A Donated Quilt, Another Pair of Socks and a Guess What!

 This is the most recent quilt that our group finished. (We all made 3 blocks. Can you find my mine?) If you look closely, you can see that we used some Seattle fabric that I purchased long ago to use for pillow cases.  It will be donated to the local Ronald MacDonald house.

I just finished this pair of socks, and they almost match! However, I also just ripped one sock back to the cuff because I discovered a dropped stitch when I thought I was almost finished!

Can you see who was visiting our yard twice this week? (You might have to enlarge the photo though.) Fortunately I scared him away before he did any damage to our plants!

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We are hosting a family gathering on Sunday, so we are busy today preparing for that. Hope it doesn't rain!  You have a good weekend, too .

Another Finish

Recently our daughter requested bootie and a hat for her friend who was going to become a grandma when her daughter has a baby girl. So I got busy and did them! I hope they will fit!

Here's the first hat, a 12 month size, which I decided would be too big, so I made the newborn size and will donate this one.  And I still have some yarn left!

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Enjoy the rest of the week!

 

Excitement in Our Neighborhood!

Last week our neighbors across from us had a tree removed. It was about 160 feet tall and very close to the house. This brave guy did all the cutting and sawing, and the whole noisy process took 2 days. The second day our street was closed to all traffic.

They took all the stumps away in a big truck, and the branches were run through a chopping machine before carting them away, too. It was an interesting and somewhat scary process but sad to see such a beautiful tree destroyed. (The house is a rental, and the owner ordered the process much to the renter's surprise.)

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Hope you've had a good couple of weeks without any chopping in your neighborhood!

Finally a Finish!

 This pattern has the same name as our second daughter! It's not very easy, but it's interesting.

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Hope you all are having a nice summer!

Birds and Flowers!

We recently went to Cannon Beach in Oregon and saw lots of flocks of pelicans heading north, more pelicans that we've ever seen before.

Here's the prettiest Columbine.

This tiny little rose that makes me think of a candy cane!

Korean dogwood, and it's still blooming.

The Mock orange always makes me think of my Grandma Taylor.

We have several Hydrangeas.

Daisies from a plant give to us by a dear friend.

And last but not least this pretty lily that started blooming today!

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Now I need to get back to some knitting. I am working on a sock that's been fighting me as well as a summer sweater where I discovered an extra stitch when it was time to split it into 2 parts, so ripping on that one, too. Sigh. And then there's always yardwork waiting.... Hope you all had a nice weekend.

 

Our Afternoon at Coulon Beach

This past Tuesday the weather was beautiful, so we went to a nearby park called Coulon Beach. It's on Lake Washington, and there are lots of trails, a boat launch, and things to see. Luckily for us, this eagle was visiting!

We also saw this heron. Doesn't it look proud?

Then we saw this family of snow geese.

It's fun to see these statues and what they are wearing at the time. As you can probably see, they are celebrating Juneteenth.

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Enjoy the rest of the week!

Two Finishes and More Flowers

The babies' hats are done, and everyone is waiting for the new baby to arrive and discover whether it's a girl or boy! Hopefully by the time hat weather arrives they will fit, since now they look too big.  As you can see, it will be easy to tell them apart, and to make sure, I added a football button to the big brother's hat.

Our poppies bloomed right on time for Memorial Day and are still going strong. The two buds in the photo have bloomed along with the other buds you can't see.

All of our rhododendrons are blooming, but this one has the most blossoms.

And not to be forgotten are the roses that bloomed despite being pruned on their lower branches by some deer. Thankfully all of the rose blossoms are way up high this year!

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Have a nice weekend! It's supposed to be in the eighties here, and we are having a visit from our nephew who lives Massachusetts!

 

A Finish! And Our Indoor Plants Are Happy, Too.

This is just one of my violets that is blooming now.

Have you ever seen the Crown of Thorns plant? Supposedly this is the plant used to make the "crown" for Jesus, but I doubt that it was blooming then.  Those thorns are really wicked!

Here's my most recent finish. I made these short socks with the Vanilla Latte pattern. It was only when I finished them that I realized that I didn't follow the stitch pattern correctly! So now I am doing it again and also making the leg a bit longer.

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Hope you are having a nice Saturday! It's been raining off and on here, but it's supposed to be nice tomorrow. I hope so!

 

I Love Spring, Don't you?

Our golden chain tree is really happy this year!

Our irises have begun to bloom also, and you can see that we will soon have poppies.

I'd forgotten that there are irises so dark they look almost black!

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Hope you are enjoying the spring blooms at your house.

Guess what?

Do you remember the earlier corn plant picture?  Well, a few days ago we noticed a funny smell in our living room, and sure enough, that crazy plant had bloomed again without our noticing it! It had never bloomed twice before, and this time it was on a different part of the plant.

We quickly cut the flower off and threw it outside! Now we are thinking about pruning it.  We'll see.  

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Have a nice Memorial Day weekend!

Finally! A Finished Hat!

I just finished this hat on Thursday night. It's a great pattern and a fun knit. I used two skeins of Malabrigo Rios yarn and am very happy with the result. I know I will use this pattern again, but now back to work on a sock.

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Have a great weekend, and Happy Knitting!

As Promised: 3 Quilt Blocks!

I shared the Seattle fabric with my quilt group and had purchased it originally to make some pillow cases. As you can see, I never got around to that!

The rest of the fabric was from my stash, and I still have quite a bit of that left.

I think this pattern is called "Chain Link".

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It will be fun to see everyone's blocks at our Monday meeting!

We've Been Busy!

For the past couple of days we've been entertaining our grandniece and showing her around our area.  On Saturday we went to Pike Place Market and walked a bit on the water front. You can see the Ferris wheel in the background, but we didn't have time to ride on it.

On Friday we took the ferry to Gig Harbor and saw this great view on Mount Rainier.

 

We also saw this heron which was a very nice surprise. On Thursday we walked at one of our favorite parks on Lake Washington, Coulon Beach. Then on Saturday we also walked through our local canyon before dropping her off at our daughter's house where she stayed until today. I think by now she may be back home in San Diego.

Lately both our indoor and outdoor plants have been blooming. This is the third time our corn plant which we've had for a long time has bloomed. We learned the hard way to cut the blossom off before it fully opens though because it smells awful!!

This is a trillium which usually grows wild in the woods. I saved it when they built the road behind our house long ago, and it's rewarded me every spring with its pretty blossoms.

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I spent most of today sewing 3 blocks for the quilt our group is making but will show them later. Hope you are having a fun day, too.

Our Most Recent Adventure

Last week we took a ferry to Port Angeles, WA. Enroute we had a great view of Mount Baker which stays snowy even in the summer.

Near the waterfront is a small park dedicated to the fire fighters and law officers from our area who served in 9/11. This is a beam from one of the buildings that was destroyed then.

This sign is on the rock that is near the flag poles.

If you walk down the trail from the park, you can follow the trail along the beach and catch sight of the boat traffic. We even saw a couple of seals!

From Port Angeles you can drive up to Hurricane Ridge and do a lot of hiking in the summer.

Right now though there's still lots of snow in the parking lot! There were lots of snow plows up there, too, working hard to clear the area.

Even a few brave people went hiking in the snow! I have no idea how the folks walking in the bare part got up there, but it must not have been easy.

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This beautiful park is just one of the places in Washington that is fun to visit!