Woodsy Walk

Good morning, my friends. TGIF today. Not that Friday is different from any other day, but it seems like a good place to start. 

Sue and I had a very nice walk on a new trail yesterday. We're both amazed we've never known about this place before. Both of us have lived in the area for decades, and yet, we'd never heard of it. I subscribe to an email newsletter called "Only In Your State." I don't know if all 50 states are included. I subscribe to the ones from Oregon and Washington, and it often provides me with ideas for local outings. In this case, it was the Tualatin Hills Nature Park. We're fortunate to have several urban parks in the Portland metropolitan area. This one is just about 30 minutes away from where I live.

Here's a map of our route. It's a little hard to follow since we were walking around in circles at times. We started on the right side near the nature center and went from there.

Just at the beginning, we noticed these tree stumps creating a little seating area.

Before we get too far, let's talk about all the ways you could die today. First of all...stay on the trail. Failure to follow this rule will result in days of misery, and you'll have no one to blame but yourself.

And please don't be this person.

Okay, follow me. There were plenty of blooming things on the trail yesterday.

This next one is actually post bloom. We have one of these growing on our shared driveway. It starts with white flowers before the red berries appear. They're tiny...about the size of a peppercorn.

This is Queen Anne's Lace.

And this is a wild rose.

If you look again at the map, you'll see we took a little side branch to the Lily Pond. Oh my goodness. I've never seen anything like this. Imagine a forest of lily pads, only they're growing on stalks about three feet above the level of the water.

Here's an explanatory sign:

We could see a few blooms out among them. Sorry the bright sunshine blew out the colors a little.

We were told we could see some wildlife along the trail. Also...watch out for this guy.

We didn't see him. I was kind of hoping we would, but apparently he judged us to be too old and tough. Not good eating at all.

On the other hand, we did see this red-breasted sapsucker. He flew away too quickly for me to get a picture, but I found this one on Creative Commons.

(Image credit: "Red-breasted sapsucker in Washington" 

by USFWS Pacific is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.)

Also, we saw this Red Admiral butterfly.

It was a very nice way to start the day.

Back home, I finished up the top-stitching on the second block for My Whimsical Quilt Garden.

I'd finished the other block the day before.

Here are the 12 blocks I have for this quilt so far. There will be 20 in all.

Next, I wanted to go through the fabric that arrived the day before. I use my 24 x 6 inch ruler to fold my fabric...over and over, like it's on a bolt. Then the ruler slides out, and the fabric can be folded in half. Folding it this way makes it fit nicely in my three-drawer bins. Sadie helped keep things neatly stacked.

When it was all finished, it looked like this. I'm going to have to invest in another bin since I've officially run out of space. Most of it was put away, but another bin would allow me to reorganize and refine my color categories a little.

And that brought us to the next project. Sadie awaited my direction on what to do next.

What do you purrpose we sew now? And if you say "papurr-piecing," I swear I will walk right out that door!

Okay, well, no paper-piecing today. I'll be hoeing weeds in the garden, and then I'll get a start on the baby quilt for my Erik and Mae's friend. This is the one I'm making. The pattern is from Victoriana Quilt Designs.

It'll be made all from scraps, and I'm looking forward to getting started on it. And that should keep me busy for whatever remains of my sewing day. 

We're looking forward to some nice weather ahead. I'm hoping it will spur things on in the vegetable garden, where it's been slow-growing. Have a good Friday, everybody. The weekend is nearly here.