Hawaii Vacation

Kimura H Fabric Store

Kimura H Fabric Store

City of Refuge

Salt water flowing into a hot springs

Discount Fabrics in Hilo

Discount Fabric in Hilo

In the middle of January we went to Hawaii. My husband wanted to see about buying property on the big island. I guess you can get some decent land for cheap. Turns out the reason the land is cheap is because no bank will lend on the property because of the lava flow. We also learned that if you leave a house vacant the locals will take everything. We heard story after story of stolen solar systems and houses that were broken into and everything taken...doors, windows, cabinets and rugs. So even though we found cheap land, it's not worth it because if we leave nothing will be there when we come back.
The best thing about going to Hawaii was it was WARM. This winter in Portland was terrible. Lots of ice and snow this winter making us hibernate. I had already looked up the two things I wanted to see in Hawaii...crushed penny machines and fabric stores. 
We happened on the first fabric store by accident. It's called Kimura H Fabric, I had written the name and address down but did not know exactly where it was on the island. We stopped to at a thrift store and it was across the street. I loved the place. It's a little dusty looking from the outside but the fabric inside was beautiful. I bought a beautiful red and white hawaiian print that I want to use to make a sun dress. I bought a brown and black hawaiian print to make a shirt for my husband and some sushi fabric to make pants for the husband too. I like the selection of the fabric at Kimura, it was not too expensive and I found some bark cloth that was quite cheap too. But I had to stop myself from buying too much fabric...I already have a large stash of fabric. I just can't resist hawaiian prints. 
We spent most of our time in Kona and Captain Cook. It was warm and the water was wonderful. We had some magnificent sunsets, only thing was as soon as the sun went down it was DARK. There is not any light pollution, which was really nice. We ate a lot of fish and sat at the beach and read. 
We went to Hilo on the 'wet" side of the island. Everyone said it was the wet side but I had no idea how wet. It rained the 3 days we were in Hilo. In fact Hilo flooded, a couple of the streets were closed. I did find the fabric store in Hilo called Discount Fabrics...it blew my mind. I had to buy more fabric. The hawaiian print selection was incredible. I bought some lovely turquoise & gold with a nice tropical theme, it was about $7 a yard. A steal if you ask me. I also bought a beautiful dragon print that was on sale. I got out of Discount Fabric for less than $50. 
My husband does not like to do tourist things, so we didn't go to see a lot of attractions. We did go see a black sand beach, the volcano and the City of Refuge. We drove all over the island to get a feel for the place. We also saw a lot of beautiful birds. Sitting on a deck in the morning drinking coffee and listening to the birds blew my mind. It was very soothing. 
So the food was good, the water warm, the scenery was beautiful. Next time I would stay on the warm side the entire time, skip Hilo except for maybe a day trip. 

Hood River in October

Sunday was my 8th anniversary. We wanted to head out of town for the night so we went to Hood River. We started the day at Salty's on the Columbia for their sunday brunch. My husband wanted an old fashion buffet brunch where you can eat anything you want, where they and men carving prime rib and making omelets. It turns out Salty's is the only place that does that type of thing any more. they had wonderful bowls of crab but other than that it was kind of uneventful. The bacon was good and so was my drink.
After brunch we headed out the Gorge to Hood River. It was kind of overcast but I had hopes that the sun would be out in Hood River. We stopped at Multnomah Falls to get a photo and a crushed penny. The falls was full of tourists and we fled after watching the train go past.
We stayed at the Hood River Hotel in downtown Hood River. It was a nice place the room looked out over the Columbia River. It was also the harvest festival weekend so the town was hopping. We walked around looking at murals and sculpture. Though I was not fond of the yellow woman the sunset lit really up the mountains on the Washington side of the river. On monday we took a drive up highway 30 stopping at a view point called Memaloose State Park Overlook, overlooking Memaloose Island.  Lewis and Clark called Memaloose Island "Sepulchar Island". It was one of several islands commented on by Lewis and Clark as containing burial vaults for the Indian tribes that lived along the Columbia River. Up that hight on the cliffs my husband posed by the Fleetwood, man that thing glides down the curvy roads of the old Columbia River Highway. We stopped in The Dalles and had breakfast at a place called Cousins, we got in right behind a group of over 50 people from a church in Salem. It was a cute place with a motel attached. They had the walls lined with preserves, green beans, cherries, corn, and peaches...to name a few. We then headed to the the local thrift store when I found a wonderful pair of curtains for $9. They look great in our living room, they really warm up the room. Winter is coming and it was time for a change. It was a nice weekend, but it's also nice to be home with the kitties too. 

An Art Show, some more bags and a book

My neighbor is very talented. She has a show up in the gallery at Powell's Bookstore. She does some amazing detailed drawings. Her theme often has cats in what looks like underground environments. The show is called Curious Nature and is up till the end of April. Check out her cute tote bags, the cat is wearing a backpack and carrying a map. She details the bags with puff paint on the cat's eyes and the map. They are very cute and only $15, which is quite inexpensive for an original piece of art.   

 Yes, I'm hooked on making these bags. I made 3 bags using Violet Craft's fabric line called Waterfront Park.  One of the fabrics is line drawings of Portland Bridges. I really loved the fabric and because my husband & his best friend like to climb bridges I bought several yards of the bridges. I made a shirt for my husband but he thought it was too uptight...so he gave it to his best friend John Law who is a bridge tender down in San Francisco. Since I have scrap of the fabric I made several of these cute little triangle pouches. I added a Portland Oregon specific crushed penny to the zipper. Now that's a cute souvenir of your trip to Portland. 

Last week I received my copy of the latest Alabama Chanin book "Alabama Studio Sewing Patterns". This book includes all of the previous patterns published in Natalie Chanin's books as well as 4 more garments. The thing I like about this book is all the patterns are on a CD, I can take it to my local printer and have the patterns printed out. There are also great suggestions for variations on her patterns. Things like adding pockets, adding pipping, altering waist lines & busts, adding a color strips to hem lines as well as several other great tips. There are also new stencil patterns, one of my favorite is called New Leaves. I can't wait to get that stencil made so I can make a skirt or dress made for the summer. 

One of my favorite craft thrift store is Scrap. They recently moved from my neighborhood to the other side of the river. The good thing is they have expanded.  Last week I finally went to see the new store. It's a lot larger then the old space and it looks like it's more organized, thought that may be because they just moved...so it's still clean and new looking. The fabric area is well kept there is room to walk around the shelves and there is a nice area for you to sort through all the things you have picked up, you know when you get excited at all the cool things and pick up a lot more then you need..then you need to filter it all..because you really don't need all the stuff..but you might!. I bought some really nice Hawaiian fabric, though it was printed in China. I also found some large interesting wool scraps with ice skaters and trees, some nice checkered fabric and a cute little wash board. I came home with about 6 yards of fabric and a few knick knacks all for less then $30. 

My lilac tree is in bloom, I have 4 lilac trees in the yard. This is the only purple one, all the rest are white. This purple lilac has some really large blooms and it smells wonderful. SPRING IS HERE!!!!

I MADE PANTS!!!!

I bought a men's pant pattern when Josephine's Dry Goods was closing in Downtown Portland. When I bought the pattern I looked at the size it said 34-36-38-40...I thought that meant waist. No it did not. When I finally pulled out the pattern the waist size only went to 34". My husband said he was a 36. So I took an on-line Craftsy class on how to enlarge and reduce ready made patterns, it was called Create Any Size: Grading for Sewers. I found this to be very helpful. I had asked my husband over and over about his waist size and he kept repeating that he was a 36...that's what his Levi's said & they fit!! So I enlarged the pattern to a 36" waist. Well guess what...they were too small. I had completed the body of the pants and put on the waist band, had my husband try them on and he immediately stated they were too small. I said they were a 36", I said that I needed to measure his waist...my measurement came to 42". He then asked me if I was saying he's fat...what? NO...I'm saying you're not a 36". An argument occurred and he stated again that the Levi's were a 36". So when he left the house I measured the Levi's that he claimed fit him...the tag did say 36...but in fact the waist measurement was 39"!!! So I removed the waist band and the darts in the back of the pants. I did not want to give up on these pants because it was only the second time I have put in a front zipper and I was quite proud that it worked and looked decent. I had him try on the pants again, I ended up putting smaller darts in the back of the pants & I made a new waist band that was 40".  Today I had him try on the pants with the new waist band and he loved the fit. They are snug but not tight. He can wear the pants with out a belt and they will stay up. The fabric I used was from a couple years ago, I bought 4 bolts of fabric from a woman on craigslist for $60. At that price it's as cheap as muslin fabric. I don't like to make simple muslins...I like to make wearable muslins. These pants are quite loud and they are a nice medium weight cotton. Now that I understand the pattern, I can make him a pair of Jeans or some nice wool pants. The pattern is Vogue 8719, and it's a fairly simple pattern. This project took me about 10 hours total, the next pair should only take about 5 hours to make. Or maybe I will make a pair of pants for me!! 

As a reward for completing the pants I made a couple more triangle bags. These are heading to a friend that requested one...and today is her birthday. Some cute Melody Miller fabric with a crushed penny from Portland.... Happy Birthday!! 

We finally repaired out front stairs!!! I do not have a before photo but believe me they were awful, moss had grown in the cracks and the treads were rotting out. We painted the stairs several years ago in an effort to make them last and it worked. But now it was time to really fix the stairs, mostly I wanted a clean look when you came up the front stairs. I mean it's the first thing people see when they approach your house..so make a good first impression. Rotting stairs are not a good first impression. 

Yea!!! I saw my tote bags in the store again. This time it's the illustration my niece did for me of a hedgehog wearing glasses reading a book. They started selling over the spring break and they ordered 25 more hedgehogs.  I was delivering 125 bags of the skeleton carrying books, that bag is doing great. 

A couple more zipper pouches

I had some more time in my sewing studio this evening after the sun when down. It was 70 degrees this afternoon in Portland!! I loved being outside reading, pulling weeds & playing with the cats. When the sun went down at about 8pm (daylight savings time started today), I went down to the basement into my studio and made a couple more zipper pouches from this tutorial. I wanted to try some fun novelty fabric. I pulled out some fun fabric that has images of camera. I got it half done before I realized that the cameras were upside down. I had to get out my seam ripper and pull out the zipper and start over again. Good thing it's such a simple project and taking out a couple seams was very easy. I completed the camera bag and thought I would add a crushed penny as a zipper pull. I had a couple of pennies with holes drilled in them, they were left over from when I was practicing drilling in the pennies to make a necklace. The penny I used on the camera bag was a mis-stamped penny. I wanted to use a split ring to hold the penny to the zipper pull. It was very hard to open this small split ring and even harder to get it on the penny & zipper pull. It seems that hold that I drilled in the penny was a little too small and needs to be larger if I'm going to use pennies on these cute bags. 
Then I decided to use some of my Melody Miller View-Master fabric. I love this Melody Miller fabric and still have a nice stash of some of her early lines of fabric. I completed the pouch in about 15 minutes. Since I did not have any more pennies with holes handy I pulled out some beads. It took me longer to pick out what beads to use on the zipper pull then it took me to complete the pouch. I can't say enough about how easy these pouches are to make. I again cut down a couple zippers to 4" since I do not have any 4" zipper (they are kind of difficult to find). Since the zippers teeth on the zippers was nylon it was easy to sew through them on my machine, I would not try this with a zipper that has metal teeth unless you are going to hand stitch the bottom of the bag.