March is Slipping Away. . .

. . . like the tide.

John's dad and step-mom were up visiting us for the last week and a half. They are my favorite set of parents in the family, and it was terrific having them up. They live in Texas Hill Country, and it was a definite change of scenery for them. This picture is from our trip to Cannon Beach, Oregon. Unfortunately low tide wasn't at a convenient time for us, so we weren't able to see much of the tide pools, but it was still worthwhile, definitely worthwhile.

Time gets away from me even when I'm in my most efficient and productive mode (which isn't very,) and while we've had guests we've tried to live in "vacation-time" as much as possible. So here it is, with one third of March gone, and no blog entries. Wow.

March is National Craft Month. I don't know who declares these things, but it is. Connie and Audrey and I started the month appropriately with a trip to the big Sewing and Stitchery Expo at the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup. We didn't attend any workshops, but there was a mind-boggling array of booths to look at. And as usual, there is no shortage of crafting in the family.

Connie is a quilter (current president of her quilt guild!) and she brought a paper pieced "Grandmother's Flower Garden" project to work on. We also hit a few quilt and fabric stores while she was here, including the 1.25 acres of material at Fabric Depot in Portland and the highly rated Bridgeport Quilting in Olympia, although Connie gave good marks to our local Longview Sewing and Vacuum.

James got out his chain maile to show to the grandparents. He's making a coif out of 3/8" polished aluminum rings from a kit puchased on eBay.

I not been crafting as much as usual, because there has been an extraordinary amount of housecleaning and laundry going on around here, but I did take my knitting to the Portland Roadster Show:

This is some of that hand-dyed alpaca/merino from England I got in January, but I'm having some size issues with the hat, and am still trying to figure out if ripping it back and decreasing earlier is enough, or if I need to frog the whole thing. Audrey wasn't modelling it so much as she was using it to block out some light for a nap on the steps of the Convention Center (Grandpa Jim, who visits us every year during this event, looks at the hot rods much more thoroughly than the rest of us. ) After leaving here at 3:30 this morning to catch their 6:15 flight out of Portland, I'm sure that they are both ready for a nap, too.