Happy Zombie

ME!  No.  Seriously.  I feel like such a winner after reading all those lovely comments in my Moda Bakeshop Progressive Dinner post.  Holy honey bun and them some - thank you!  I especially loved hearing how many people have made my projects.  Me knocking on the inside glass of those people’s monitors… psssssst… hey, it’s me (does your monitor make me look skinny?  I hope so)… so I hear you made one of my projects - OHH EMM GEE, I’m dying to see what you made!!!!  Will you show me?  I’d love to see it (and I bet others will want to too).  I have a pool you can drop your kids off at (I kill me) - I’d love for you to join my  Happy Zombie HQ Flickr Pool and post your pics.

Enough of ramblings! The grand prize winner from Moda giveaway will be announced by the Moda Bakeshop later on in February, so be sure to stay tuned to their blog. My winner big of the Moda fat quarter bundle and a copy of Fresh Fabric Treats giveaway is comment #670 Sarah of Pings & Needles!

Congratulations, Sarah! Great ready for an amazing prezzie from the wonderful peeps at Moda and Stash Books!

I admit I have the Keep Calm fever - and I can’t help myself from making my own after I stumbled upon the keepcalm-o-matic website. I made mine in Photoshop - but not until after I surrendered an hour of my life to the keepcalm-o-matic. I’m sure there’s many a Queen’s unauthorized and unapproved motivational slogan just waiting to be made!

And because I have Portlandia fever… I put a bird on it.

First order of business is announcing the winners of my Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day and the Where Women Create 12 Days of Christmas little bundles of my Holiday Happy fabric. I received THE nicest comments and wish I could give a bundle to everyone who entered. I feel like the winner of my own giveaway!

SMS winner: is comment #977 Katie of Gnomemade!
WWC winner: Announced on WWC here.

PS - Check out what Ramona made with her recent win of one of my giveaways!  So cute I could weep!

[Random “Christmas in Happy Zomlandia” photo so I’m in compliance with myNo Photo, No Post rule - and all I need now are some cookies.]

I’m so excited to be participating in the first-ever Bloggers’ Block-a-palooza! So without further ramblings - here’s a message from our Chief Paloozer, John of QuiltDad!

Chief Paloozer says:
By now, many of you are busy making the final push towards the holidays. But what are your crafty plans as we enter 2011? Well, clear your plate, because we have a great quilt-along planned that will begin in January!

18 quilt bloggers have collaborated to bring you the first-ever Bloggers’ Block-a-palooza. We’ll jump from blog to blog making 2 quilt blocks per week, wrapping up with a custom setting and layout design to help complete your quilt.

We’re calling this quilt-along “Waiting for Spring” because we’ll be using the brand new Sunkissed line by Sweetwater for Moda, and the bright colors and botanical prints should help you (or at least those of you in the Northern hemisphere!) push through the cold winter months and have a fresh new quilt ready for the Spring.

More details will be available soon, but in the meantime feel free to grab our button below and spread the word.

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Wanna be a Biggest Paloozer and join in the fun? Feel free to grab our button and link to us at:

http://quiltdad.com/p/bloggers-block-palooza-quilt-along.html

for a little Gnoma Claus mischief!

Stay tuned!

When ever I go to Ikea I “flat shop” - I pick out my favorite showroom as if I’m going to live there (kinda like Mark). Last April I fell hard in love with this “flat”:

I especially loved with the colors in the showroom and that quilt… navys, lt. blues, pinks and reds. AND WHO KNEW that at that very moment when I was playing my own little version of House Hunters International - Bari was putting her finishing touches on her now current line, Country Lane… in navys, lt. blues, pinks and reds. Bari knew, that’s who. #sobarigenius! Maybe Bari was channeling me? 

Next thing I know… there’s little Country Lane tiny treats totes birthing themselves right out of my sewing machine.

Eight fun little Country Lane tiny treat bags. My machine feels like Octomom.

Next stop Bari’s booth at Fall Market - and now Bari is #tinytoteoctomom.

I have an addiction for making bags, and an empty plastic-ishy rice bag called to me.

Inside my Birkin Nishikin’ bag, I made some poochi corners to make my bag pooch.

I added a fabric strap (Moda’s Chez Moi line from a few years back), folded the top edge of the bag over it (with the ends tucked under the fold), top stitched it. I then flipped the strap over the the fold and top-stitched the top edge.

Love the window on the bag - and the little treasure I see hiding.

How darling is my treasure! It’s a Matryoshka from Emily of Ravenhill - all the way from Norway.  Emily makes and sells her freaking adorable little Matryoshkas in her Esty shop - but she and I swapped some goodies with each other - and I got the way better end of the deal.  Way.  Better.  End.  Of.  The.  Deal.  And how darling is she in her Lecien Flower-Sugar outfit!

I suppose I better get crackin’ on another bag… one for my Matryoshka baby…

Today’s the big day… Amy, myself and Pam (AMP’d!) are, well, AMP’d for our turn on Pat Sloan’s The Edge Blog Hop!

Turns out… Amy, Pam and I all thought the same thing - size matters.  And measuring things with Pat’s new rulers from Sullivan’s goes way beyond our cutting tables! I brag that Astoria has the biggest and the best - so with the help of Cap’Tom Crunch as my measuring device equipment operator specialist - my little town of Astoria really measures up!

This is Pam’s Bridge, aka The Astoria Megler bridge. If you live in North America you’ve probably seen it many a time on your tv in assorted car commercials.  Not just great movies are shot here… but so are many car commercials.   Currently running in North America is a Toyota Prius commercial - a nice long shot of a Prius traveling on Pam’s Bridge.

I live over yonder.  Just follow the trail of thread.

The Astoria Column. I tell everyone who visits Astoria to go visit it. What is it?  It doesn’t matter - just go up there and see for yourself. Plus I don’t exactly know what it is. Thank goodness it has a Wikipedia page.

So I guess now would be really off color of me to mention my first time.   Quilting.  I’ll save that for another post. #somedaysIam12yearsold.

One of Astoria’s most photographed (and loved) landmarks. If you’ve never seen The Goonies… RENT IT TODAY. My favorite movie ever.

One of our secret crops.  Not the Botwin’s crop.  Our marshmallow crops.  THIS is where jet puffed marshmallows are grown. We ARE the marshmallow capitol. Of the world.

Marshmallow fields, forever.  It’s almost harvest time. [super-size me]

Part of the blog hop is to post a recipe. I don’t have recipes… I have take-out menus. Rice Krispie treats are right up my baking alley… but I don’t even have a recipe for that. So instead, I’m going to give a restaurant review of the Bowpicker - home of the world’s best fish n chips.

Open in the late spring - early fall (something like that)… the Bowpicker’s hours are from “11ish to 6ish”. No one really remembers the schedule… it’s just something well all inherently know. It’s like we all have bowpicker-dar. When the Bowpicker opens up after Winter’s end… it spreads like wildfire through Astoria (and parts beyond) that the Bowpicker is open.

The Bowpicker is owned and operated by a super friendly mother-daughter team… and the fresh tuna they use is caught THAT MORNING by the dad. A light breading, super fresh delicious (and hearty) tuna… deep fried heaven. A huge side of steak fries makes for paradise in your mouth. Lots of condiments, plus beverages sold from ice bathed coolers are also available. A few picnic tables dot the Bowpicker’s “mooring” spot - and magnificent views of the Columbia River are free with every meal. If you come into Astoria on the east end of town via Hwy 30/Leif Erickson Drive - look for the Columbia River Maritime Museum at the edge of town - the Bowpicker is just a hair across the street from it at Duane & 17th. While the condiments are good, I prefer my own “tarter sauce” and I BYOTS. It’s similar to the white sauce on San Diego style fish tacos. My crazy dill sauce:

Dill Fish n Chip Sauce
⅔ C. Best Foods Mayo, creamed
¼ C. Apple Cider Vinegar
2 T. dill (I ♥ dill)

Holy [expletive]! I have a recipe!

Now the fun Part! Pat is giving away one huge treasure chest of her new rulers [treasure chest not included]. All you have to do is

1. Leave a comment on this post by not later than 9pm PST on Sunday, October 3rd. How ’bout you’d tell what big/fun/wonderful thing you’d measure in your town.
2. Leave a comment on each of the blog posts from the blog hoppers that have already posted (Pat, Kelly, Amy, Jackie, Julie and Amanda).
3. Leave a comment on Amy and Pam’s blog today. You WON’T want to miss their posts!!!
4. In days the days ahead - visit and comment on Carrie’s, Polly & Laurie’s, Cheryl’s and Michele’s blog hop posts.
5. Cap it all off with a re-visit to Pat’s blog - where a winner (who’s posted a comment on all the blogs and the respective posts) will be drawn for the loot-o-rulers. Watch Pat’s blog for details.

And be sure to give Pat’s Creative Talk Radio a listen on Monday (10/4/10, good buddy). Yeah… like exactly at 1:30pm PST! If you can’t listen to the live stream, you can always podcast the episode through iTunes.

I must be back to [ab]normal… I’m making farting puns. Or it could be because I’m still somewhat full of the gas they pumped into me when my gallbladder was removed (and it feels GREAT to have it gone!). Every time my husband farts - I give him a snarky spewing of “show off!”. Who knew I’d ever have fart-envy.

Art. Recently we were on Bainbridge Island - we met our dear friends from Seattle for lunch. Bainbridge Island is post-card pretty town just a quick ferry ride from Seattle.  A darling town, filled with galleries, killer restaurants, ice cream AND is home of Pink Chalk Studio! You can smell art in the air (and no, not my husband’s version of art). I highly recommend a visit if visiting the Pacific Northwest/Puget Sound.

I love my art dipped in humor. This happens to be a store called “Fish & Chips”.  I also like my art fried and salted. Mmmm… Lay’s chips!

So beautiful (as my adorable little buddy Chloe points out to me). A concrete quilt - smack dab in the middle of the sidewalk.  I’m rethinking our plans of re-paving our driveway with asphalt.   Oh how I would love to turn my  driveway into a gigantic quilt.  Thought bubble over my head… can asphalt be painted?  Light-bulb. Ding sound. I wonder if my county’s public works will loan me one of those big painting machines they use to make crosswalks and other street marking???

At lunch, there’s a chalkboard for the visitors. So I penned my name… and felt like I had contributed to art. All those people who penned before me. From places near and far. All of them with a story. My story is not being embarrassed to take a photo of a silly chalkboard while a teenager watches me snapping the photo - and gives me that “I’d be so mortified if I saw my mom taking a photo of chalkboard look”. It was moment I won’t forget. Kind of an AH-HA. That old adage of “beauty in the eye of the beholder”… IS TRUE.

There is soooooo much art around - I’m glad I found it.
And canvases, too. Hello, driveway.

Recently I got an unwelcome hello from my now soon-to-be-gone gallbladder. I’m all good and in good hands… but I’m out of comission for a while longer and am unable to answer my email. If there’s anything urgent that requires my attention - or that maybe they can answer - please contact Pam (pamkittymorning) or Mo (lime gardenias). Thanks bunches! Monica

Holy schmokes… I’ve shanghaied one of the blog posts on the Where Women Create blog!  Actually, I was asked if I would like to be featured on their Fabulous Friday feature.  It didn’t even take me a nano second to say yes.  Holy schmoly… what an honor for me!

My post is here, and naturally I ramble on as I always do.  Added way too many photos.   I even swiped (or rather, schwiped) one of their graphics and happyzombied it.  I’m feeling rather shanghai-ish at the moment.  Dare I even say schanghai-ish?

In celebration of my WWC shanghai my WWC post, I’m giving away a 25 fat quarter bundle of my Holiday Happy fabric.  That’s 6.25 yards of fabric!  Leave a comment on the WWC post, and WWC will draw/announce the winner after their Tuesday, August 24th at 12:00 Noon (MST) drawing closes.

I’m so touched by all the kind comments left for more me there. I’m unable to reply to them, so please know how deeply touched I am by the kindness everyone has bestowed upon me! Thank you!!!

PS to WCC - if you have a couple thousand extra visits on your blog… that’s just me coming back over and over and over again reading all the wonderful comments!

Yaaaaay!  I’m a Camp Counselor at Lizzy’s Castle Peeps Summer Camp!  Me… a camp counselor.  Whodathunk.  I’m usually the one sent to the counselor for bad behavior.  My only camp experience ever was on our 5th grade 3-day trip at Camp Silver Spur in Tuolumne, CA.  And it was a blast.  My youngest son got to go on the same type of trip in the 4th & 5th grades… “Outdoor School” it’s called in Oregon.  One year he got to go to Outdoor School in Vernonia, OR… and one year it was a trip to multiple locations in Central Oregon (Bend, Sisters and Kahneeta).   Now I get to relive some of that fun (as a kid and as a parent), through Lizzy’s summer camp.

Using Lizzy’s beautiful new line of Castle Peeps by Andover, I wanted to make something fun and useful.  Something that sang to my inner 5th grader, full of adventure and discovery.
And mischief.
My inner mom screamed not to get dirty. My inner quilter shouted to keep the beautiful fabric pristine. My inner recycling bin complained it was too full to hold one more milk jug.

And then it all came together.  My Dragon Slayer Satchel will pull double duty as my berry picking tote.  I wanted to make my strap adjustable so I can wear the strap across my chest (half a cross-my-heart), so I used a 1″ Dritz Center Release Buckle on the strap.  I LOVE THAT BUCKLE.  So easy to attach, and so very inexpensive (I got mine for just over a $1 at Joann’s with my 40% off coupon). I only wish it came in assorted colors.  Having a buckle also allows for attaching the satchel to things like big honkin’ tree branches and [insert your favorite difficult to hang stuff on object here].

I ramble… and here’s the link to the PDF pattern. Please respect my terms of use disclaimer at the bottom of my free pattern. Go forth and slay, and forage… and have fun.  And get a little dirty.