We arrived home Saturday afternoon after 2 days of driving. Driving is always tiring but coming home was much easier than the drive up when I was sick and coughing my lungs up the whole time. 
Now, I've spent the weekend unpacking, doing laundry and going through mail. Chris also made favorite meal for my birthday and that's Thanksgiving dinner of turkey, gravy and mashed potatoes.

Fortunately I ended July with these projects all about 99% done do I finished them up in the first days of August. I still have to make a label for Groovy 3 and the 3 crochet projects will all be delivered to From The Heart sometime this month.
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I made good progress on my 3 crochet projects and used up 5 balls of yarn
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It's a little weird but I'm feeling kind of list-less for September! I don't have any specific gift deadlines that I'm aware of and I don't want to put a deadline on Red Sunset. I'll take a stab here are a goals list that I expect th change in the next week as I recover from my vacation mindset.

- start planning Christmas postcards
- make a new hiking backpack
- quilt Mom's quilt
​- possibly load my flower applique quilt to start quilting

​Mostly I just plan to work on whatever I'm in the mood for.

For our last hike of the trip we decided to do Cedar Swamp Mountain. Chris and I did this a couple of years ago but this time we wanted to take a different route. The trail we took up is called the Amphitheater Trail. It travels up between two mountains and along a spring. We crossed the spring about 20 times. Sometimes it was easy, like here.

Most of the time it was quite tricky, like here. A walking stick was very helpful. It was worth the effort because it was a beautiful trail that is hardly used.  We only saw 2 other people on this trail.

The payoff came about halfway up when we reached the Amphitheater Bridge. It's huge at 245 feet in length and was finished in 1931. 
Next we headed to the top of Cedar Swamp Mountain, found the plane wreck site nearby and headed down Sargent South Ridge.

We have done Sargent South Ridge Trail before and there's a great viewing ledge along the trail. The last time we went we had the view on the left. This time we were rewarded with the view on the right.
​Much better.

Our vacation came to and end Friday morning with me at the Visitor Center to be the first person in line to finally get my Senior Lifetime pass! This is a bargain at $80. I never have to pay at a National Park again.

You know I love some statistics so I calculated a few for the trip:
We had 8 rainout days in 4 weeks - a record
We each had about 4 solid sick days
We saw 5 moose, one bear, severa eagles and lots of loons, turkeys and hummingbirds
We hiked about 47 miles for a total elevation of over 8600 feet

We can't wait for next year!​

Today the weather is warm and sunny but it's also very windy. My planned day of kayaking is probably going to be replaced with a lovely day of sewing. We expect rain tomorrow so I'll go into Bar Harbor with the boys again and shop while they enjoy some pub food. I could go with them to the pub but since I can't eat anything served in a restaurant and can't have beer, I'd rather walk around and do some shopping. 

But today will be sewing because I'm hiked out for a couple of days. We did two pretty strenuous (and fun) hikes Sunday and Monday so my feet have called for a break.

I've got a lot of vacation photos today so I'll start with the one crafty photo with the progress of my quilt. I've got 3 block sets of the outer section of the quilt center done. I've roughly laid out some of the parts here so you can get an idea of how it will all go together. I'm still loving it.

​Now on to the two hiking days.

Being the list maker and tracker that I am, I bought this map the first year we came to Acadia and started marking our hikes with an orange Sharpie. I also have a list by year in Google Keep. We are at the point where we are started to double some trails and I'm marking those in red. I'm happy to do all of the trails multiple times. But Ian has been a bit obsessed with doing new trails and we've added miles of orange to the map.

Since we have 2 cars here this year, he planned a 4.5 mile one-way trip for Sunday to knock out the A Murray Young Path and Gorge Trail. We dropped one car at the pink parking area and then all rode to the yellow parking area to start our trip on the Canon Brook Road. 

What a beautiful trail! We learned later that this trail was laid out about 100 years ago and funded by the widow of A Murray Young because of his love for the park. Can you imagine what an effort it took to lay out miles of trails with granite blocks? A lot of the trail looked like this.
One thing is for sure, once you lay out a granite trail you don't ever have to do much trail maintenance!

Some of it was quite steep. I always hike in the rear because I'm slower and I occasionally like to stop and look around. They keep an eye out and periodically stop to let me catch up. This photo was on the Gorge trail on the way down. When necessary, I am not ashamed to slide down a granite face on my butt and I swear by the durability of my REI hiking pants that are at least 6 years old with no rips.

At the top of Dorr mountain a kind hiker offered to take a group photo. That's Ian next to me, then Chris and Dave. Dave is an old college friend of Chris' so the stories have been non-stop. The views from Dorr are incredible as you can see behind us. The peak is at an elevation of 1270'.

The only mountain higher in this section of the island is Cadillac. This is the one that people flock to to watch the sunrise because it's where the sun rises first in the US. You have to make reservations to drive up Cadillac but plenty of people get up at 3 or 4 AM to hike up there in the dark. 
Not me. I won't even get up that early to drive there. I value my sleep way too much. But in this photo you are seeing the North Ridge of Cadillac and we hiked that on my 60th birthday 2 years ago. I had to work really hard to get in shape for that adventure.
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This is the South Ridge of Cadillac and we did that one last year. It's a lot longer because it's not as steep. It's also mostly bare granite and south facing so it can get really hot. We started very early so it wasn't so bad but I remember passing people as we went down about 11 am and the up hikers were panting.
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Yesterday was a spectacularly beautiful day and I wanted to do a 3-mileish "easier" hike just to get some exercise. After much discussion, Ian and I agreed on the Norumbega loop. We have done this before but it's been a few years and we didn't remember it. It only goes up to 852 feet so how hard could it be?

Well, the first section (green arrow) is called the Goat Trail. That's a clue!
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I actually love steep climbs and rock scrambles but you do get a work out. This was one of the easier sections of the climb where I could take a second to get a photo. We got our cardio in on this hike.
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This hike turned out to be a really good one. It doesn't offer much for views but it has every possible trail type from ankle-breaker small rocks to grainge slabs to pine needles.

This is the root ball of a tree that had fallen over. That tree was just growing over the granite slab. Not a very stable base for tree roots.

At the base of the mountain we were treated to the Lower Haddock Pond. It's the water reservoir for the local town so no fishing or swimming is allowed. Only fish pee in this pond.

In my opinion, the .9 mile walk back to the car on the Norumbega Connector is the hardest part of the trail. It's flat but it all roots. You have to watch every step. 
It was a fun trail that was maybe a little more effort than we expected so today we will enjoy a relaxing day of sewing and reading with our last lobster dinner of the trip. We don't leave until Friday but Dave leaves today and we want to have the last lobster dinner with him. 
Chris and Ian are actually kind of tired of lobster. I could eat it every night but I will savor it tonight.

The loons are calling so it's time to go relax. I'll have my book review post tomorrow and that might be the last post until I'm home this weekend.

It's been a few days but since we have a stay-at-home rainy day today I thought I'd take some time to catch up. Weather-wise, this has been one of our more "interesting' vacations to Maine. We seem to have a rotation of bright-sunny, cloudy-but-still-outdoor, rain-indoor days. Today is the rain day, yesterday was absolutely perfect and Wednesday was cloudy but still nice for a long hike.

Today I'm going to start with the update on my projects because I know most of you don't care about my vacation photos.
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On the crochet front I have mostly been working on the two blankets and only in the evenings after the Cribbage match is over. I'm at a point on the jacket where I need to be able to concentrate on the pattern instructions and that's not good to do when friends are around to talk with. I can do these blankets without any thought at all and I alternate between them.
This is my brother's (Tim) blanket and it's over half done at this point. I'm on skein 5 of 7. He'll definitely have this by the time cool weather hits Virginia.
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This is a donation wheelchair blanket and it's moving along at a good pace too. I'm not quite halfway through this one. It's going to be a very nice, soft and warm blanket.
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Today I'm working on cutting out the next set of fabrics for the Judy Niemeyer Tequila Lime quilt. I'm calling it Red Sunset after the gradient that I'm using to make it. It took me an afternoon to get the papers sorted, cut out and the colors planned. Today is all cutting. These pieces will finish the main section of the quilt and then I have a whole other set of papers for a border to bring this quilt to queen size.
I am still really enjoying working on it.
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I thought I'd take a minute to answer a great question from Kristen. She asked if I wouldn't have the same quilting challenges that I had with the Summer Sunset quilt. If you remember, I had planned a lot of custom quilting on that quilt but there was so much bulk in the seams that it was really impossible to do that. It was that quilt that made me realize the genius of Judy Niemeyer designs.

JN specifically designs her quilts so that points do not meet at major seams. See the green circled areas? You can see that none of the points meet at a major seam line. The yellow arrow shows an area where points should meet but they are purposely designed not to meet together. Visually, you can't tell but for quilting it's wonderful. Even the diamond at the end of the sawtooth border (white circle) has a flat bottom so that there aren't 5 pieces joining at one point. The curved petals in the center also meet off kilter (orange circle) to reduce the bulk. It's really genius and I'm sure that other designers use this method now too. 

​Now on to vacation.

After my last post on Tuesday, we headed into Bar Harbor. The boys were headed to a local brewery restaurant and I, as the designated driver, was planning to walk around town and do some shopping. Well, I walked down to the harbor front and noticed people off in the distance walking on the "bar". It's never been low tide when I was down there so I immediately changed plans and headed that way. Bar Harbor gets its name from Bar Island and the land bridge that joins it to the town when the tide is low. This is the view from bar Island back to Bar Harbor. From this vantage the town looks kind of desolate but it's not. It's very busy and touristy and I'll try to get some photos the next time we go into town when I will actually do the shopping that I had planned. There's even a nice yarn shop there.
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Because it rained Tuesday I put the brakes on any climbing hikes for Wednesday. You'll see why in just a minute. So we took a beautiful 5 mile hike along the Jordan Stream Path. We had low expectations and just did it to have a long walk. We were very pleasantly surprised by a beautiful hike and some great scenery along the path.
You've got to love a place that can have granite stepping stones!
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Most of the property on this hike is outside Acadia on the Land and Garden Preserve. We could hear people with chainsaws doing trail maintenance and we were gifted with this treasure on the trail. The tree had died and one of the workers created this chainsaw sculpture for the hikers to find. We actually met the guy about a half mile down the trail where they were building a new bridge over the stream. 
The Preserve is an absolute treasure thanks to the generosity of David Rockefeller.
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My favorite sight on the walk was the Cobble Bridge that, I think, was built in 1917. It's stunning and one of the carriage trails for walking, horseback riding and cycling goes over the bridge. The whole walk reminded us of The Hobbit and it made for a great day.
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Yesterday we were ready for a challenging hike and we really picked a good one! We started at Jordan Pond, one of the more popular places in the park. You really have to be there before 9 ( or after 2) to have a hope of getting a parking space. We try to get to our hikes between 7:30 and 8:30 to avoid the crowds and to get the best parking. We were too late to park at the Bubbles for the path that we really wanted to take but Plan B was perfectly fine.

We hiked up Spring Trail to Penobscot Mountain. Spring Trail is very steep for the first half and I had to turn on my inner monkey to climb with all of my limbs. The trail up most of the mountain isn't too steep, probably more mountain goat pace over bald granite. The payoff is 360 degrees of spectacular views. This is just one view looking over Little Long  Pond. It was on the right side of that pond where we hiked the day before. That's the ocean beyond.
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After Penobscot we hiked down the mountain a little and then back up to hit a second peak at Sargent Mountain. It's the second highest peak at 1373'. More amazing views awaited us there. I think that Sargent Mountain is a much more fun hike than Cadillac, the highest and more popular destination.

The yellow arrow points to an approximate location of our base camp.

Hiking down Sargent proved to be even more challenging because there were several areas with some streams running over the path. If it's mud that's not much of a problem but water on granite is a bit slippery. I slithered down bits of this path! ​I can attest that REI makes the strongest and most durable hiking pants ever.
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Yesterday was the day I discovered that the tread on my boots is a little worn! I slipped 3 times and got this nice bruise on my wrist.  I thought I was going to be able to ride this for a lot of pity points for a few days but no deal. It's pretty much cleared up today. It never did hurt, but it looked impressive for a few hours!

Weather forecasting here is hilariously wrong every day. It's a Maine feature. Today was supposed to be overcast with low wind. It was going to be a good day for kayaking. Instead we've had fog, rain and wind and it's turned into a quite nice sewing and reading day.

One of our friends left yesterday and we have another arriving tomorrow so Chris, Ian and I have a couple of quiet evenings. Things will be much more energetic tomorrow after Dave arrives. Ian is already planning our hike for tomorrow. No steep climbs after all of today's rain. Just a good long walk.

Sunday and Monday were absolutely beautiful here. Chris and Win wen fishing Sunday so Ian and I tackled Saint Sauveur and Acadia Mountains. Both of these are relative short at about 680 feet but the hikes are quite steep. We attempted this the first year we came but cut our hike short after the scramble on Acadia. This time I was able to do both. The views are incredible on both of these hikes and we discovered that going counter-clockwise was better than going clockwise. 
This photo is from the top of Acadia looking over Somes Sound and the ocean beyond.
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Today (Wednesday) is quite misty and overcast. It rained pretty heavy last night so there will be no hiking. We are hoping for some kayaking time this afternoon/evening but we are headed into Bar Harbor for lunch. Actually I'm leaving the boys at a pub and will walk around the shops for a while.
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On previous trips we have noticed a lot of hummingbirds around so this year we brought along a feeder. We've been very entertained by the bird fights over the feeder. Eventually they get tired enough that they will all come in to feed together.
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I can watch the lake and the feeder while I'm sewing and listening to my book. This morning I got the sawtooth spikes added to the center of my star. Next up is more color planning and cutting the next sections to sew. So far I'm loving the quilt and really enjoying sewing it.
The star doesn't get sewn together until the very end so these will be put away until all of the blocks are done.
​Onward to the next section!

We packed up and transferred ourselves to Mount Desert Island yesterday and the weather is absolutely perfect so far! 

We had time to kill before we could check in so we headed to Schoodic Point, one of our favorite places. It's beautiful out on this wide expanse of granite and basalt. We ate lunch here and a very large gull adeptly stole part of my lunch right from my hand.

It was low tide while we were there so the waves crashing on the rocks wasn't as grand as we've seen at high tide but it was still a fun afternoon.

We got to the house and unpacked and had dinner and we only had energy to continue my and Ian's cribbage challenge. So far I am up 5 - 2 but I don't expect that to last. We are 1 - 1 in the backgammon challenge.
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This morning we decided to do a warm up hike to Elliot Mountain and Asticou Gardens. It's a very easy trail and it's very well maintained. It's not every day that you see granite retaining walls for a hiking trail!

Elliot Mountain doesn't have a view to speak of but coming down the trail you get a good view of Northeast Harbor. I'm pretty sure these same 2 big yachts were here last year.
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You gardeners would absolutely love Asticou Gardens. This is just a very small bit of it.
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After breakfast I started getting the sewing center set up. This afternoon another of Chris' friends arrives so, with the 3 boys occupied, I will have some time to myself this week. I have a great view from this little corner.
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On the other side of the room there's another drop leaf table that's perfect for the cutting station.
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While in Greenville I finished the center blocks for my quilt and I am over-the-moon happy so far.
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We had a day and a half of rain so I made good progress and have gotten part of the sawtooth border done too. That's what I'll be working on here this afternoon.

I didn't take update photos of the crochet project because I was mostly sewing this week. I'll bring out the crochet projects over the next couple of days.

​This afternoon will be devoted to floating in the lake and make a little kayaking this evening. 

The past couple of days the weather has been spectacular. I'm writing this post Thursday afternoon. Yesterday I kayaked while Chris went on a guided fishing trip and then our from from Boston arrived to hand out with us the rest of out stay. Today we took a hike on Beech Mountain as a warm up to an 8 mile hike up Cadillac Mountain (1500 feet) tomorrow. Beech Mountain is on the lake where we stay and the house we rent is right at the point of the yellow arrow.

You've got to love a park where they can create sections of trails with granite steps! There's lots and lots of granite around here.

This is just a photo that I took while I was out kayaking Wednesday. 
​I doubt if I'll post tomorrow. Our hike will likely take 5 -6 hours and I expect a long nap when we return.

I haven't gotten a lot done on the sewing front because we've been busy visiting and catching up. Next week we'll get to meet up with some other friends who will also be in the area. We haven't seen them in 3 years so I'm really looking forward to seeing them again.  I do have 2 more sets of blocks done and have started a third.

On the crochet front, I've finished off 1 skein of yarn for my baby blanket (no photo). Yesterday I snuck out for a couple of hours to shop in Southwest Harbor. There's a nice quilt/yarn shop there. I picked up 2 skeins of yarn to swatch up to see if I'd like them for a pocket shawl that I want tp make.

The Remix is nice but not particularly snuggly enough for a pocket scarf. I could see this for a very loose crochet summer cardigan or shawl or maybe tightly stitched for a tote.

I absolutely loved stitching the Cumulus yarn and loved the way it looks but I was concerned about this one pilling. A scarf gets a lot of wear and friction so I rubbed this swatch a bit and found my concerns validated. I'm glad I only bought one skein of each of these. I'm not sure what I might make with either of these but I certainly won't be buying more.

There are a few more quilt and yarn shops around here that I'll probably check out Tuesday when Chris and Dave are away on another fishing trip. 
If I don't die on the hike tomorrow! We did the steeper version of this hike last year for as my birthday goal so I expect we will be fine as long as we pace ourselves and take plenty of water. I know for sure that I'll hold the boys back and I'm fine with that.

This was yesterday (Monday) so that means it was sewing and crochet day. We squeezed in a 4 mile walk in the neighborhood between showers but that was the extend of our outdoor activities.

This is today! Today was hiking and floating in the lake day. This morning we headed out early for a 6 mile hike on a path called Aunt Betty Pond and the return path would be by Eagle Lake for a total of 6 miles. A good challenge but not a killer. We got about 2/3 way through the hike and found out the the return path was closed so we had to return the way we came for a total of 8.2 miles! That was a little more than we planned but it was doable. When we came back we got the floats out and tied up to the dock and floated in the lake for about an hour. It's possible that I napped a little. When we went out the lake was flat as glass and the wind only came in after we got out of the lake.

The coolest thing happened when we got out. A family of black ducks came around the dock and it was clear that they were expecting some food. I stuck my left hand in the water and all 3 of the ducklings (almost adult) came up for a nibble on my wedding band. That has happened to me once before when I was floating in the lake so it wasn't totally unexpected. I don't know why they are attracted to the gold band but it was really cool to be so close to them. Sadly, I disappointed them.

On the sewing front, I finished the 4th veteran's quilt top. I like this one a lot.

Then I geeked out when I reached the end of this 500 meter (547 yard) spool of thread. It was brand new when I arrived in Maine!

Next I'm going to work on a couple of blocks before I pull out another veterans quilt kit. I pulled out one block set yesterday and got it about 1/4 put together when I realized that I didn't cut out the right number of pieces. No surprise there.....

The crochet blanket is making big progress. This pattern is really easy and fast. I've made a couple of errors but they were easy to fix in the next row so I didn't have to frog too far. I've been anxious to see how far one ball of yarn would go to see if I'd have enough and now I know that I do. This will be about 39" wide and, based on where I am now, it should be at least 48" long using all 4 balls. That's perfect so I'll keep hooking. I'll crochet until I run out of yarn and that's how big it will be.
The gloves are helping so much. I can crochet for a couple of hours a day. I have overdone it a little today so I'll stop and rest my hands until tomorrow. But I'll say that the Copperfit gloves are still magic for me.

Now, on to a funny story that we still can't figure out. This is the dock that we kayak and float off of. We park the kayaks here on this bridge. When I took this photo Chris was out on the one that I used our first day here. 

These are my headphones that I wear all day every day to listen to books. I remember packing them somewhere when we left Greenville but I didn't remember where I packed them. When we arrived here I could not find them. I went through every bag twice and they were no where.
The first day Chris and I kayaked and I didn't take anything with me. No phone, no towel, no water.....nothing except the life vest. The next day Chris went out to fish and found these tangled in the seat of the kayak that I  used.

​Absolutely no idea. I don't even know how they stayed in the kayak since we store them on their sides. They should have fallen into the water. But I am so glad to have them back.

Yesterday was a rainy day here and we expect more of the same today. I expect we will be able to get out for a walk today but I'm perfectly happy to read and sew all day too.  Today's postcard is actually from last week. 

The day that we went to Moxie Falls near Moscow, Maine we cam upon this scene heading north on 201 toward Jackman and came upon this sight! 

Bird houses of all shapes and sizes on a random retaining wall. It was awesome! 
​I waited to share it until I had internet access and could research it. You can read all about it here. I absolutely love that it isn't' organized in any way and no one is trying to take it down.

According to the article, the smart people put theirs near the top so that they don't get damaged by the snow plows. Isn't that the coolest thing?

Yesterday I was itching to start a new crochet project. I must be a grown up now because I actually swatched it to decide on a hook size. The bottom rows are a K hook and the top rows are done with an L. I decided on the K.

​I'm 8 rows in and have been testing 2 brands of hooks. The lime green is Clover Armour and the ivory one is from Webs. I like both but I give an edge to the Clover. It's a tad less grabby.

Here's how things look this morning on Long Pond. We're expecting overcast, misty and rainy for the next couple of days while Henri does whatever Henri is going to do. We don't expect really bad weather here and after the storm passes the rest of the week is going to be gorgeous. If I have to spend 2 days listening to books and stitching then so be it. I'll get by.

I do have a finish to report! This is my car travel crochet project and it's the 3rd one that I've made in this pattern. It looks like I cast on 115 stitches for this blanket. The original post for this blanket with all the stitch info is here. The yarn is Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn. The body is 3 full skeins of Crushed Raspberry and the border is about half a skein of Hot Rose. The Hobby Lobby Yarn is so soft and just wonderful to work with. I buy it on the alternating weeks when it's 30% off. 
I started this one last October when we went to the Great Smokies for a hiking trip. I only worked on it in the car so I'll need another project for the ride home. I'm thinking that I will do another version of the shawl that I posted last week. The car project has to be easy and that shawl is really easy.

The border of this blanket gave me fits. I started it 3 times and it still ended up wavy. I'll block it at home but it's not horrible and would probably look misshapen after a few months of use anyway. I usually hate pink but I felt that this blanket needed a bold border and I like the look of the dark pink on this one. I do still hate pink though.

Here you can see just how simple this pattern is. It's all double crochet and chain stitches worked in rows of 3. it does make for a good car project but 3 of this pattern might be enough. If I don't do a shawl I might start some granny squares. That would be a great car project because they never get big enough to be unwieldy.  I'll see how my mood is by the end of next week.

For the border I worked one round of double crochet, one round of alternating double crochet and chains and a final row of double crochet. I'm calling it good and done because I'm ready to work on something else. I brought yarn and a pattern for a ripple blanket that will not have a border!

But today, if the weather stays dodgy, Ill be here at my sewing corner. We really miss not having our friends, Ian and Laura, here with us but I won't have to fight Laura for the sewing machine today and tomorrow.

Here's one of the last sunsets from our place in Greenville. It was really beautiful and peaceful there and we hope to go back next year. It's a lot less developed and more remote than Acadia, of course, and that's really appealing. 
Chris had some really good fishing there. One trip was a guided bass fishing trip on a lake and he caught at least 60 fish! He said is was the best day of freshwater fishing in his life. He's ready to go back for sure.

Out last hike was around Big Moose and Little Moose ponds. There weren't any moose but it was a really good hike with lots of varied terrain great views. My one note for next year is to double spray the bug spray. 

Since my last post I switched from my vintage blocks to work on veterans quilt tops. These 2 were cut as a set and I sewed them at the same time. Having pre-cut kits is so nice! I need a cutting genie for all of my sewing projects.

I suppose the Accuquilt is sort of a cutting genie because this one got cut fast using the Accuquilt and it sewed together really fast. I have another set of HST blocks and will work on that next now that my new space is set up.

Before we left Greenville I also finished these 3 hats. I'll sew on the toppers when I get home. They have elastic strings that you are supposed to just feed through and tie off but the heads are too floppy. I think a few stitches will make them better. I hope the boys (Ella's brother and cousins) like them.

I forgot to take a picture of my sewing set up here but I'll get one tomorrow. It's got the best view! All of my projects are on a guest bed that will not be used until our friend gets here later in the week. For now, this is my attempt at organization.

The first crochet thing I'll work on is getting the border on this baby quilt. This is my car crochet project and I finished the body of the blanket on the drive. The border required some trial and error and math so I couldn't do that in the car. I can get this wrapped up by the time Henri has passed through and then I can move on to something else. Of course, there's another project bag just waiting to be opened!

I'll leave you with moon rise over Long Pond last night. We are so lucky to be able to be here.