Picture of the week ~ Christmas week Sunrise

Picture of the week ~ Admiralty Head Lighthouse

 

Mon Oeuvre - Grassy Creek Mystery Quilt progress 3

 "Oeuvre" (the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively: "the complete oeuvre of Mozart" a work of art, music, or literature: "an early oeuvre" ORIGIN late 19th cent.: French, literally ‘work.’ - Oxford Dictionary.)

I made a sample of this week's Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt clue three to see how it would go. 

This clue used the red, orange and neutral fabrics. I enjoyed playing with placements of the units as I finished them.

After cutting all of the strips it was time to assembly line the project.

Going great until....oh, oh. Sewed one on the wrong side, thankfully I only did that once!

I was holding my breath that I'd get through with units before I ran out of thread in my bobbin, it was running low. Hurray, I won the "thread chicken" game. Not much was left at the end.

Clue three complete, and looking festive for the holiday season.

❤

Ebey Landing hike

 It was stormy and dark when we left our home this morning. We brought our rain gear and were ready for what the day had to give us. We drove through the usual rain near the Alger exit on the freeway as we headed south, and then as usual the closer we got to Whidbey Island the nicer the day got. We had no rain the whole time we were hiking, just a nice brisk breeze.

We parked near the Prairie overlook, actually just around the corner from there is the main parking area for the trail. The map below is a cropping I made of this full MAP.

We walked past the old Ebey house and blockhouse that are part of the National Historic Preserve. The blockhouse that we passed by had some interesting shims added where logs were put in to fill the spaces. You can read about the Jacob and Sarah Ebey house HERE (there are also some great historic photos included in the article).

Looking back at the full size of the blockhouse.

We made our way along the Ebey prairie trail, that connects with the Bluff trail.

Just where the two trails connect, there is a wonderful Prickly Pear cactus growing. We always like to check it out to see how it's doing. If you zoom in on the photo below you'll notice the cactus in the middle right, just at the edge of the bushes. The photo is looking down at the beach below from the bluff.

We hiked along the bluff until we came to our usual lunch spot. We sat and enjoyed the view.

My husband wanted to know what the tide would be before we went down to the beach so I checked it out on my iPhone at this website. The highest tide of the day had already happened, but it was coming in just a bit more again. The blue vertical line on the screenshot below was the time we were looking at the chart, so as you can see we had a little time before the tide was at it's next high mark.

Making our way down to the beach from the bluff.

As you can see the tide was just coming up to the driftwood as the surf came in.

We decided to do the inner trail along Perego's lake.

After rounding the point the inner trail goes away and the rest of the walk has to be done on the beach. The shore was wider here so the tide wasn't as much of an issue for the rest of the beach distance.

We finished our hike by walking up the stairs that lead to the Bluff/Prairie trail junction (or where the cactus lives).

Before heading back we did the Pratt loop. What a nice day it turned out to be.

A wonder of a wander once again at Ebey landing.

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/flQ3FZGR5hg

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 5.69

total ascent - 525 feet

total descent - 551 feet

Picture of the week ~ Holidays webs

Mon Oeuvre - Grassy Creek Mystery Quilt progress 2

  "Oeuvre" (the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively: "the complete oeuvre of Mozart" a work of art, music, or literature: "an early oeuvre" ORIGIN late 19th cent.: French, literally ‘work.’ - Oxford Dictionary.)

This week's clue for the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt was Hourglass Units.

First chain piecing was sewing half of the hourglass unit.

Two done to see how they would turn out after sewing the half units together.

Two more and I'm satisfied that I understand how to make them.

The assembly line chain piecing begins...

and continues.

Time to spin those center seams, press them and trim the corner dog ears off. I always enjoy the mini-square that happens on the back side, so satisfying.

Clue two "Hourglass Units" complete!

Picture of the week ~ A very old tree

850 year old Douglas fir.

Sand Dune Interpretive trail.

Whidbey Island

Mon Oeuvre - Grassy Creek Mystery Quilt progress 1

  "Oeuvre" (the works of a painter, composer, or author regarded collectively: "the complete oeuvre of Mozart" a work of art, music, or literature: "an early oeuvre" ORIGIN late 19th cent.: French, literally ‘work.’ - Oxford Dictionary.)

"Grassy Creek" is the title for this years Bonnie Hunter's Mystery Quilt.

My fabrics have been chosen, pre-washed/starched and pressed. 

The first clue was Half Square Triangles.

Cutting, sewing, pressing and trimming.

The first clue is complete!

Indoor lighting

Outdoor lighting

It's always interesting how the lighting can affect how the colors look. The true colors are somewhere in between the two photos.

Goose Rock hike

 Today we chose Goose Rock for our hiking destination. We started at the West Beach parking lot.

What a view❤

(Click to enlarge)

After enjoying the view it was time to get on the trail.

We walked past the amphitheater and got a quick view of the beach and the Deception pass bridge before getting back to the trail.

At the group picnic parking area is a large tree with a climbing set up attached to it. The sign explained what this was about.

The trail the parallels the beach leads to the bridge and the Goose Rock summit trail.

The "under" bridge view.

I had just purchased the PNT guide on the Guthook app. The PNT is a trail that goes from Montana to Washington’s coast. You can read more about it HERE. Several trails in our area have PNT emblems on them. I was excited to see the info. from the guide for this particular section. The collage below shows the sign and my Guthook screen shot. The small arrow on the map is our location, as you can see we were beginning to go up the "blue" or alternate trail. The red line is the PNT trail. The blue line goes up and over the Balds of Goose Rock.

A bench near the top.

The views from the top.

Making our way down the other side of the Balds.

Our first view of Cornet bay.

Madrona along the trail.

After the Madrona, we came into the Rhododendron section. These plants are as tall as me. We've been there when they were in bloom and it is really a sight worth seeing.

Now that we were off the summit trail we decided to turn right and follow the red line of the PNT for awhile.

As you can see in the collage of the screenshots below, the trail doesn't follow or intercect with the PNT on this particular part of the trail we were on. We actually were on the black dotted line. We never saw a trail junction where the red line showed it was supposed to be on our guide. The solid black line is the Discovery trail. When we got to that junction we headed north on that trail.

On the screenshot on the photo below, you can see that we are now at the trail junction for the Lower forest trail as the sign says. We took that trail back to the PNT.

Yay! Our arrow on the guide did indeed take us back to the red line. We followed the perimeter trail back to the bridge.

A nice view of Cornet bay.

After walking under the bridge we were once again heading towards West beach. We were no longer following the PNT at this point.

Instead of going back our same route, we got off the trail and walked the beach back.

The tide was just low enough that we could get around the rock.

After walking up a small hill along the shore, I turned around and captured a photo of the bridge.

Back at our start and the beautiful beach view.

Before heading home we decided to take the Sand Dunes interpretive trail, that began near Cranberry lake. It also starts at the West beach parking lot, so we didn't have to drive to a new location.

It was a nice scenic and informative paved trail.

We stopped to admire the 850 year old Douglas fir tree along the trail.

The sky was beginning to show some color, perfect timing as we were finishing our walk. I hope my fun of inserting some screenshots of our route, while using the Guthook app for some PNT exploring didn't totally confuse you. I enjoyed following or trying to follow it!!

Relive video of our route:

https://youtu.be/Wh6S1S_rDTM

Garmin stats:

total miles hiked - 7.2

total ascent - 1273 feet