Berthusen Park trails

We had visited Berthusen park recently and decided it would be a nice place to explore. It has a few trails in it, so we thought we'd go for a wander and see how it was.

I took this photo of the map board, there was some glare on it from the sun, but after looking at it I liked the picture because the forest is reflected in it.

Berthusen park is a hidden gem in Whatcom county. It's full of trees, ferns, Oregon grape, glorious flowers, a creek and many forest trails that surround and intermingle throughout the park.

A giant was among us. I took this photo the last time we were at the park.

I don't know what these flowers are but they were near the creek. I thought they were so beautiful.

I'm not sure how many benches there were, but the Eagle scouts had put in at least 12 that I counted along the trail. 

My husband looking pretty comfortable on one of the benches.

I've always loved trees that were bowed over the trail.

We stopped by the creek for a bit to check it out.

After we left the creek we discovered more of the beautiful flowers, they grew as tall as me! 

Then back to the forest trails.

Majesty

Our wander took us 4 1/2 miles, we went around the perimeter trail and some of the interior trails.

Our tracking route looks a little similar to the map on the sign board. You can see on the green map that there were a few trails we didn't get to.

Since we didn't get on all of the trails, we'll have to plan another day of adventuring in this wonderful forest.

                                                              

Mon Oeuvre ~ Dogs in Sweaters Quilt

"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'm beginning a new Quilt, I found a cute Dachshund Quilt pattern on Instagram awhile back. I loved it because I had a mini- Dachshund that lived for 17 1/2 years. She was a sweetie, so I thought I'd like to make one for memory sake. The pattern makes me laugh and smile just like she did. The glasses one cracks me up. I found the pattern at Annie's Craft Store.

The pattern makes a pillow, a lap quilt and a full sized quilt. I'm going to be making the lap sized quilt. I'll be using some left over fabric from my "en Provence" quilt. My quilt won't have so much white background fabric.  I'll only have white around each dog block, the rest of the background will be the butterfly purple fabric I used for the backing of my en Provence quilt. The sweaters will be the 4 center colors in the photo below: green, yellow, light purple and the magenta. The sweater trim will be the darker purple print. The backing and dog bodies will be the cinnamon brown fabric The plaid patterned brown fabric will be the ears and trail. The brown with the yellow dots will be the binding and lastly the black fabric will be the eyes, nose and glasses. I hope the colors all work out as planned. I'm excited about getting it done and wrapping myself up in my "Jasmine" themed lap quilt.

My Jasmine ❤

She always acted like she was the "boss" dog. She liked to be in the lead when we were hiking on a trail, she would take on dogs way bigger than her. She had no fear. She was the best greeter in the house. She would come running and leap into my arms, wiggling all over. 

Licking, Licking and Licking.

Here's a photo that shows some of her personality. She was just as determined to carry this very large stick as our Golden Retriever "Harpo", but it was Harpo's too, so they walked along holding it together.

A side note about Vintage sewing machines. My husband and I were out on a drive and he saw a free sign with some items in some one's yard. He said there's a sewing machine there. I said turn around let's go check it out. What a find! A free Vintage Singer. We took it home. I cleaned it up, put some protector on the surface areas that are eaten away and oiled it. It runs like a charm. I named her "Betsy" (as in Ross, Betsy Ross). Never can have too many sewing machines right 😉

Before -

After -

Here's a video of it working. I took the video after it's initial cleaning, without the surface protector application, or oiling. I just wanted to see it it would run at all. It sounds pretty good even though it hadn't been oiled yet.

Some people trash are other people's treasures!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jABYH7ePJx0