sleep and a walk with the boys in the morning, I’ll be off to play a couple hours of pickleball!

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Aboriginal Fabric 16-Patch Half-Way Complete

(I’m back from tech issues! This post is from Friday night)

It was cold again today in Portland. Crisp and cold. Our snow is still fluffy and many of the roads are icy. They have cleared the freeways, for the most part and traffic is flowing again.

My visiting friend lives in a place that got around 14 inches of snow over the last few days. People there are already back to normal. So she’s having a hard time adjusting to what happens in Portland with about a third of that amount. She had a store and restaurant that she was ready to go to today. I suggested that we should call first to see if they were open. And, as I predicted, they were both closed! She thought this was astounding. Yup. Snow storms are very different here.

The good thing about the cold weather after a snow storm is that the snow on the ground stays nice and fluffy, which is good news for dogs. I didn’t get them out for a walk today because we were out and about and because the roads were too slick for me to be walking on. So we played in the back yard instead.

I think they enjoyed themselves.

That Rico takes his play very seriously. Bender, on the other hand…

We stayed home a good portion of the day today, but we did venture out. We want to the grocery store and then dropped by the mall again to buy some curtains for my bedroom. There weren’t very many people out and about and some of the roads were really icy and slick.

Once we got home we hunkered down and decided that we were going to get the first five rows of the 16 patch quilt all sewn together and in one piece. And we did it!

I just love seeing all these blocks sewn together. It takes it from a bunch of blocks to something really fantastic! We made a big old piece of amazing fabric!

My friend went through the blocks and made sure all the seams were going the same direction in each row… alternating direction in each subsequent row. This insures that the seams will nest nicely and the corners will be perfect!

Case in point…

Look at all those beautiful corners! Thanks to Wanda at Exuberant Color for her fool proof tutorial! Here’s a direct link to Wanda’s tutorial for making a 16 patch.

A little more eye candy…

We pulled the remaining 5 rows off the design wall after clearly marking each row.

I pinned all these rows and my friend pressed them all. We took turns sewing. I actually love pinning all these seams. I pin every place where two seams meet. I absolutely love the feeling when those nested seams make that little soft click when they nest. It’s almost mediative to me. And I love all the precision that nesting makes possible.

While we were at the grocery store today we bought everything we needed to make rock fish tacos for dinner. They were pretty tasty!

I don’t have a recipe. I basically pan fry the rock fish with some Penny’s Northwood Spice rub. Then I add pickled onions (lots of recipes for these online), some simple coleslaw with a vinaigrette, and a little cheese in a corn tortilla. We topped these off with some home made hot sauce my sister in law gave me. So tasty!!! And enough fish left over that we can have another dinner of rock fish tacos!

Tomorrow we are planning on heading out again on a more adventurous post storm trip… Battle Ground for Rico’s weekly sheep herding lesson, and we’ll be getting ready for his competition on Sunday!

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Too Tired to Finish

I’m so close to having this Aboriginal Frankenbag done, but I’m just too tired to do the final finishing. All I have left to do is sew in the lining and top stitch the top of the bag. The handles are from the darker faux leather I purchased.

I like to have a nice finish at the top of the bag… even sewing, nice pressing, and even top stitching. If you go to all the trouble of making a nice bag and then make a mess of the final piece that is the most visible, all the care is for naught. I’m so tired from a stressful week of work that I decided to stop at this point and finish it up tomorrow night when I’m more fresh.

Here’s the back of this bag:

That’s the lining under the bag. I just love that print! This fabric is left over from a backing I made for my Social Distancing quilt. That blog post shows the lining. This one shows the quilt top.

I just love these Aboriginal fabrics. The designs are so intricate and free form, and the colors are amazing. I might have to keep this one. But then I say that with every one I make!

Look at some of the fun little details in these fabrics.

I switched up the quilting on this one a little. I still did the match stick quilting at the top of the bag because I like the structure it brings. But I did the body of the bag with straight line quilting, spaced about 3.8 inch apart.

Tomorrow (Friday) is Bender’s eighth birthday! I can’t believe that I’m already seeing his face turn white. He felt very special today as he was the only dog who got to go with me on our two walks. Rico tweaked his back at our agility lesson last night and had to stay home by himself. He was not happy about this situation! I will cook a peanut butter, carrot and honey birthday cake for him tomorrow night. Rico will get some too.

Facebook fed me this memory of my Parson Russell Terriers Forrest (left) and Skeeter yesterday. Look how cute they were! This photo was taken shortly before Bender was born. We were anxiously waiting for news that a boy border collie was born and would be on his way to us!

I lost my magnificent Forrest about 3.5 years ago when he was 14.5 years old. I loved that dog like I’ll never love another dog. Skeeter is living with a friend of mine on Vashon Island, Washington. She has a pretty amazing life and is thriving.

I went out this afternoon to check on my apple tree and was happy to see some really healthy looking buds.

This tree can be really hit and miss on how much fruit it produces. Two summers ago I was buried in apples. I just couldn’t keep up. I was making a batch of apple sauce and a dehydrator full of apple slices every evening and still couldn’t keep up. Last year I barely had any apples.

I had my yard guy prune this tree way back a few weeks ago. But he left me a couple branches that are the ones that usually bear the most fruit. So I’m hopeful that I’ll have a reasonable amount of apples this year.

Look at the amazing weather we have coming up. It would normally be raining at this time of year. I actually had to water a portion of my lawn this afternoon.