I can hardly believe it but this is actually my 300th blog post! I had sort of planned that I would do something special for this post, but between family coming to visit and everything else going on this summer I haven’t had time to plan anything. So instead I am going to post a bunch of photos from the day trip we took over to Bainbridge Island on Friday. I am sure there will be a giveaway or something in the near future though to celebrate 300 posts, but just not today :)

If you ever get the chance to visit Bainbridge Island, visiting Esther’s Fabrics is an absolute must! :) Of course I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time here (I could have spent all day in this shop), so I think I might have to go back sometime in the near future…

After doing a little shopping, we walked around the town a little bit…

Friday was actually a pretty hot day for around this area, so we ended up at one of the beaches on Bainbride Island… It was a gorgeous spot for photo taking.

Looking in the window of a house for sale on the beach…

The outside of the house…

It is a very beautiful house in a beautiful location, it makes me wonder why anyone would want to sell it! I would just love to live in that house (well if it wasn’t totally impractical:)

After a bit of walking around on the beach, Ben and I set up a blanket overlooking the water and just sat for awhile while his family walked around some more… It was a great view, well until the waves crashed in and got our blanket soaked (luckily I grabbed my camera off the blanket just in time!). The spot & the view before…

Taking the ferry ride back to Seattle after a beautiful day on the island…

I am sure that anyone who lives around here has probably around made this day trip, but if you haven’t you should since it is just a beautiful place to visit. :)

Totally unrelated, but I wanted to say hi to anyone who is visiting from Molly’s post over at Momformation. Also if you have emailed me lately about the blog meet up or anything else, I am a bit behind on my emails (only about 100 unread emails in my inbox) & plan on getting back to you very soon! :) (I am also totally behind on replying to comments, but hope to catch up soon. In the meantime I should say that I do read every comment & appreciate every single one!)

These pillows have been sitting on my works in progress pile for a couple months now… (Apparently since the end of May actually according to this and this.) We have family coming to visit this week though, so I decided it was time to get these finished and onto our couch. The fronts are just slightly different (mostly because I didn’t actually have enough of the same linen for both pillows), but I love how it looks. They match this quilt, and all are now in our living room. (At some point I will take some photos of the whole room to post.)

The backs of the pillows are just a plain grey organic cotton, which is quite soft…

It does make me laugh a bit when I look back at that quilt post and realize that both the quilt and the pillows sat on my wip pile for quite awhile. At least both projects are finished finally :)

Onto a totally different subject… If you are a craft blogger and you live in the Seattle area (or feel like visiting for this:) on Saturday, September 6th I am arranging a little informal craft blog get together. It will just be getting together for a bit of coffee and chatting, but if you are at all interested send me an email (chara at charamichele dot com) and I can send you more details about location and time. It should be a lot of fun! :)

Oh and despite the fact that this week is promising to be a very busy one, I decided I just had to redecorate my entire blog with a new theme design (+ banner). So if you read this post in a feed reader, feel free to pop on over to my blog and take a look :)

I finished this quilt block just in time yesterday afternoon to send it out in the mail. It is actually going back to Illinois to the first blogger I ever met :) Dorie & Meg decided to start a little quilt along called One Quilt, with 12 of us ladies and they were sweet enough to invite me to participate. This month the block was for Dorie & I absolutely love the fabrics she picked! So much that I just couldn’t bring myself to add any other fabrics into the block… I actually had a few fabrics that I considered, but decided I just loved the 3 fabrics she picked too much. :) (Dorie you might have to tell me where you found that cute tree & squirrel fabric…)

Speaking of bloggers that I have met… I had a lovely morning yesterday meeting Joanna and her 3 little boys for a bit of blueberry picking! I had never been blueberry picking before, but had an absolutely wonderful time chatting with Joanna. I didn’t leave empty handed either, I picked enough blueberries so that Ben had a nice snack after work (blueberries are one of his favorite fruits…).

Joanna also brought me some beautiful fabric and this amazing hanger…

I had actually been thinking I really needed to find a pretty hanger for photographing shirts & other things sometimes and this is perfect! It makes me think about the Pacific Northwest every time I see it (which makes me think about how happy I am to live in such an amazing place:)

On Sunday I had a friend’s baby shower to attend, so last Wednesday (or was it Thursday) I picked out some fabric for the gift and waited until Friday (!) to actually sew up the gift. Very last minute, which I suppose went along with the project I picked to make since it was from Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts. I spent most of Saturday sitting in my studio on my chair in the sunshine hand stitching the binding, which was not a terrible way to spend a Saturday. I think this might become my new baby shower gift, since I have a few more baby showers to attend in the near future (although I might try to make those a little less last minute :)

Some lovely things from last week (because I seem to be about a week behind real life when it comes to blogging)…

I received a coupon in my email last week for Sew, Mama, Sew & I just couldn’t resist using it :)

Beautiful new fabrics from Anna Maria Horner’s new line Garden Party… What can I say about these, other than that the colors are simply gorgeous!

Lovely orange + green from Erin McMorris’ line Park Slope. I have never really liked the color orange, but lately I seem to be drawn to it. Although I still have a hard time buying anything orange, but this fabric is the perfect shade of it…

Fabric from the Ginger Blossoms line by Sandi Henderson for finishing a quilt I have been working on… (Although I have yet to decide how big I am going to make this quilt & what to do with it when I am done, since even though the colors are beautiful I am not sure it is really going to work anywhere in my house…)

A bit of fabric for a summer top or two (although summer doesn’t feel like it is going to last much longer - oh well :)

Some very lovely shades of grey & blue linen from a shop that will remain nameless. (Unless you want a tip on where not to shop! Which honestly I have no problem giving, just shoot me a little email :)

A couple new crafting books… I don’t normally buy crafting books, but after hearing so many great things about the two on the bottom I decided I had to get them for myself. I wasn’t disappointed either, both of these books are wonderful.

The “Cotton Time” was from the local Japanese bookshop. Last Friday, Ahava and I went and did a little shopping together. Mostly it was window shopping since I had already bought enough fabric & such last week, but I did pick up the latest cotton time magazine (which I don’t think should be called a magazine, it really is more of a book.)

Ahava also gave me this lovely homemade strawberry jam! Wasn’t that so sweet of her! :)

And if you actually read all the way to the bottom of this, well that was so sweet of you! :)

There is actually a bit of crafting/sewing going on around here, but no photos yet of any of it… Partly because I cannot figure out how in the world to photograph one of the projects & partly because a lot of the projects I have been working on are still works in progress. So instead of a bit of crafting I thought I would share some photos of the cats :) These were actually taken weeks ago, but have just been sitting on my computer. I am loving the black & white (and the color photo too:)…

I’ll be back tomorrow with either some sewing or maybe all the lovely mail I got last week…

A few posts ago I mentioned that I had my birthday during my little blogging break, but I didn’t mention the best part which was my birthday present from Ben. I wasn’t really expecting anything this year, but Ben surprised me with wanting to get me something. I was definitely surprised alright when I found out what I was getting for my birthday! My sweet husband bought me the camera that I have been talking about for months… the canon 40d.

I am absolutely in love with this camera! My previous camera body was the canon rebel xti, which is a wonderful camera too but the 40d has so many little things that make it even better. I shoot exclusively in manual & aperture priority modes and the 40d makes shooting in manual easier than with the xti. Have I mentioned that I love my new camera & my husband! (Although not in that order of course:) I have dreams of becoming a bit more serious with my photography (that is a topic for a whole other post:) and am so thankful for a wonderful husband who is supportive of those dreams. So thanks to my sweet husband, Ben, for a wonderful birthday gift!

(This post also explains why things have been a bit slow on the sewing & crafting front lately, although I still do have a few projects in mind that I want to start so I am sure some sewing will happen soon:)

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my new studio! I wish I could invite you all over for a little tea & sewing, wouldn’t that be fun :) Thank you though, it made my day to read all your lovely comments! :)

I was tagged me awhile back by Sew Spoiled, so I thought I would share my answers to that & a few photos at the same time today…

What was I doing ten years ago?
Let’s see, 10 years ago I was still in high school. (See 2 posts ago where I mentioned my birthday if you are ever so curious about my age ;) So trying my hardest to enjoy the summer most likely :)

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?
Catch up on some emails
Work on framing the photos I had printed to hang in our living room
Write a couple thank you notes
Cuddle the cats
Watch an episode of the old tv show “Bewitched” (I am addicted thanks to netflix…)

Five snacks I enjoy:
Mint Chocolate Pirouette’s, Norfolk Lemon or Ginger Biscuits, apple slices, and to be honest those are the only 3 snacks I can think of that I enjoy… I am not a big food person really.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Since I can’t comprehend ever being a billionaire that is a tough one… I would buy a house in the country (but near enough to the city) and get a dog + 1 more cat (I am convinced right now that Pounce & Axel could use a kitty sister - which isn’t going to happen anytime soon since we are only allowed 2 pets where we are living) + 2 horses… I would also save a bunch & give some to our families. I would also give a bunch to my favorite charity’s (or is it charities?)…

Places I’ve lived
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Washington (my favorite place by far! :)

I am not going to tag anyone, but feel free to consider yourself tagged if you want to play along.

All the photos are just some of my favorites from a walk I took a couple weeks ago… I was trying out one of the lenses I had rented & had fun just walking around taking photos.

I can hardly believe it has been over 3 ½ months since we picked up and moved from Illinois to Washington… I am so happy we made that move for so many different reasons, but one reason is definitely my new studio space. When we looked for places to live, we decided to find an apartment that had an extra room for my sewing. Ben is so nice to not mind that all he has is a little corner for his desk, when I have the whole rest of the room for all my stuff…

I love the windows in our apartment, we get a ton of natural light which is wonderful with the grey skies that this area seems to have quite frequently:) Actually I picked the blue paint for the walls because it reminds me a bit of the sky and I figured when the sky is grey I can just look at the lovely walls in my studio :)

The inspiration wire above my desk has some of my favorite postcards on it for right now. I think as the seasons change I might change out the items hanging from it. I love that it is a bit of art & color that I can switch out so easily.

Of course Pounce needed to be in at least one photo :) (Don’t mind the bikes, that is not actually where those belong…)

One of my favorite things about my new sewing studio is my cutting table. In our old house, I had to constantly set up a folding table whenever I needed more space for sewing… Now I just walk over to my cutting table :) (The best part is that it does come apart for easy storage for when we have guests over and need to use my studio as a guest room, but I can leave it up all the time now.)

I love the black + white print of the curtains… In fact I love it so much I bought a bit extra of it & in another color too! (Would it be too strange to make a shirt in the same fabric as my curtains? Maybe if I just don’t stand right next to them when I wear the top? :)

Have I mentioned that I love my new studio! It was so much fun to decorate, but even more fun to enjoy it now that it is finished. :)

2 posts in the same week… I know I was gone for awhile, so I hope it isn’t too much to post a bunch now that I am back :) I definitely missed blogging while I was gone & am happy to be back to writing in this space again!

That was a much unintended blogging break that I took! I think I am back though :) Summer has finally arrived and things are finally starting to settle into a bit of a routine or at least as routine as life is going to get anytime soon. My blogging break was quite a bit of fun though, packed with lots of stuff including in no particular order…

- Finishing decorating my studio, complete with curtains (I promise to post a bunch of photos of my finished studio soon - in fact I already have a post started already).

- Visiting with family

- Getting to be tourists in our own city

- Going whale watching (see above about being tourists :) and actually getting to see Orca whales…

- Taking a free motion quilting lesson & a quilt binding class. Both so much fun, although my free motion quilting could still use a bit more practice :)

- Renting 2 lenses from here to try both out for a week and taking a lot of photos.

- My 25th birthday last Friday!

I also worked on a bit of sewing during my blogging break, but other than the curtains I have only started projects and not finished anything. I have a lot of ideas right now though so I am hoping to finish some of those projects so I can start on new ones soon. (Now if only the linen I ordered over a month ago would actually arrive, that would help!)