"Put a bird on it"

Linda P.'s blue bird.

As I was going through the photos from our last Sew Day, I realized that we had, as they say in Portlandia, "put a bird on it."

Carolynn's bird table runner.

Linda J.'s perky cardinal.

Linda J.'s owls.

I guess you could call us bird brains!

But Nancy and I bucked the trend. Nancy worked on a wool appliqué beach scene while I arranged squares for a pillow pattern that I picked up in Sisters.

Linda P. made us all these great project holders for Christmas, and mine was perfect for laying out the 81 squares and then rolling them up to take home. I love the cheerful colors of Valerie Well's Marmalade Dreams collection.

And I just realized -- the fabric does have birds! So Nancy is the only one who didn't "put a bird on it."

I forgot to get food photos at Sew Day, so I'll show you some from last week.

Spicy Thai chicken wrap and dill potato salad for me at Devoted Kiss after a good hike with Dawn through Seymel Park.

And Sherry's homemade chocolate sauce poured over my chocolate wacky cake after a day of gentle yoga and lounging at a cafe with yoga friends. Life is good!

Have a colorful day

Inner strength and the growth zone

A little quilt I made in 2003.

"You never know how strong you are

until being strong is the only choice you have."

                           

                      -- Bob Marley, musician

 The theme at the Y this month has been inner strength, so that's the topic of this post. Today's yoga wisdom from Jillian addressed that, keying off of the warrior poses.

Jillian does a Warrior Two pose.

"Warrior pose battles inner weakness

and wins focus.

You see that there is no war within you.

You are on your own side.

You are your own strength." 

And that leads me to this nifty graphic that showed up on Facebook recently:

Most of my life, I've tried to stay in the comfort zone. I don't like change because in my innately anxious mind, change can signal danger ahead. But as you know if you've been reading my blog this year, my well-planned comfortable life has thrown me a huge curve ball. 

I rapidly shot from the comfort zone to the fear zone, then I got a grip and shifted into the learning zone, educating myself about legal and financial options, for starters. Now I think I'm in the growth zone! I've set new goals and started dreaming about new creative possibilities. (So much fabric, so many stitches to explore!)

A picture I took along the trail on my recent trip to Oregon.

"Go within every day

and find the inner strength

so that the world

will not blow your candle out." 

            

                       -- Katherine Dunham, dancer

Have a colorful weekend

The Feet & Forks hike Oregon's high desert

Where to start -- five days and hundreds of photos from the Feet & Forks' trip last week to the high desert of central Oregon. I guess I'll just dive right in.

Hiking along the Deschutes River in central Oregon.

We hiked to spectacular waterfalls on the Deschutes River and Paulina Creek and in Tumalo State Park ...

... and through the eerie lavascape where the "Lavaness Monster" loomed.

We saw wildlife ...

... and plenty of rain.

Mostly we hiked along the river and had the trails largely to ourselves due to the drizzly weather. The previous week it had been gloriously sunny and warm, and I have a feeling that's when everyone was on the trails. We hiked about 25 miles together, and Kandi and Joyce did many more miles on their early morning walks while I was still lounging in bed.

Kandi is always up for a challenge. When she saw a fallen tree spanning the river to a little island, she immediately said she had to cross it. (That would never occur to me because I'm not a risk taker.) We cheered after she made it.

Besides rapids and waterfalls, there were beautiful placid stretches of the Deschutes, like the one below bordered by marshland in Sunriver.

Here's another peaceful view in Sunriver:

One day we explored the lava fields in Newberry National Volcanic Monument, which is within the Deschutes National Forest. Just as we got out of the car to begin our hike it started raining hard, so we jumped back in. Seconds later we were being pounded by hail! Not very desertlike.

When the hail passed, we grabbed our umbrellas and set out on a paved path through the lava fields. What we saw that day was the big chunky porous type of lava piled against dramatic skies. Another day we tried to hike in an area of obsidian (glassy) lava fields, but the road was closed due to late snowfall. It would have been interesting to compare the two types of lava, but that will have to wait for another trip.

This twisted tree adds to

the eeriness of the lava fields.

As always, I took photos of interesting texture and lines, like this pinecone ...

... raindrops on grass ...

... and swirling water.

And, since we are the Feet & FORKS, here are some food photos:

Sweet potato fries are one of our favorites.

We made daily trips to bakeries.

The flan at Hola in Sunriver was to die for!

I hope this gives you a little taste 

of the Bend/Sunriver part of beautiful Oregon.

Along the Deschutes on a city path in Bend.

Have a colorful day

STITCH quilts at the library

We hung our annual art quilt show at the Gig Harbor Library over the weekend, so come on out and take a look! The show will hang at least through the end of June and maybe longer -- the library staff never wants us to take it down. We hung 40-some quilts by the eight members of my art quilt group, STITCH.

Included in the show is the "This Is Me" challenge, in which we each created a small quilt to represent something about ourselves. Here are a few:

Carol's, above, is called "Falling Apart At the Seams." Judy's, below, is "Organized Chaos." Do you detect similarities?

Linda's, below, is a delightful combination of things she loves -- flowers, quilts, her golf husband, books, chandeliers.

This bird quilt isn't in the library, but I'm showing it anyway because one of my parakeets escaped to the bedroom over the weekend and perched on my "Thirty Birds" quilt. I got him off before he had time to do any business on it.

Have a colorful day

On the road with the Feet & Forks

Kandi and Joyce on a rest stop walk.

The Feet & Forks hit the road this past week to hike, eat and generally have fun in the Bend/Sunriver, Oregon, area. This first post will be about our encounters on the road.

Our first little walk was at this scenic rest stop off of I-5 somewhere between Tacoma and Portland.

From top: Joyce, me, Kandi.
Nancy couldn't make the trip.

Hours later and over the river and through the woods, we pulled into the Crescent Moon Alpaca Ranch in Madras, Oregon. The alpacas seemed to be enjoying the day, grazing, nursing and snoozing in the sun.

By then, I was starving. We fortified ourselves at the Mazatlan Mexican restaurant a little way down the road in Redmond.

Taco salads and quesadillas.

We got someone to take our picture in the restaurant's lobby. Love those cheery yellow walls!

THEN WE SPENT MONDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH FRIDAY MORNING HIKING AND EATING. I'LL BLOG ABOUT THAT IN THE NEXT POST.

These next few photos are from the drive home. We had some spectacular skies and mist in the mountains as we headed back on 26 through the high desert and down through the mountains on the west side.

At the bottom of the mountain, we slid into Sandy, Oregon, and right into the parking lot of Joe's Donut Shop. Fabulous, fresh donuts! I ate a marionberry jelly donut there and brought home two maple bars for the friend who told me about Joe's and two custard filled chocolate iced donuts for myself. Yum! Joe's was started in 1974 by a guy named ... Joe.

Traffic through the Portland area is always backed up, and yesterday was no exception. But we entertained ourselves with music and talk. It's amazing how we can fill a six-hour drive with talk about everything from new restaurants to computer shortcuts.

Now that my car is back home in the garage, I realize how dirty it got on some of those unpaved roads. I almost hate to wash away the memories.

More tomorrow.

Have a colorful day