Category: Uncategorized

It’s Sunday night and the weekend is over. Why do weekends go so fast but week days can drag on and on?

Yesterday morning I took Rico for his herding lesson and he was brilliant as ever. Then I met a friend at a local fabric store so I could pick up a piece of fabric that a friend wanted me to get for her.

After that I decided to take the boys for a run in the field that has the creek running along it. I almost drove right home but decided since we were already up in the area we should just drop by before we hit the road . They had a blast running and running and diving into the creek to cool off.

Look at that amazing sky!

I really have no idea what I did with the rest of my day. I did take the boys for a walk in the evening and then went grocery shopping at around 8:30 pm. There are a lot of hours in there that are unaccounted for.

This morning I got up and went to play pickleball. It was a great way to start the day and the weather was perfect! When I got home I took a half hour and laid down on the sofa with ice in my shoulder. Then I got a little busy. I changed the sheets on my bed and in the guest room and washed both sets of sheets. Then I did an additional three loads of laundry and folded it all.

It was so cool after dinner tonight that I opened the sliding glass door and bedroom windows to get a lovely breeze going through. We also took our evening stroll and it was so gorgeous! I’m really loving the mild summer we’re having.

Once I got home I iced my shoulder again and then hit my sewing room and quilted the panels for the dark bag I’ve been working on.

I decided that I had better get this bag done during my creative funk or it could sit there for months!

I almost always use a light gray thread for quilting bright colorful fabrics. But I decided that black thread would look better on this. I like the way the quilting shows up on the lighter fabrics.

I’m sure I’ll work on this bag again before the week is out.

My walks around the neighborhood are showing me a lot of varieties of lilies right now. This one must have been almost six inches across!

They’re just gorgeous.

The hydrangeas are also in bloom right now. I ran across this beauty this afternoon. Look at all this gorgeous color! Those little turquoise centers just kill me!

I think this next one is also a variety of hydrangea. But I’ve been wrong before.

Here’s two more very small hydrangeas. These aren’t even up to my knees!

And I’m always amazed to see yucca in Portland. They seem like such a desert plant. They actually do really well here.

That’s probably taller than I am!

And look at this amazing thing.

I had to take a photo with my hand in it to show how big it is.

I’ll wind up the weekend with a couple of Frankenbags made by blog readers. This first one was made by Christy Pyles. She said she isn’t comfortable working with this kind of abstract piecing but was able to adjust and figure it out. I think she did a great job and I love the colors in this bag. And all those tiny squares are just so cool!

Last up tonight is this bag made by Lucy Byrd. I’ve posted a lot of photos of bags made by my blog readers and I have to day that this is a one-of-a-kind. All saturated colors against the black background… it almost feels like a hand woven wool rug. It’s just very cool! She made this using pieces left over from a quilt.

Here’s to a week that goes by quickly! I have a sheep herding seminar coming up next weekend.

I was thinking last night about my lack of motivation to hit my sewing room the last week or so and I realized that I’m in one of my creative dry spells.

I feel like I’m pretty aware of how I go through my creative life. I get interested in something and then jump in with both feet. I buy all the equipment and supplies I need and then I go crazy at it for some time, figuring out how to do it on my own, taking great satisfaction in seeing myself get better at it. It can be like heroin in this stage… I just can’t get enough. I think about it all the time. And then, one day, I might just be done with it and never have the motivation to do it again. And in fact never actually do it again.

My quilting and sewing seems to be different. While I definitely go through low and high tides in my creative drive, I always seem to come back to it with enthusiasm at some point in time.

So, what do I do about this dry spell? I’ve found in the past that these times are perfect for finishing projects that have been languishing too long. How convenient that I have a number of those sitting in my sewing room closet.

1. I need to finish this jewel frames quilt that is for my new bed. All the blocks are done. All I have to do it sew them together and put on the borders. This quilt has been sitting in a box in this state for far too long.

2. This Japanese X & Plus quilt is for my guest room. I think I only need to make four or five more blocks to have this one ready to sew together. I know what’s stopping me… I got really tired of sewing all those squares onto corners. This quilt is going to be a little crazy, but I love it!

3. Here’s another one that’s been sitting for far too long — my second Ruffled Feathers Quilt. Every time I post this one I get people asking me for the pattern. Unfortunately, it’s no longer available. Well, at least it wasn’t the last time I checked. oS if you want the pattern, you might be out of luck.

4. And this aboriginal trip quilt… I barely even got started on this before it went back into the box. I think I actually only got five blocks done. I don’t know why I got bored with this one so quickly. This one is pretty chaotic, but I think it will calm down when I get more blocks done and a more definite pattern starts to emerge.

I also still need to make the backing for my KFC trip quilt. Maybe I’ll do that first and then finish the Jewel Frames top and get the borders put on. Then it will need a backing. It’s time to get that done and get some color in to my bedroom!

I had a work meeting yesterday that I found really frustrating. It bothered me all last night and I almost felt depressed about it today. I had a repeat of that meeting today and was sort of dreading it… worried that it would be another frustrating meeting. So to keep myself more peaceful and steady I made sure I had my English paper piecing ready to go. So I did hand-sewing through that meeting. I still participated like I did yesterday, but I felt so different. I was more relaxed. I felt physically and mentally calm. This is such a strong case for me to have handwork ready to go and pull it out during long meetings. Lesson learned.

During that meeting I almost finished one of the EPP flowers I’ve been making. And when I picked it back up after our walk tonight to finish it up, I promptly screwed it up! On the left is was I did. On the right is what I should have done. Damn it!

So I had to undo the seam attaching that Orange hexagon at the top. Damn it.

And then sewed it back together the correct way.

I’m trying to figure out a consistent way to sew these seven hexagons together each time that is efficient and easy. I’m pretty sure I do it differently every time. I’d love to find the best way, or have I already found it?

Here’s the finished block. I think this is number seven.

Saw a gorgeous patch of crocosmia on our walk this evening. It’s one of my favorite summer bloomers.

Those blooms are nearly chest high on me.

I was also very pleased today to see that my Rose of Sharon has one lovely bloom on it.

I swear that thing must have literally POPPED open! I looked at it yesterday and it was a small, tight bud that looked like it had days to go before it opened. And then today… BAM!

My Fridays at work are usually pretty quiet, meeting wise. For some reason my day tomorrow is packed with meetings, and I have a few key things I need to get done tomorrow too. Gonna be a wild day. I’m really looking forward to the weekend.

The husband of a friend of mine died suddenly today. She’s in shock. I can’t tell you how bad I feel for her. Please keep her in your thoughts and if you’re a person who prays, please mention her there too.

Send me some positive and creative energy to help get my creative juices flowing again!

It was hot again today, but not as hot as yesterday. Tomorrow will be cooler and the forecast for the next ten days looks like it will be in the high 70s to mid 80s. Looks like we’ll be able to grab an afternoon walk in the upcoming days. My boys will be happy.

After our walk tonight I had told myself that I would quilt the dark KFC Frankenbag panels I’ve been working on. But that just didn’t happen. With all this heat I felt a little worn out so I turned on the TV and stitched up another hexagon flower.

I think that makes six that I’ve made. It feels like a lot more! They do take a little time to sew up. I’m happy to say that this one is probably the best one I’ve made. My stitches are getting better, less visible and more consistent. And it’s getting easier to make it look nice. So that’s good. Maybe by the time I make 90 of these they will be perfect!

It cooled down really nice for our walk. We headed out at about 8:15 and it was so nice… it felt cool and there was a nice breeze. It always feels wonderful when it cools down nicely after it’s been hot. It’s supposed to get down to 56 tonight so I’m guessing I’ll have my slider open most of the morning while I work, which I love.

Our walk tonight had a theme of water.

There is a park that is about two miles into our regular three mile route. It has a human drinking fountain that has a dog drinking fountain attached at ground level. You push the button and the bowl fills up, and then slowly drains. My boys know it’s there. When we come down the path toward that park they start speeding up and head directly to that drinking fountain. And then they drink and drink and drink before we’re back on our way.

Then, about another half mile into our route, there is a house that keeps a fresh bowl of water at the base of their mail box.

Bender and Rico always express their thanks to these home owners.

Once we get home they take advantage of the large bowl of water I keep at the base of my mail box.

It’s amazing to me how much traffic this water bowl gets. It’s almost always down to about an inch of water by the time the day has gone by. I probably get to see at least a couple of dogs drinking out of it every day. They appear to be very appreciative of a nice drink.

It is also entirely possible that it’s used in the dark of night by coyotes, raccoons and squirrels. And I did see a crow perched on the side of it a few weeks ago.

And this guy, I would like to point out, would pose all day long on anything.

His lower dose of potassium bromide was delivered today from the compound pharmacy. So he had his first dinner with a smaller amount of the drug that’s making him wobbly. Fingers crossed that this decrease will bring him back a little closer to normal.

Oh, and I saw another bee balm plant on our walk. I had never noticed these before. They were so pretty with the daisies.

I’ll wrap up tonight with this obligatory photo of some cute dogs with flowers.

It was a lovely weekend but it’s gotten hot today and will stay hot for a few days. It got up to 96 degrees today! So I’m not feeling particularly motivated to move around a lot.

My boys thought this weather today was bogus and were not at all happy with the lack of action. We went outside and tossed the ball a few times and then cooled off in the wading pool, but we didn’t get an afternoon walk. We did get a walk in tonight starting at about 8:45. It was still over 80 at that hour but without the sun it wasn’t too bad. But I was hot and sweaty when we got home.

On Saturday I loaded up the boys and drove down to Scio, Oregon, which is east of Salem, for a sheep herding trial. The drive is over an hour and I didn’t get there until about 1:00. I sat in the shade and worked on some of my EPP hexagons while I watched the dogs take their turns moving the sheep around the course.

I sat under a nice shade tent working on my hexis, next to a woman who was doing her knitting. I had three people come over and ask me what I was doing. They appeared to be fascinated with the process.

Even this little dog was fascinated. He just jumped right up on my lap like he was sure I was his best friend. All I got was this crappy photo!

Another woman I was sitting by was a woman I had met at a sheep herding training day last fall. She and her dog were entered in the trial and she was telling me all about what the handlers were experiencing, special challenges they were having, and how she was thinking about it all as she prepared for her run. It was really fascinating to hear a handler’s view of all of this as dogs were navigating the course with their sheep.

This photo shows one handler as she uses a whistle to signal her dog what she needs him to do. You can see the sheep at the far right side of the photo. Her dog is way out there with the sheep. I think it’s the tiny dark spec you can see just to the right of the white section of that fence post to the right of the sheep. That shows you how far away from the handler the dog needs to work. Whistles are used to give the dog commands because the whistle carries much farther than a human voice.

It was a pretty perfect day to be outdoors. And the drive home was so beautiful. I took the back roads rather than the interstate and I’m glad I did. The skies were so amazing.

I loved this view as I was driving home.

And as I came around one corner I saw the most amazing streak of purple in a field. I have no idea what is was… likely some kind of bloom.

When I got home I took a few minutes and planted the star jasmine that I bought a couple weeks ago. It was about time I got it in the ground.

It’s about two feet tall. It should grab onto that fence and start climbing any time now. The guy at the garden center said it could grow 6 feet this summer! It already smells so amazing!

On Sunday I joined some friends for pickleball. I intended to ease in slowly because I wanted to see how I felt after my fall. And the good news is that I didn’t feel my ribs or knee at all as I was playing. Since my friends and I only did some drills, when they left I went to another park and joined some open play so I could actually play a few games. And I had a blast!!! It felt really good to get out on the court again. I forced myself to stop after three games. I didn’t want to push myself too far. But I feel great today.

I was pretty much a slug the remainder of the day, except that I did get the boys out for a four mile evening walk since they stayed home while I played pickleball.

I now have five hexagon flowers done. I have enough hexagons basted to make at least another five or six flowers. They are very happy little things.

I did get a little spurt of productivity this evening as we were waiting for it to cool down so we could walk. I got the quilt sandwiches for the bag I’m working on all done. I may quilt them tomorrow night. I also decided on what I’m going to use for the lining. I don’t have very many pieces of the KFC black fabrics left. I’m going to need to replenish my stash.

That gorgeous spiral shells fabric is the perfect choice for the lining.

I have a few Frankenbags made by blog readers to share with you tonight. First up is this one made by my quilting and dog training friend Karin Haderly. This is the second bag she’s made. I’m not sure she enjoyed making it, but I think the experience was less miserable than the first bag she made. I love it! I love that diagonal block. I love all those tiny squares. and I love the wavy piecing on the back. And I love her photos!

Karin is the person who taught me how to paper piece.

This next bag was made by Rose Lochrie. She made this bag for a friend’s daughter who loves green. I love the way she combined the KFC fabrics with other fabrics for a very cool and watery feel. And the addition of the zebra fabric is so fun.

This last bag tonight was made by Marion Wolf. This is the second bag she’s made. I just love the fall feel of this bag. Those deep oranges, blacks and browns with the occasional pops of color are just so yummy!

Another hot day on tap tomorrow and then we’re back into the low 80s and high 70s.

It’s Friday night and after a short work week I’m really happy the weekend is here.

Not much to talk about tonight. I did whip out one hexagon flower at the end of the work day. I worked for 1.5 hours on my personal day off on June 30, so I cut out of work early today to make up for it.

Here’s today’s flower.

This one went together really quickly and my stitches are looking better on a whole. All the tips I’ve gotten from blog readers have really helped!

I’ve almost gone through all the hexagons I have already basted, so before dinner I hit my sewing room, dug into some impressive bins of scraps, and cut 40 more hexagons.

So far every hexagon I’ve cut is from a different fabric, with just a couple exceptions where different places on the fabric are completely different. So I’ve been digging through a lot of scraps.

Since I see myself making more of these little sets of hexagons to keep myself sane during long and frequent meetings, I’ve been giving a little thought to what I might do with all of these little beauties. So I pulled out some of my low volume black and white fabrics to see how they would work with the hexagons.

First I thought maybe one piece of black and white fabric with a hexi appliqued onto it.

Someone suggested (sorry can’t remember who it was or if it was on Instagram, an email, or a comment) that four patches out of low volume fabrics would make a fun background for these hexagons.

I actually like this approach quite a bit. It’s amazing how just adding some variation with multiple black and white fabrics in each background makes such a difference. I bought a bunch of these fabrics a couple years ago and haven’t used more than a piece or two. It might be time to cut some up!

I’ll still have time to decide, but I’m thinking this might be the direction I go. . . if I don’t completely lose interest in hexagons. I hope I don’t because I just ordered 200 more papers!!!

And now I’m sitting on the sofa at the end of the evening glue basting 40 hexagons and watching pickleball on YouTube. I know. You’re very envious of my life about now!

Gonna toss the dogs in the car and head out to watch a sheep herding trial tomorrow. That sounds to me like a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. And I just occurred to me that I should take some hexagons with me!!!

Oh, I just remembered… I got a phone call from Bender’s neurologist this afternoon. She had received his most recent blood test to check his potassium bromide levels. That’s the anti epilepsy drug she increased after his seizures in January. I told her that he had been seizure free since the increase but that he was still really wobbly and falls down quite a bit while running and playing. So she is going to decrease the dosage to see if it helps. His levels are pretty high, so she feels confident that we have some room to adjust his dosage and still keep his seizures at bay.

Fingers crossed that it helps with his drunken tendencies.

In reading comments on my blog earlier today I made note of a couple suggestions I wanted to try in sewing my EPP pieces together.

The first suggestion…

Use a headlamp to light your work. I knew I had an unopened package of headlamps I bought at Costco a couple years ago. And I have to say, this was a brilliant (get it? Brilliant!) suggestion! I mean look at this illumination!

This made a HUGE difference in how easy it was to sew these pieces together.

The other suggestion was that I use the ladder stitch rather than a whip stitch. So I went onto YouTube and found a couple videos demonstrating how to do this stitch in EPP. I chose the one I liked the best and got my materials together for a 1.5 hour zoom meeting I had this afternoon.

I got a good portion of this piece sewn in that meeting and was actually participating in the meeting. And my stitches are looking much better. Some sections are virtually invisible. Other sections look like I was a drunken sailor on a ship in the middle of a hurricane. But I am getting better overall.

And I’m realizing that I might have to do a larger project with these because I’ve almost gotten through all the pieces I basted and I have an entire year of project meetings coming up. I might have to do something more complicated than big old hexis.

There were also several people who recommended needles to use. I’ve ordered some needles that should be here tomorrow so I might be able to try them out tomorrow night.

Before dinner tonight I went out and took a walk around my yard to see how things are doing. My apples are really going gangbusters! These usually ripen around the end of July and I’ll be doing a dehydrator full every night. I usually also make a few batches of applesauce if there are enough apples.

Bender thinks they’re ready to eat now, but they seem a little green to me still.

Bender eats a lot of apples when they fall ripe from this tree.

I’ve shared a lot of photos of roses from around my neighborhood, so I thought I’d share some of my own roses.

Those are some determined roses. I basically completely ignore them.

Oh! Take a look at what I ran across on our walk this evening…

There were some really amazing skies here today. This one was from our afternoon walk as we made our way through the park that’s a couple blocks from my house.

This photo was from our evening walk.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my app’s ability to accurately identify plants. And here I was thinking it was really keeping me on top of things. That’s the last time I’ll tell anyone how accurate it is!

One more day and then a weekend! I’m planning on heading down to Scio, OR, to watch a sheep herding trial. Other than that my weekend is free. I think it’s gonna be a hot one.

One of the reasons I wanted to try English paper piecing is because we have a huge year-long database conversion project starting at work and it will include a lot of long Zoom meetings where my mind can tend to wander and I can get antsy.

When we had a similar project a few years ago our project manager brought us things to keep our hands occupied while our brains were busy. Pipe cleaners, adult coloring books, Playdough, and other things. I started taking my knitting projects in so that I could actually make my hands be productive, rather than just noodling around.

And that’s why I thought of trying EPP hexis. I tried them out in my first meeting today. It’s simple and repetitive enough that I was able to stay focused on the conversation, and the hand activity kept me from getting antsy.

I made good progress on this piece during that one meeting, and finished it up easily after our walk this evening.

My stitches are pretty inconsistent. I think it’s due to two things. First, I’m having a hard time seeing what I’m doing. It might be time to get some stronger reading glasses to make this close work easier. Second, it’s likely I’m not using the right needle. So I ordered some needles that people on Instagram recommended when I asked for advice. I also just took a break and ordered some stronger glasses.

I love looking at the back of these EPP pieces. It’s so intricate and regular.

I’ve already selected the next set of pieces to sew together. I’ll keep this on my desk in preparation for tomorrow’s meetings.

Bender thinks this whole EPP thing is a total snooze.

A couple of months ago I downloaded an app to my phone called Seek. It’s made to identify plants and other things. It’s been really fun to ID some of the trees, flowers and shrubs I see on my walks. It does a really good job with flowers and bushes. It’s more challenged with trees and isn’t as successful as returning a definite identification.

I used it on our walks today to ID some flowers I saw. First was this scarlet bee balm. I had never seen this plant before. The blooms are pretty crazy and were the most incredible shade of deep red.

The app also keeps track of the species I’ve identified. So I can go back and find other plants that I’ve identified in the past.

Here’s another plant from today. I remember this bloomer from last year. It’s quite different from all the other hydrangeas we have around here. It has those larger four-petal flowers along with the more fuzzy clusters of smaller blooms. It’s really a cool plant.

Here’s another one we identified today. It was the most amazing color of deep and bright fuchsia on light silvery gray foliage. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the name “rose campion” before.

I also saw this plant and didn’t ID it because I don’t need to. It’s one of my favorite summer bloomers: crocosmia. I picked up a clump of these free in the neighborhood a couple of months ago and planted two large pots on my patio. They are the most amazing color of bright deep orange on delicate grass stems. The plants are about four feet high and move gently on the breeze. I had never seen them until I moved to Portland 12 years ago.

On our walk tonight Rico was very concerned about this sign that was out in the street. He noticed it from a block away! It took some convincing to get him to approach it to check it out.

In that last photo you can see that his posture is allowing him to bolt at the first sign of danger!!! He’s so sensitive for such a big beefcake!

I noticed again today how much better my ribs feel! It’s so nice to see such improvement every day! I’m definitely on the mend.

Big news. I made some home made ice tonight! I’m pretty proud of myself!

I’ve wanted to try some English paper piecing (EPP) for some time. So last week I ordered some hexagon papers and a glue pen. The pen arrived this afternoon so on my afternoon break I started cutting some scraps.

I got 25 of them cut pretty quickly. One of the benefits of having a little organization to your scraps.

After asking a few people I know who do EPP the best basting method, I decided to go with the glue method. So after work I hit my sewing room and glued up the 25 hexis I had cut earlier. It all went pretty quickly.

After our walk I cut 20 more hexis from scraps, for a total of 45. Then I sat down on the sofa and glued up these 20 as I watched some pickleball.

Here’s the second set of 20 that I got all glue basted.

And here’s all 45 on my cutting table… all glue basted and ready to start sewing.

And here they are in a stack because they’re so pretty.

So I selected seven hexagons to sew….

And took these hexis, my thread, needle and scissors out to the living room, moved a nice bright lamp next to the sofa and started sewing.

I don’t love hand sewing, but this is relatively easy. One person did say that the glue basting can make the hand sewing more difficult than thread basting. And I think they’re right. It was a bit of work to get the needle through the edge of those hexagons without going right through the paper. I will definitely try the thread basting method at some time in the future.

So, the hand sewing went pretty well until… well shit…

It was bound to happen.

I did eventually get it sewn together successfully. Not bad for my very first one.

I’m not sure what I’ll make out of these hexagons when done. Maybe a pillow. Or maybe I’ll cut it all up and make it into a pouch.

We’ve been having some really lovely summer weather the last week or so. Today was a little cloudy and it even rained a little tonight. We had some sprinkles through most of our walk.

I noticed on our walk that the daisies are in bloom. Here’s a couple pretty varieties.

The past couple of days Bender has decided that sleeping under a hammock dog bed on the patio is the best thing! I’ve gone out a couple of times and can’t see Bender anywhere, and when I call his name he stands up and up-ends the bed!

I caught him yesterday laying on the bed like this after he had up-ended it.

And this was the spin he put on it today.

He is such a goober!

Here it is! The long-awaited crumb piecing tutorial. There are some preliminary things I’ll cover here in this post, and then there’s a looong video, included below, to give you a look inside my crumb piecing brain.

I absolutely love crumb piecing. I find it almost meditative… sitting at my machine, matching small pieces of fabric to other small pieces of fabric, taking joy in lovely fabric combos in tiny pieces. It’s free form. It’s easy. There’s something about the quiet repetitiveness of it that is very calming for me. And after a few minutes at my sewing machine, I’ve created some really fun blocks or even a piece of fabric I can use to make something wonderful.

To get started, the first thing I did was dig into my big bucket of scraps and sort out some Kaffe Fassett Collective scraps that are perfect for crumb piecing.

 I decided to go with all KFC fabric scraps, but I’ve done crumb piecing before with only batik scraps. You can use any fabrics you like and mix and match any way you like. You could select fabrics from all one color family (like all reds, or all blues, etc…), you could do all black and white, or you could do all one color family with an occasional pop of a contrasting color thrown in.  

I pulled out some smaller pieces, anywhere from about 1.5×2 inches all the way up to 2.5 x 3 inches or so. Squares, rectangles, triangles, irregular shapes, they all work. I also pulled out some strips.

The video will show some good images of the type of pieces I’m using and how I piece them.

Once I had my pieces selected, I pressed them all and sorted them according to size and shape: larger pieces, smaller pieces, irregular pieces. Then I sat down at the sewing machine and got started.

Before you dive into the video, the one thing I want you to remember is that there are no rules in crumb piecing. Nothing has to line up, no seams have to match, no shapes have to be a particular shape. So relax, have some fun, sew some fabric together, and dive in!

Ok, I promised you that I’d show you some things that can be made with crumb piecing. So here we go.

This quilt is probably my favorite of all I’ve ever made. I haven’t had it quilted yet, but it will stay with me when it’s done. I made crumb blocks and squared them up to 8 inches and then added borders and sashing.

You can also use crumb piecing to make a bag. Either make the bag out of entirely crumb pieced fabric like this one…

Or use various sized crumb blocks like in these Frankenbags.

Here’s a deconstructed look at how you can incorporate crumb blocks in a bag:

I made this batik wall hanging out of crumb blocks.

I later cut this wall hanging into four pieces and made two Frankenbags. Here’s one of them.

I hope the video is clear. Let me know if you have any questions or need clarifications.

I’ve had a good weekend with one more day to go. I haven’t done any sewing until I did a little tonight as I started working on my crumb piecing tutorial. I may never make it through this big bucket of small scraps.

I keep that big fabric basket right next to my cutting table and just drop the smaller fabric pieces and strips in there as I’m cutting. Then occasionally I’ll dump it all out and sort it. That’s not my favorite thing to do.

I took Rico for his weekly sheep herding lesson yesterday morning. We worked on driving, which is having dog drive the sheep away from you. Their natural tendency is to want to bring the sheep to the handler. It takes some training to get the dog to push the sheep away. We basically spent an hour just pushing the sheep around a big field.

Rico was a good boy. It wasn’t a ton of physical work but it WAS a lot of brain work.

After our weekly lesson we hightailed it down to Mollala, OR, for a herding lesson with another trainer who comes to town every few weeks. We had another good lesson and then went for a nice forest walk. Here’s a Five Minute Artsy Forest Walk video I made.

And a few photos… Some daisies and blackberry blooms.

And there was lots and lots of foxglove.

And it looks like some robins hatched in the last few days.

And some of my favorite… the trees.

And more trees.

And, of course, some dogs in there.

I took the boys for a nice walk this morning, then came home and planned what I was going to make for a potluck with friends tonight. I decided a chickpea salad with lots of fresh veggies and fresh herbs sounded good. Here’s the ingredients.

You can find the full recipe on Pinterest.

My house smelled so good with all those fresh herbs in the air! It was a really good salad and I’ll definitely make it again.

It was nice to spend a few hours with friends and good food. And my boys got to run free in the yard with my friend’s dogs as we talked and ate. Rico, again, fell in love with my friend’s pug. He licked and licked that poor pug.

When I left I bent down to give that pug a pat and his ears were soaking wet!

Here’s Bender wondering where all the food is.

I’ve gotten some Frankenbag photos from blog readers over the last week. Let’s get started. This first bag was made by Marion Wolf who lives in Franken, Germany! She made this bag from scraps leftover from a quilting project and she made so many crumb blocks she has enough to make another bag, which she’s already started on. She did some fun decorative stitches on the handles.

This next bag was made by Kellie Maurer Smith. This is Kellie’s fourth Frankenbag and it’s for her to keep. She’s already planning another one and will put a zipper in the next one. I love her casual and quick approach to her bags. They look like they would go really well with blue jeans and a white t-shirt.

Next is this bag made by Karen Jane Quick. She used some extra batting on this bag and I like the effect that give the quilting. I love the piecing and she added that sweet little embroidered pocket. I love it when people customize their bags!

These next two bags were made by Cindy Jahn Thomas. She said, “I finally made time to make one using a couple pinwheel orphan blocks. I didn’t especially like the completed bag initially but it has grown on me. Learned a few things—inside pocket placement (too high for my liking on this bag) an” d to not place a focus block or design element too low on the panel.” I just love that each project can be an opportunity to learn! I love all those little pinwheels and stars! Looking forward to what Cindy makes next

Next is this bag from Lesley Nammar. Here’s what Lesley said about her bag:

“I used  Gondwana by Oasis fabric designs and Grunge for Moda. I did fussy cut because I love the Australian  animals and wanted to show case them. Also my 1st time to applique – hearts. This bag goes to my fabulous  step daughter who loves anything quilted and animals of all kinds.” What a great gift for someone special! She did a great on on her aplique and her quilting is really fun.

And finally, this bag made by Sara Rajagopalan. She went all out and made a curve pieced block for one side of her bag. And look how she quilted it! it’s so perfect with that curved block. She’s used some really fun fabrics and she’s done a really nice job making it, including two roomy zipper pocket on the inside and a zipper placket.

Thanks to everyone who sent photos.