Branching Out

Good morning, my friends. We're approaching what passes for normal here. The laundry was finished yesterday, and I weeded my weedy herb garden. While I was out, I realized it's time to cut the peonies back for the season. That'll be on today's agenda. Also, I think I've managed to grab all the strays from the camper that I neglected to unpack in my first effort. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many cupboards, drawers, and cabinets I open, I still manage to leave behind a few things. 

So that left me plenty of time for an afternoon of sewing. Before we left on our trip, I was working my way through my list of WIPs. Yesterday's effort was to make the final two blocks for the Northern Wilderness project. First up...this "Trees" block. This is the picture from the book.

Sadie was there to help with the piecing.

This block is a new one to me. It’s called "Evergreen Tree" or else "Pine Tree," depending on which resource you're looking at. It was a little tricky. First, I needed to make the bottom "trunk" section. And, drat. I didn't get it centered just right.  That's going to go into the "Oh well" category.

From there, I added the upper parts of the trees. Getting all those HST's pointing in the right direction was a little challenging, but we got 'er done.

From there, I needed corners to make it square.

And then it just needed the background pieces, and it was ready for applique.

Smitty is better at applique than Sadie, and so he took over from there.

It took all afternoon, but by day's end, it was ready for top-stitching.

I'll set that aside for now to make the second block. The final block will be the Orca. Here's the picture from the book.

Annoyingly, the quilt block is paper-pieced, and you know I hate paper-piecing. For this one block, I can probably set aside my disdain for the technique in the service of finishing all the blocks I need for the quilt. I'm hoping I can finish it up today.

Okay, and when I started on my sewing, I completely forgot to start quilting the Cats in Pajamas.

I'll get started on that this morning. There's one housekeeping chore on my list in addition to cutting back the peonies. There should still be plenty of time for sewing today.

Probably I won't post tomorrow because I have an early dental appointment. Let's plan to chat again on Wednesday. Have a good day, Everyone!

Lots of Sewing

Good morning, my friends. The camper is unpacked. The bedding, towels, rugs, and quilts are washed. The birds have been fed, and what else is there? Oh yes...I needed to find room for five more refrigerator magnets. Standing in front of the refrigerator is discouraged at this point. Hard hats are required.

Matthew suggested we might need a new refrigerator if we are to do more traveling. 

Probably I've forgotten something I still need to do, but I spent a good part of the day sewing yesterday. My first task was to reorganize and figure out where I left off. But first, slow-stitching. I've stitched enough on this section of the flock, 

That I decided to move my hoop up and to the left. This is where I'll start this morning.

Okay, and then I headed into the sewing room. This next task was to press the final block for the Snowmen & Reindeer project. It was started and finished on the road.

Sadie helped me trim it to size.

And then I could lay it out with the rest of the blocks. This project will be moving to the "quilt tops to finish" section of my white board. It's third in line to be finished.

Since that was the last block for that project, it was time to choose another. Mr. Random chose project #2 on my list.

Which happens to be another Crabapple Hill project: Over the River and Through the Woods.

It’s almost as if this was foretold while we were traveling. It occurred to me that I didn't have any quilts to celebrate Thanksgiving, and this one came to mind. It's been in my pattern stash for a very long time. Now, I'm kind of excited to get started on it. 

Okay, and the only other thing I needed to do to get back on track was to iron the Plaid Cat stitchery. This was another I finished while we were traveling. 

It's been added to the "small quilt tops to finish" section of my white board, and it too is third on the list to be finished.

All right...so that brought me to where I left off when we started our trip. I'd been working on the fourth block for "Across the Wide Missouri." The applique was finished, but details needed to be stitched in. Here's where I left it.

Most of my sewing time yesterday was taken up stitching in the details on the yarrow and the bee skep.

And that completed the fourth block for this project.

That seemed like a good place to stop for the day.

Today I still have a few things to do in the camper...mainly, putting back all the stuff that was washed yesterday. When I've crossed off all my to-do's, I'll start on my next quilting project. I'm still working at getting my quilts-to-be-quilted pile down to a dull roar. Next up is the Cats in Pajamas project. I spent some time yesterday smoothing and ironing the back, and I'll start quilting it today. For this project, I'll do one row of cats per day. If I can stitck with that schedule, I should have it to binding stage in about a week.

Next up on my list of WIP's are two more blocks for the Northern Wilderness project. I'll be working on the final two blocks for this project. These are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

And that'll keep me busy in the sewing room for several days.

Oh yes, and as I've been writing, I remember I need to make October's block for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. October's color is “neutrals in dark or light.” I'll need to give that some thought….a dark grey maybe. Here are the blocks I have for this quilt so far.

Okay, so off I go. We got a little rain yesterday. I need to pull some weeds from my weedy herb garden. The rain will have softened the ground making that easier. The whole day yesterday was spent laundering everything from the camper. Today, I'll work on washing the clothes. The coming week is going to get a little busy. It'll be good to get in some sewing today. 

End of the Road

Good morning, my friends. If you read yesterday's post, then you already know our yesterday was spent sight-seeing in the nearby towns of Zillah and Toppenish. We left the RV early to head down the road a mile to have a breakfast of our beloved Egg McMuffins, and then we made our trek to both towns. We were back at the camper before noon. We were staying in one of the less desirable private RV parks. I can't complain too much. The place was nothing fancy. The worst part is that the surrounding area is populated by feedlots and the accompanying flies. Just when we thought we'd swatted the last fly, another one would zoom by. It was beyond annoying. And...ewwww. With feedlots nearby, you just know where those flies have been spending their time.

So all of that to say we were just four hours from home. We decided to hitch up and head for the hills, in particular...our hill. And now we're home. We cut our trip short by two days and one destination. The final destination was to be the observatory in Goldendale, Washington, but it was closed for the winter. We could have walked around the outside, but home sounded better. And Smitty agrees with that assessment.

He's a happy guy purrched on his kitty pole where he can keep an eye on his propurrty.

The question I had upon arriving home was to check the garden for any corn that might still be there. (None.) Also, I wanted to see if the Firefighter dahlia had bloomed. And, yes. It has a couple of flowers on it. Perusing old blog posts, I've realized this one is an October bloomer. Don't expect anything sooner than that.

All right, so let's back up to yesterday morning, and I'll tell you about the final hours of our trip. After breakfast, our first stop was to see the Teapot Dome gas station in Zillah, Washington. 

Is this the cutest thing you've ever seen? Well...maybe not the "cutest," but it was cute nonetheless.

Here's the accompanying plaque designating its inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

So, what's this all about? Government scandal was behind the construction of the 15-foot handled-and-spouted gas station.  The Teapot Dome oil reserve debacle began during the administration of President Warren Harding. In 1922 U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased, without competitive bidding, the Teapot Dome fields to oil operator Harry F. Sinclair. When the leases became public knowledge, Congress directed President Harding to cancel them. The Supreme Court declared the leases fraudulent and ruled Harding’s transfer of authority to Secretary Fall illegal. 

Although the President himself was not implicated in the transaction that had followed the transfer, the revelations of his associate's misconduct took a severe toll on his health, and he died before the full extent of the wrongdoing had been determined.  The transactions quickly became the subject of widely publicized Senate investigation. Secretary Fall was indicted for conspiracy and for accepting bribes.  Sinclair was subsequently sentenced to prison for contempt of the Senate.  The oil fields were restored to the U.S. Government through a Supreme Court decision in 1927. 

There was a small gift shop, but it was closed. I took this picture peering through the window.

The Teapot Dome Service Station was originally located on Hwy. 410 between Zillah and Granger.  It was handcrafted by Jack Ainsworth in 1922. In 1928 Mr. and Mrs. A.J. Thomas purchased the Teapot.  They operated the gas station along with a store fountain built on the same site. This was an era when gasoline dealers gave people something to look at and tell their friends about when they got home.

In 1978 the construction of I-82 forced the removal of the building from its original location. Five days before the scheduled move it was hit by a car and caved in. It had to be reconstructed which was no easy job because it was all hand-crafted. Fortunately, the building was reconstructed and then moved with the help of the State Dept. of Transportation some 1.2 miles to its’ current site. It has become an icon for Zillah because of its historical roots and longevity. In 2007, the Teapot was listed on the "Most Endangered List," but in 2012 the Teapot was moved to its current location in Zillah.

These are the two pumps outside.

When was the last time you saw gasoline this cheap? I'm old enough to remember when it was even cheaper.

Here's how it looks from the other side.

In the background of the image above is this pump. I'm old enough to have seen this kind of pump when it was actually pumping gas.

Here's the accompanying plaque.

On an adjacent site, I noticed this mural. It was a good introduction to our next stop in Toppenish.

So...on we went to Toppenish to see the City of Murals.

There are 79 murals in all. Each is numbered. Some are old and peeling. Some of the accompanying descriptive signs were unreadable. Of course, we didn't see all of them, and I didn't take pictures of all that we saw. Some were in shadow and hard to see in a photograph. Some had cars or other obstacles blocking a view of the whole thing. However, you can see all of them at this link. For now, you can whet your appetite with the ones I'm showing here. I've included the explanatory sign after the image of the mural.

The sign for the next two follows.

The left side of the sign for the next one was cut off by its own frame.

All of the murals were huge, but these next two were positively enormous.

This next one was on the side of a three-story building. Of the ones we saw, this one was the largest.

My dad used to talk about this Halloween prank. I have a feeling he might have participated a time or two.

There wasn't much blooming in our walk around town, but these roses were very fragrant.

Okay, and then we headed back to the RV. This was my only barn photo from yesterday.

Here's a picture of Washington's Stonehenge. We didn't stop because we've visited before. You can read my post about it right here.

And there it is...the Columbia River where it serves as the Washington/Oregon state line. We were just about to cross that bridge, and then home, sweet home!

We know we're in Oregon when Mt. Hood comes into view.

We still had about two hours to go, but now we're here. Today I'll be spending most of my time unpacking. I believe I can get it done in a single day, and then I can get back to my sewing. The coming week will be busy. I have an appointment with my dentist on Tuesday, and then Thursday we'll take Smitty to the vet. The old boy seems to have a case of "distress on the lower tract." I won't say any more than that. We think he's fine...probably he needs worming...but at his age, anything can happen. We're keeping our fingers crossed it's nothing serious. Also, the kids will be here for dinner on Friday. We're celebrating Erik's birthday a couple of weeks late.

So with all that going on, I might take a few days off from blogging. As I often say, I'll blog if there's anything of interest to tell you..."interest" being a relative term. Stay out of trouble for the next few days, and we'll chat again sometime next week.