Odds and ends...

1. The building next door is now a concrete slab and a hole. This is very sad because it potentially means there will be one more building blocking our view. We already lost the bridge, I will probably start picketing if they try to block Mt. St. Helens. Nathan and I have convinced ourselves that they are putting in a community garden instead. Here's to hoping. One one good note about the demo: they are carefully dismantling the building piece by piece and separating the materials into piles. The giant wood beams are delicately removed and stacked for reuse, the metal will go to a recycler, and the concrete will be ground up and probably made into concrete again. I sat and watched the work of the big machines for about an hour last week when the internet was refusing to play Grey's Anatomy, and I was very impressed with how dexterous they were. The best part was when the one with the opposable jaw attachment would grab a chunk of concrete wall, lift it high in the air, and shake it violently to separate the concrete from the rebar. It was like watching dinosaurs attack the Pearl District in slow motion. All I needed was a three-year old boy to marvel at it with me...
2. I am nearing completion on my second quilt and have started planning my next one. I have been so enthralled with the fall colors lately (making Nathan stop on the sidewalk with me on a regular basis to stare up at leaves, I think this embarrasses him) that I have decided to make a quilt that looks like fall. I enlisted the assistance of a very quilt-savvy friend, Cath from Australia, to help me with the planning and design. She has made over 100 quilts, and the ones she showed me were amazing. The best part about involving Cath is that she let me into her "stash." She has 6 under-bed boxes full of fabric scraps! She gave me a wonderful pile of starter pieces, then we headed off to Fabric Depot, Mecca for quilters. I was so giddy about my new scraps that I laid them all out and took some pictures for you to see. More to come as I start cutting and constructing.
3. I have been feeling crafty lately and decided to make a stuffed animal for my friend Joelle for her birthday last weekend. I had borrowed the pattern book from her a while ago, so I thought it appropriate to return it with a cute little panda. It only took about 1.5 hours, excluding the extra time it took to embroider Joelle's initials on the foot, realize the J was backwards, and redo it. It was such fun that I made a penguin the next day with my friend Mike (in the green shirt, pictured with Steve, in the orange shirt), who wanted to make a stuffed likeness of his dog, Schneider the Schnauzer. I taught Mike how to use my sewing machine and helped him with overall construction, but the design and face construction was all his. I can't believe how amazing it turned out. Tiny-schnauz is almost cuter than his big brother!