Bye bye 6832

In a few hours I'm leaving Seattle. Again I had a wonderful time here thanks to Marne and Elaine.

It was great being with them, doing sightseeing, having loveley dinners together, the newsquiz in the morning, sewing, quilt shopping, coffe from Starbucks, bread from Greatefull bread,  visiting friends and all those other things I love to do so much here. Cu next year in the Netherlands. Love Caro

Black friday

Traditionally after thanksgiving there is 'Black friday'. On black friday starts the big shopping for X-mas, with lots and lots of products on discount. Some shops are already open on midnight. It's a real challenge if you want to do shopping downtown. We didn't. Just a quick visit at the University Shop to buy a few Huskie things.

GO DAWGS

Be thankful

Butternut squash

My first thanksgving. In Europe we don't know this tradition.

Thanksgiving Day is a national holidya celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year.

What it nowdays stands for is to think about, remember and be thankful for the good things in life.

You celebrate it with family and friends. And there is always TURKEY on the menu. A traditional thanksgiving menu: turkey, mashed patatoes, stuffing, cranberries and vegetables (which can be everything). We had Brussel sprouts and  Butternut Squash (butternut in the Netherlands we would call it probably call it a kind of pumpkin). And for dessert you always have pumpkin pie.

And if you really in distress about preparing your turkey, you can always call the "turkey hotline".

In the morning we watched the parade, if the weather is oke you go out for a walk, or play a little bit of football in the parc. In the afternoon you can watch a football game the Dallas Cowboys. They always play on thanksgiving day. It was a lovely expercience.

Quiltshops in Seattle

Francis was asking in a comment: Are their many quiltshops in Seattle? Yes I think there are many quiltshops over here, but it's not that you find a quiltshop on every corner.

But to give you an in impression: from Marne's house: it's a 15 minute drive to Northgate Pacific Fabric. That's a  really a big quiltshop, you use a shopping chart (winkelwagentje) to go through the shop. You just load all the fabrics you want.

What's missing here is personal assistence, or a cup of coffee, like we do in the Netherlands. The same is for Jo-Ann (fabric and craft shop) which is amazingly big, you can buy fabrics, quilting equipment, wool, wood, bakingproducts etc. etc. you can walk around for hours.












Then there is the Quiltersloft (20 minutes),  Keepsake cottage (45 minutes), Aunt Mary's (40 minutes), Gathering fabrics (45 minutes), Country and Carriage Shop (35 minutes) much smaller, but still pretty big comparing to the Netherlands.

Left a quilt from the '30s and on the right around 1870.

And sometimes you find a very small quiltshop, like the one I visited in Ballard, you have to go through the coffeeshop to enter the quiltshop "drygoods designs".

I think that's a pretty good idea, you can do shopping, your husband can drink coffee.

Downtown Seattle you only find "Undercover Quilts". I must say it's not one of my favorites, they have very  bright fabrics, but they had a few beautiful antique quilts for sale.

For sale 895 dollars, around 1880-1900

The duck tour (wednesday)

Sorry guys, busy days here in Seattle ; ). Time to catch up with all my adventures. I have been very lucky with this nice sunny weather and mostly blue skies. Today another day downtown. Elaine had a working day, and Marne had grandmother duties. No problem, it's a very easy bus ride.

One of the things that  I hadn't done so far in Seattle was the "duck tour". If you want to do something silly, funny and stupid. Go on a duck ride. I had a very good time. I clapped, sang, whistled my ducktour whistle and just had fun. The duck tour is a 1,5 hour ride through the city and on the water, that's makes it very interesting.

A little bit history of Seattle

Seattle lies on a narrow strip of land between the salt waters of Puget Sound and the fresh waters of Lake Washington. Beyond the waters lie two rugged mountain ranges, the Olympics to the west and the Cascades to the east. It is a city built on hills and around water, in a mild marine climate that encourages prolific vegetation and abundant natural resources.White settlers came to the Seattle area in 1851. The village was named Seattle, honoring a Duwamish Indian leader named Sealth who had befriended the settlers.

The new town's principal economic support was Henry Yesler's lumber mill at the foot of Mill Street (now Yesler Way), built in 1853. Much of the mill's production went to the booming city of San Francisco, but the mill also supplied the fledgling towns throughout the Puget Sound region. A brief Indian "war" in the winter of 1856 interrupted the town's development, but when the Territorial legislature incorporated Seattle in 1869, there were more than 2,000 residents.


The city's population became increasingly diversified. Scandinavians came to work in fishing and lumbering, African Americans to work as railroad porters and waiters, and Japanese to operate truck gardens and hotels. There were significant communities of Italians, Chinese, Jews, and Filipinos. The International District, home to several Asian ethnic groups, was largely developed during this period. There are living over 608.660 people in Seattle, but in the area are living 2.3 million people.

Sleepless in Seattle (the green one in the middle)

Impression of downtown Seattle

Take your bike with you, no problem.

It's only a 30 minutes bus drive to downtown Seattle. Then you get out the bus straight into Macy's. Between 1th Ave and 5th Ave you can find lots and lots of different stores. So there is a  chocolate a shop. I found a very cute shop with remade vintage dresses from the 40s, 50s and 60s. So lovely, but a little bit expensive and my suitcases are getting pretty filled up. I found two pair of jeans in the Gap store on sale, so they cost only 40 dollars.

Shopping makes hungry so I went to the Crumpet shop, it's a cute little coffee shop with crumpet (a round bread, 1,5 inch high). You can have with all kind of toppings. They did a pretty good job, because when I left the shop around 1.30 p.m. they were sold out.

View over Seattle
There are two places to go where you can have wonderful views over Seattle and the mountains. One is Space Needle (but that one is already of my bucketlist), the other one is the Skyview in the Columbian Centre on the 73th floor. Twice as high as the Space Needle. Well have a look at my album (click here) to see all the pictures from today

The crumpet shop

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Amazing dog stuff ....

..... how about this doggie baking machine "Bake a bone".

I found at the drugstore around the corner.

Isn't it cute you can make your own dog cookies and they have even standard cookie mix packages.

And what about those nice X-mas sweaters. Or the different flavour cookies "ginger or pumpkin".
I was talking to a lady today when I had lunch in the Crumpet shop and she told me that there were more dogs then children in Seattle. The average family has 1.2 child and 1.4 dog. Maybe that's were there is so much dog stuff ; ).

More quilting .....

...... is going in Seattle. We had a very busy last week, and we have another busy week ahead. Thursday it's Thanksgiving, so that means preparing turkey, do shopping etc. etc.

But don't worry there will be time enough left for quilting. I'm working on different little projects and of course my big flannel "jack"  project.

I adore this cute little X-mas bags. Here is the pattern if you like to make them as well. It's a very easy pattern, and of course you can make the bag as big as you want.

Cutting:
2 pieces of fabric 7inch x 8 inch for the outside
2 pieces of fabric 7inch x 8 inch for the lining

4 pieces of fabric,  I did some applique on the front of the bag.

2 pieces of fabric 2inch x 8,5 inch for the handles

Instruction number 2.

Instruction:
1. Start sewing the handles, fold them together wrong sides together, sew them, turn them
2. Pin the handles on the fabric (it doesn't matter if you pin them on the outside fabric or lining. Just pin at the right side of the fabric, I do them about 2 inches from each side. Do the same again.
4. Open the fabric and pin the two pieces of fabric together, leave an opening in the lining at the bottom so you can turn the fabric. Put the outline fabric on the outline fabric, and the lining on the lining. Right side togehter. Stitch all round except for the opening to turn the bag.

Instruction number 4.

5. If you want to make a kind of bottom, just look at the pictures, and do it all 4 corners.

5. Then turn the bag. And there it is ready to go.

If you want to make a lunchbag then you could size it up to: 11 x 10 inch. Good luck, I hope you will enjoy making them as much as I do.

Lake Washington (sunday afternoon)

After a lunch at Burgermaster (another 'check on my bucket list') we went for a walk at Lake Washington. The lunch was really fun.

I met Marne, Mary and their daughter Amalia (name after our dutch crownprincess). They really are a lovely couple and they both have dutch roots, isn't that interesting.

As you can see the weather is still beautiful, blue skies, not too cold.