Picture of the week ~ Whatcom County Snow

Picture of the week ~ Winter at our house

Mon Oeuvre ~ On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt Complete!

Last week on my quilt progress I was wrestling the bulk of the quilt on my lap, over my shoulder and on the table to do the machine quilting of my quilt sandwich. I'm glad my PFaff sewing machine has a large ARM area, so I was able to stuff and roll the quilt up and fit it in there as I worked my way around as I quilted. It was quite the workout. I'm very new to machine quilting. I don't do anything fancy, I'm just happy if I can get my lines straight. Here's the pattern that's visible on the back side of the quilt. I chose a fabric that had a restful pattern to the eye, since the front of the quilt is so busy.

After I finished the quilting, I cut up the binding fabric, I used the same brown that was used in the quilt blocks.

All of the strips were then sewn together and pressed in half lengthwise.

Machine sewing the binding to the quilt top, I then trimmed the batting, leaving 1/4' around the quilt.

Next I hand sewed the binding to the back side of the quilt. In the photos below you can see it completed.

I gifted this Mystery Quilt to my daughter. Her birthday is on Valentines day. I was very happy to have it completed. I delivered it to her over the weekend.

I hope that it will not only keep her warm, but that it will be a comfort to her. 

My thoughts, prayers and love are sewn in to every stitch.

Picture of the week ~ High water

Heart/Erie Lake trails hike

We headed towards the possibility of sun today, back to Fidalgo Island. We've had a weather streak here in Whatcom county: 22 days straight of rain. Yikes. 

Today was just what I needed to lift my spirits, sun peeking through the trees and a day playing with water. I had fun and felt like a kid having a great day of play. Every time we found a puddle across the trail, we used our hiking sticks, rocks, sticks or our boots to create an outward flow to get the water off of the trail. I spent alot of time working on my outflow channels,  we were quite the excavating team. It was somehow satisfying to watch the puddles drain off the trail.

When we left home and drove through Bellingham it was raining, but the closer we got to Heart lake, the nicer it got. There was even a bit of blue in the sky when we began our hike.

The lake level was high, as you can see in the photo below.

I like to look at trees that are thriving even after their mother tree/stump has deteriorated back into the earth. This one had quite the hollow area below it, but thriving it was!

Ahhh.... sunlight ❤

I loved seeing the sun shine through the trees again.

Part of the trail to Erie lake parallels the road and we could see this waterfall just on the other side of the road.

We stopped at a clearing with a tiny view of Erie lake, and a great view of Mt. Erie.

The rocks in the photo below have Glacial scratching along them.

Mt. Erie

Madrona's ❤

We hiked on to another "view" area. There isn't a view, but it is a nice top of a hill. There was a fairly strong north wind blowing on the top, so we didn't hang around long.

The trails are well marked with a plethora of signs.

The trail I'm standing at is NOT a trail we took. I think we took every other trail in the vicinity today though.

We didn't start hiking till around 11:30, our late start brought us back to our car just on time for a bit of a sunset.

Relive video of our route.

You'll see in the video that Heart lake is actually heart shaped!

https://youtu.be/BO3vAvw3rDg

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 10 miles

total ascent - 1348 feet

Mon Oeuvre ~ On Ringo Lake Mystery Quilt progress 11

I made the Quilt Sandwich! 

After squaring up the flimsy, I bought the backing fabric, washed it, cut it and sewed it together. I ironed it with starch before I laid it down on a sheet on the floor for the quilt sandwich assembly. I found a nice fabric for the backing, I really like how it looks, sorry the good side is laying on the ironing board. No peeking!

I use 505 adhesive spray to put the layers together, and a three sided ruler to smooth it all out with the adhesive spray. It all works really well for me. It's probably not what a "real" quilter would approve of, but I just try my best with what I have. After making sure I had it all smoothed out I trimmed the batting to about 2” from the quilt edge.

This week I'm doing the machine quilting. I don't do anything fancy, just stitch in the ditch and some 1/4" outline quilting. The picture below show my setup for the machine quilting. It takes a bit of wrestling with the fabric but I make it work. 😎

Picture of the week ~ Trail Gnome

Oyster Dome lollipop hike

Today hike was a lollipop, just as the shape implies. an out and back with a big loop in the middle.

We started on the stick part for our hike up the Oyster Dome trail from Chuckanut drive.

My rain poncho stayed on all day.

The weather stayed misty and dark all day. There was a low fog that stayed in the trees for most of our hike.

We hiked up the trail and turned off at the Samish Overlook junction, instead of going directly to Oyster Dome. This section of our hike began the loop or circle of our lollipop.

I don't take many selfies, but here I am with the view from the Overlook over my left shoulder. The sky wasn't too socked in at this point of the hike, we had a fair view of Skagit Valley.

We then took the Larry Reed trail to Max's shortcut.

Again we were hiking in the low fog and drizzle.

We hiked up and through a small section of snow.

We then connected to the trail that leads to the Oyster Dome overlook.

I was so impressed with this skookum bridge that had been placed over a small creek on the trail. It's definitely ready for some heavy traffic on the trail in the coming years.

Not too much of a view from Oyster Dome. The wind was blowing and it was raining, so we hiked back down the hill a short distance to a sheltered spot and ate our lunch and much anticipated hot cocoa.

After lunch we headed down the trail and rejoined the trail that junctioned with the Samish Overlook trail and resumed hiking back on the stick part of our lollipop.

Our lollipop looks kind of freakish, but still a lollipop hike!

Satellite view

Map view

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 9.9 mile

total ascent - 2,490 feet

A good "up" training day.