Friday, July 21, 2023

Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show 2023

 I am away from my home computer where I keep all my construction photos, so how about something different? I'm going to have to entertain you this week with some pics from this year's Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (lucky you!).

This is the largest outdoor quilt show in the world, with over a thousand quilts scattered throughout the town. The quilts are a mix of traditional, modern, antique, "professional" and simple quilts.

 

 I was impressed with the choices that were made in grouping the quilts and how they coordinated in some way with the Western-themed buildings and surrounding landscaping.


I won't say that these photos are of all my favorites, because often I was just staring in awe and not taking pictures:)

 However, this one had to be a favorite! It was hanging from the porch of the Suttle Tea shop. (My companions and I had to swing back to this shop for some iced tea later, and oh was their Lavender Peach tea delicious!)

The quilting was exceptional on this one.


An interesting quilt...
 ...with and interesting back!


This isn't my style, but it is amazing work.

I liked this idea of a pastel background color.

A puzzle.

Just squares and rectangles!

Wildflowers in jars, just like in my kitchen windowsill at home!
Most quilting seems to be machine-done nowadays, and the quilting is just as amazing as the piecing. 

I had to stare at it a while to "find the block" on some. Is there a slight curve element to these blocks or is that just the quilting?


Which books would these be in your library?

The work on this was exceptional!

The quilts on this building seemed to be a color theme. Was it pinks?

Quilt-in-a-quilt
We saw many variations of log cabin quilts.


Several quilts were enlarged "blocks."


These two quilts are not "my style," but I was fascinated by them. So much to look at!

A "sampler" with teeny tiny pieces.
Blue and Yellow, a classic combination!
There was a row that was all "waterworks" themed wall-hangings. I should have taken more pictures of the quilts there-- it was really interesting to see all the interpretations of that theme!




A lovely garden arbor.  

This was a Christmas-themed quilt; I liked the combination of colors!

Bee-utiful!

Shoo-fly in small, medium and large

A gorgeous medallion!

This star themed quilt is quite striking in its eye-catching blue-and-white color scheme. 

We noticed plenty of teal-aqua quilts around, but somehow we missed the display that was "just teals!" 
And I forgot to take any photos of the tree-themed (in green and autumn colors) display, because I was having an interesting conversation with Nony from Netherlands. Nony, if you read this, it was fun to meet you!

This quilt was befitting of the area, which has the awesome Cascade mountain views.
I had to get in line to photograph this one!


 With thousands of people from all over coming to this quilt show, it was hard to avoid people in the quilt photos. 

But I did start to notice a theme with the people photos...
 These kind ladies apologized for being in the way, but they coordinated so well with the quilt!


I guess you are attracted to your favorite colors, and you tend to wear your favorite colors!


(this was on a row of black and white themed challenge quilts; the quilters were allowed one other color.)


I don't have any photos of what I wore, but I wonder if I was walking up to coordinating quilts myself?!


Friday, July 7, 2023

DIY countertops?

Do you think that picking out countertops would be the fun and easy part of this house build?

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Trust me, I did my research. I will spare you the details!

No, it wasn't going to be marble or soapstone or slate. Sigh. Yes, it was going to be a DIY project.  

One of my temporary kitchens

Our options left were wood, stainless steel and...tile. (Thankfully we closed the door on DIY epoxy countertops, because I can't imagine the mess that would have been!) Can you believe it become another tile decision? Probably influenced by my temporary kitchen tile "counter" (which was only for keeping the toaster oven from melting the plastic table underneath). 

The idea was tempting. We already had the tools for tiling work. I heard it was hard to clean tile countertops though.



Still, it was a tad cheaper than quartz countertops, and we could save the cost of labor by asking our in-house tile guy to do it.

One thing was for sure, no one wanted to figure out how to tile around the sink. It was finicky business. After a lot of discussion, we decided to do sink section that would be on its own and make it out of quartz. 

We found a "bargain" remnant in grey, that we thought would go with any material we chose for the counters.


There was some investment in tools to be able to cut quartz, of course, and some training to be found on YouTube.


The edge had to be shaped to match the sink bump-out. 

Of course it was not perfect on the first try. 
In the end, this piece sits up on the hill waiting to be useful with a shop sink someday. Thus ended phase one of "DIY countertops."