We left Acadia Friday but before we packed up we took one last hike. Our favorite is the hike closest to where we stay on Beech Mountain. It's not too long but has a little of every type of trail. It also has this beautiful view of the lake that "our" house is on. I never tire of seeing the granite steps on the trails around the park. I can't even imagine how long it took to put all of these stones in place. One thing's for sure, they don't require any ongoing maintenance! We've probably hiked this trail 4 or 5 times but it's the first time I've noticed this profile. We usually see turkeys in various places around the park but Chris commented the night before we left that he hadn't seen any this week. Then we headed to Beech Mountain for this hike.... Turkeys on the left... Turkeys in the road... Turkeys on the right! That satisfied is desire to see some turkeys! On the way up and back I got to do lots of crochet in the car. It's about 16 hours each way so I have a lot of time. I did a baby hat to go with the blankets and 2 hats for my brothers step-grands. These are in their school colors. I have 2 more to make for the other 2 kids and I ordered the yarn while I was in the car. I still need to stitch these together to finish them off. About the drive, I really have sympathy for those of you who live around Boston. The traffic is miserable, no matter what time you are there. The only other yarn I had in the car was the leftover baby blanket yarn. I bought way too much of that yarn! I started a C2C. This is going really fast and will probably be done in a few days. It's going to be a little smaller so if I finish it I'll add it to the gift. This one might make a good car blanket. But I'll also give her the option of gifting or donating it.
I'm still going to have some yarn leftover but it will go in a scrap donation blanket. This week I have a lot of dyeing stuff to catch up on but I hope to have some time to sew on the blue quilt. I finished the second baby blanket! I expect that I have enough yarn to make another. I used the same color sequence as the first blanket. It finished 35" x 38" The pattern is the Crochet Ripple Baby Boy Blanket from Daisy Farm Crafts. It's all double crochet stitches done in sets of 3. Their patterns are really well written and there are excellent video tutorials. The color yarns are Brava Worsted from KnitPicks and the white is Lion Brand Basic Stitch. They are pretty much indistinguishable, very soft and easy to work with. They wash great too. I didn't do any sewing but I got out my brand new ruler and marked blocks for sewing. I got all of the rest of the block sets marked and ready for sewing. I'll work on them at home. Today we are going for one more hike on Beech Mountain and then heading out. Yesterday we did a 5 mile walk on a series of Carriage Trails. The nice thing about Carriage Trails is that you don't have to watch for trip hazards, you can look at the scenery. You only have to watch for the cyclists. About 90% of them are on e-bikes. The trails were Aunt Betty Pond and Eagle Lake. We saw some beautiful autumnal color. There's a section where the trail crosses back and forth over a stream over 6 bridges. It's very picturesque even though the walk is all uphill in this section. Here are a couple of other photos taken on the walk. We've had a great week and we're ready to head home. I'll check back in on Monday.
We've had a lovely couple of days but before I share the vacation pics, I'll give you an update on the projects. The crochet baby blanket is almost done! The last section is white and I'll finish that today and weave in the ends. I still have a lot of this yarn leftover. I'm not sure what I'll do with it but I'll make something. I've made good progress on the blue quilt too. I got all of the recent stack of dark bow ties sewn into blocks. Now I'm ready to sew the corners of the last group. I realized that I didn't have a ruler to mark the diagonals so we stopped at a quilt shop in Bar Harbor yesterday and I picked up 2 rulers. There are 2 nice quilt shops here. One is Fabricate in Bar Harbor. The other is Quilt N Fabric in Southwest Harbor. They both also carry yarns and Fabricate also has papercraft supplies. They both have really nice fabric selections and there are lots of lobster and Northwoods themed fabric for us tourists. Now, to catch up on vacation. On Tuesday we wanted to hike Day Mountain. It was one of the first hikes we did in Acadia several years ago. We hiked this one back when I was unsure of my hiking capabilities and we thought it would be fun to hike it again. Unfortunately (fortunately), the parking area was full so we went ahead and parked in another area about a mile past that point. That added about .8 miles on Hunter's Cliff Trail and Lower Day Mountain. I knew it was going to be a good decision when we came across this cool bridge. A little further down the path and we arrived at Hunters Beach Cove, a beautiful gem of a place that I'm sure isnt's often visited. The parking area only accommodates 4 cars. We were there at low tide so we could wander around in this cove area that's inaccessible at high tide. From there we followed the Cliff Trail to Lower Day Mountain on a very picturesque hike. The autumnal colored bushes are blueberry bushes. From there we hiked to the peak of Day Mountain. On the way we had a view of Schoodic Point in the distance. It's one of our favorite places to visit when we are here but we'll miss it on this trip. Yesterday we woke to this beautiful view. Our goal was to head into Bar Harbor and to hit it right around low tide so we could walk across the bar. Yes, Bar Harbor is named for an actual land bar that connects the town to Bar Island but it's only accessible around low tide. So we started out day with a 2.5 mile walk in the neighborhood. By our count, there are less than 10 houses occupied in this neighborhood of 40ish homes. The bar wasn't open when we got to town so we started our day with the Shoreline Path where we could see some of the beautiful Bar Harbor resorts and homes on one side and the Porcupine Islands on the other. We also love finding erratics when we are on our hikes around here. Before heading to the bar we went to another bar, an Irish Pub for a scotch (me) and Irish Coffee (Chris). We sat next to a couple who were on a cruise. They were from Philadelphia so we had lots of fun talking all things Eagles. This has been quite the Eagles-centric vacation which is a big bonus for me. This is the famous "bar" of Bar Harbor. This photos is from Bar Island looking back to the town. It's accessible about 1.5 hours each side of low tide. Low tide was at 3:33 yesterday. On the Island side they have all kinds of warnings about the tide, the tide schedules and water taxi phone numbers in case you are incapable of paying attention and planning. Bar Island has a hiking trail to the peak where you can get a good view of the town. From the town side to the peak and back is only about a 2 mile walk. It's a very busy little town during tourist season. It's always a challenge to find parking and there are usually cruise ships in. I don't mind one day of "peopling" while I'm on vacation. Otherwise, I avoid the crowds. While we were up there we were given this photo opportunity. We saw that tourist ship leaving when we started the Shoreline Path and got to see it return while we were on Bar Island. It was a nice ending to the day and we were ready to relax after about 6 miles of walking.
That's the phrase that defines our vacation so far! Remember that I wasn't going to post at all this week? Well, that was because we were flying to Maine and I didn't want the hassle of bringing my laptop. Well, for a couple of days before we left Chris was watching the weather and there was a tropical storm headed straight for Maine around the time of our flights on Saturday. Our flights had already been rescheduled by Delta to the worst possible scenario as the last flight from LaGuardia to Bangor that day. Late Friday we decided that we weren't interested in the chance of spending the night in LaGuardia airport and made the decision to drive. Well, that changed what I could bring so I added the laptops and sewing machine! We left about 7 pm Friday night and drove until about 1 am. We stayed overnight in Wilkes-Barre, PA and were back on the road by 7 am Saturday. We made it to Acadia about 5 hours ahead of when we would have arrived on the flight. We even were able to get full refunds on our flights and rental car. Our flight did land on time but we were glad we drove. We had a really good audiobook (another Michael Koryta) that kept us entertained. We got settled and then the storm really hit and we lost power about 10:30 that night. The house we are in has a generator so we really weren't without power at all, only internet. Wireless coverage here is terrible but we survived that small inconvenience. This neighborhood was probably worst hit from the storm. There were trees and lines down everywhere. It's also a holiday neighborhood so there are very few people here and, rightly, didn't get priority treatment. We were thrilled to come back from hiking today (Monday) to find everything back on. We were grateful for the generator! I made great progress on the baby blanket Sunday. In the afternoon we decided to go to the sports bar to watch whatever football was showing. I knew that the Eagles weren't playing in this market but we were willing to watch any football. Imagine our surprise when we walked into a bar FULL of Eagles fans with the Eagles game on 5 TVs! They put the Vikings/Chiefs on 1 TV but everything else was all Eagles. What a treat! Since I had all the blue blocks cut out I brought that project and set to sewing this morning before we went for a hike. When I started making this quilt I thought my brother and JJ would like it so I'm determined to get it done to give to her before Christmas as a celebration of her recovery. Thank you for all of your prayers and well wishes. She's not totally out of the woods yet but she is doing better. Here was our view this morning before we left for our hike. I never tire of this place. Our hope here was that we would get to see fall leaves. Well, here they are after the storm! It's still a beautiful trail but there aren't a lot of leaves left on the trees. We started at the Wild Gardens to Hemlock Road, to Stratheden Trail to Kebo Mountain and back down Hemlocks Trail and Road. It was about 2.5 miles with some nice climbing up Kebo. It's an easier trail. We're avoiding the advanced trails because they are all so wet. I'm too old to be slipping down granite rocks. There were a few beautiful maples along the way. It's cool to see how different the trails seem with some of the leaves gone. Usually they are quite dark and shaded but now some light streams through. It's really beautiful.
The park is absolutely packed this weekend so we didn't do the Park Loop road as planned. The backup at the entrance was the worst we've ever seen. We expect that many people probably went home today after the long weekend so we hope for a little less traffic tomorrow. No more storms are expected! After putting up with all of the grayscale photos I thought you deserved a sneak peek at the colors. I got the binding and hanging sleeve put on last night. All that's left is a label. usually I do a fancy Spirograph label but not this time. Eventually this quilt will be a veterans quilt so the label will be removed. I'll handwrite a rudimentary label and get that stitched on today and this quilt will be officially done! I'm still awaiting shipping instructions but that might be after vacation.
Today includes some visiting time with my brother but I might be able to get some quilting done on the raffle quilt. PS, Yes, I did remove that stray thread caught in the binding. I don't have a newsletter today because I didn't get to do any dyeing last week so today I'm sharing the progress on the Paula quilt. I got it pieced this weekend and quilted yesterday! All I have left is the binding, a sleeve and a label. I might get it bound today after my dentist appointment and some errands. I can't wait to show you this in full color in early November because it's bright! The sashing and border are gray prints but everything else is very bright. This will eventually be a quilt to be donated to the veterans hospital so when I quilted it I used the backing and batting that our quilt club purchases and I needed another quilt to tp pair it with. I was using a gray backing and black thread and Gwendolyn's quilt fit perfectly.
So, at least I've finished one thing! Let's face it, with vacation and Mom moving, I didn't finish much at all. Before we left in early August I finished 3 veterans quilts and 2 crochet hats. In September I finished a baby blanket for my new Grand Niece. The big accomplishment was Mom and I getting her move done and her apartment all set up. She's settled in and has the sewing room in full operation. I also got 2 veterans quilts quilted. These tops were donated my a kind blog reader and our veterans will love them! That's the extent of my finishes and I'm fine with that. There were a number of starts however! On vacation Laura pieced 2 veterans quilt tops that need to be quilted and I started the blue bow tie quilt. I sewed together 4 placemats from the leftovers of one of the veterans quilts and started a second baby blanket. Back at home I restarted another big blanket and I'll explain that in another post. I also started quilting a guild raffle quilt. But the big project that I'm working on this week is the Paula quilt. We leave Saturday for another (shorter) vacation and I want it done and in the mail before we leave. As of today it's on the longarm, ready for quilting. It would be really cool if I could also get the raffle quilt quilted before we leave too.
I'm not holding my breath. Here are my YTD stats: Quilts - 2 Other major projects - Veterans quilts made - 11 Donation lap quilts - 12 Veterans quilts quilted - 25 Fabric Postcards - 19 Pet Beds - 7 Quilted for others - 4 Crochet blankets - 7 Crochet shawls - 1 Crochet/loom knit hats and scarves - 26 Doll outfits - 2 Placemats and Table Runners - 25 Dyed shirts and towels - 7 Other Donated items - 74 Garments (sewn and cochet) - 1 Balls of yarn used - 48 (8 for August and September) Other items - 5 My goals for October are: - enjoy a vacation - make placemats for my brother - placemats for my nephew - quilt the guild fundraiser quilt - finish and deliver the Paula quilt - finish the second baby blanket (on vacation) - crochet 2 children's hats for gifts (on vacation) - start the Christmas cards I'll add the following as a wish list: - start quilting the Red Sunset quilt that I pieced on vacation last summer - quilt 6 veterans quilts - -quilt some donation lap quilts |
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I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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