Happy Zombie

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.

Trick-or-Treat… smell my sewing machine feet.

Make some Tiny Treats bags from my pattern in the Fall 2010 issue of Quilts & More.   I have two projects in this issue - one is my Tiny Treats bags project, and the other is my Dressed to Impress organizer quilt project (kit available at the Fat Quarter Shop).  But there’s more… MUCH MORE. 

I love this Halloween fabric.  LOVE IT.  So bold, graphic and clean.

I’m hording my wee little scraps of Boo Boo Bears by RJR Fabrics left-over from the project.

No pets allowed in my sewing room… but one rare occasions I allow the villagers in and let then think they’ve snuck in (and can’t be seen).

This fabric made my heart skip a beat!  Confections by Caleb Gray for Robert Kaufman Fabrics.

I had no choice but to lick the fabric.

Can’t stop.  More bags in in the works.  Instead of ribbon, I’m using 3″ strips of fabrics (double folded inward/finished at ¾” and edge stitched - same method as my Poochie Bag’s straps).

I love mixing and matching Elizabeth’s darling new Red Rose Farm line with P&B Textiles.  I’m making some Tiny Treat bags for Elizabeth’s Market booth - and since I’m not done sewing them… they’ll have to wait to be seen at Market!

My Lecien fabric-sister - Rosalie Quinlan and her newest line of Sweet Broderie.  I’m going to send these off to Lecien’s Market booth - IF I have the will power to let them go once I’m done sewing them all up.

I am so in love with this fabric! It sings to both my loves of vintage and modern fabrics. Sing-out-loud sing… like Aretha Franklin beltin’ one out.

Thinking up what goodies would be good in the Tiny Treats bags is next!

PS… Emma Thomsen is hosting a give-away on her blog - a 12 fat quarter bundle of my Holiday Happy fabric.  HURRY… her give-away ends soon!

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

I love, love, love those plastic webbed lawn chairs. Even that creaking aluminum sound they make, I love. When I was a kid, we belonged to the Orinda Park Pool - every day of our summers were spent here.  My mom and her friends had super cool low-rider lawn chairs, and would sit in the sun and play gin rummy and bridge on the lawn.  This was in the pre-melanoma and pre-mom’s-had-to-go-to-work era.  Priceless childhood memories.   (in the “1960’s Stingers” [color] photo… that’s me, 4th on the left in the front - the one fiddling with her bathing cap - twas the height of the Pixie cut era!)

Oh for the love of lawn chairs, quilts and Moda… I have a Lawn Chair quilt tutorial at the Moda Bakeshop.  One Jelly Roll of MoMo’s It’s a Hoot (I’m so madly in love with this line!!!) and two Jelly Rolls of Moda Bella solids will make TWO 48″ x 75″ lap size quilts (or one 75″ x 96″ quilt).

I started playing around with a Honey Bun (1½” wide strips roll) of Urban Chick’s Sweet (one of my all time fave lines… along with Swell… hoping the Urban Chicks are working on a Savory for me next!!) - and putting the solid in the center.

I’m still in playing mode (which is one of my favorite modes) - and adjustments in the measurements have to be made for the 1½” striping - cutting the 3-piece units into 3½” x 3½”, 3½” x 6½” and 2″ x 3½ units.  I don’t know yet what I’m going to make… or what my finished size will be… I’ll probably figure it all out (and post it) when I finish what I started next week month year.

I secretly refer to the Lawn Chair quilt as the UPS quilt.   Last July, during a freak NW Oregon heat spell - Violet made a tweet the about the heat and her UPS man JUST as I had finished making the Lawn Chair quilts.  I will forever think of Violet (and Melissa too!) and a hunky hot UPS man when I think of this quilt.

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