Movies in the Park

It was a warm spring evening last week when my friend Victor came over with his movie set up. To be honest I had been bugging Victor to have another movie night in the park for awhile. A couple of summers ago Victor started to bring over his found films and playing them in the park. Yes actual films on a real projector. It's work for him since that is what he does for a job, but he has such fun and wonderful old films that I really wanted him to do a movie night again. 
I forget the movie titles but there was a cartoon about the original 13 colonies, several educational cartoons like the ones you may have watched in school from about 1950-1970 and a longer film about a military plane crash in the desert. The military plane crash was about how to survive in hostile environments. How to gather water, ration food and how to provide medical attention to those that need it. I had bought a bunch of red & black vines because you always need licorice at the movies, a neighbor made some popcorn & I also made a couple batches of rice crispy treats. The ones left over at the end of the night were the ones that had tabasco sauce in them.  Sounds strange right...but they are good, just the right amount of sweet and hot. Try it next time you make rice crispy treats, just a few good shakes of hot sauce makes for an interesting dessert. 

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!!!!

Christmas Tree Burn

Last saturday I attended a Christmas Tree Burn out at Kelly Point Park. The idea is to get as many christmas trees as possible and light them on fire. This is something that happens in San Francisco every January. Several years ago we collected about 40 trees and lit them all off at once down at an abandon warehouse in North Portland. The flames got to about 100 ft, it was truly amazing. This year we had about 5 trees going down to the park and hoped that others would bring trees too. When we got to the park there was a recycling area where folks had dumped their christmas trees already...so we had another 14 trees. As we gathered several people brought trees as well as a firework Christmas tree that my friend Karl put together from fireworks left over from new years. We were waiting for a bunch of people that went to the Blazer game to protest against the Westboro Baptist Church folks who were in town to protest the Blazers for coming out in support of Gay Marriage. It was getting cold so the trees were set off before everyone arrived. It went off in a magnificent blaze as dried trees often do. As the fire started to die down more folks arrived and added more trees. It was fun to see the fire reach a hight of about 70 or more feet in the air. The area was quite wet so there was no danger of a forest fire, we were also about 15 ft from the Columbia River so there was plenty water to use if anything caught on fire. We also honored some friends that passed away back in October in a car accident on I-5. We wrote messages to our friends on pieces of paper and attached the messages to the trees, the paper burned with the trees and the good thought went out to our friends. It was a nice way to honor our friends and get some closure. 

One hot afternoon 

Last week it was quite hot so we headed down to Kelly Point Park past St Johns. It was nice to sit in cold water watching boats go past. I'm busy sewing to see what I can make quickly and is interesting enough to sell at a farmers market or on Etsy. I was talking to a friend and she told me she sells tons of reusable bags where she works. I decided to try my hand at making bags. I have made other recycled bags but I think vintage fabric and ribbon is a hit. These bags are about 20" tall by 18 " wide. They are easy to make, it's all about the gusset on the bottom to give the bag some structure. I used some scrap upholstery fabric and some really beautiful vintage ribbon for the handle. The thins is I have tons of scrap fabric that I can use to make a few of these bags, making all of them unique and one of a kind. Most of the time for me is spent decided on color combinations.