A little of this and a little of that

A few days ago DH and I took a long walk along a trail and had several magnificent views of Mt. Hood.  Mt. Hood is the closest mountain to us and is perhaps 40 miles from our home near Portland, OR  We never get tired of viewing her in all her splendor.  Additionally, we frequently see Mt. St. Helens to the NE of us, and at times Mt. Adams in Washington.  Others are visible when we travel from home.

Now, please meet Baltippora, or what I call a self-portrait.  She is not quite complete, but I am so tickled with her that I had to show her now.  A while back paperpanache.com offered free patterns that they called "Fairy Quilt Godmothers."  You answered a few funny questions, and then got back by email a paper piecing pattern of your FQG.  By the way, paperpanache.com still offers the patterns free.  My pattern languished for a good while until a friend did hers and I was so taken with it that I pulled mine out and started it.  The gold underneath is what the border will be, and hopefully that will get done tomorrow.  This has been one of those "it was just so much fun" projects.

I pulled a box out of the attic a few weeks ago in order to give one of our DGDs a doll I had when I was a child.  When I was rummaging around in the box, I found a quilt that is in kind of bad shape.  It is all white and consists of  a number of embroidered blocks.  The one in the bottom right-hand corner was embroidered by my mother, and there are three others embroidered by  my three aunts and one by my great-aunt, but the others I am not familiar with who embroidered them.  I am going to send some pictures to an aunt and see if she has any information about the quilt.  I want to take much better care of it now that I have rescued it from the attic.

Life is good!

For some time I have wanted to go up the Columbia River Gorge and walk the Mosier Twin Tunnels trail. DH and I finally just decided we'd do it and what a wonderful day we chose. The trail is part of the old Columbia Gorge scenic highway, and it has been turned into a walking/biking trail. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. We had a lovely drive, and the trail is so nice, and we got some exercise! The area where we were is more arid than the area east of Hood River, which is heavily forested.

Our drive home was through Hood River, and around Mt. Hood. It all was just beautiful. Near Hood River we stopped at a farm stand and got a box of Jonagold apples and some pears and peaches. What a treat! There was beautiful orchard after orchard, and several vineyards.

Clouds partially shrouded Mt. Hood, which is the lovely mountain about 60 miles east of Portland, but we had some marvelous views.

Oops-time has slipped by again!

Wow, I better get myself in gear and post!

I did manage to finish another Project Linus quilt. It is mostly made from leftover fabrics from one of the French Braid quilts I made last year. Our guild had gone together and ordered a roll of polyester batting from our quilt shop, and then when it came, it turned out to have a greater loft than most of us like. I decided to go ahead and try it with one quilt, and while I still am not crazy about it, it did look much better after I "tamed" it with quilting and the binding.

Last week we were having beautiful weather, so hubby and I decided we needed an outing for the day, so we went to Astoria, Oregon, which is a two hour or so drive from home. We had lunch at this very quaint fish and chips lunch stand. We had eaten there before. They just have tuna fish and chips, and it was so yummy! It's worth the drive just for that, and then there is the marvelous scenery on the way and when we get there.

At Astoria, they have a wonderful walkway that goes along the Columbia River. We took a long walk along the walkway, and went out on the pier, where all these sea lions were resting and making a racket, probably belching and digesting all the salmon they eat. (Spoken like a person from the Northwest!!) :-)