Beating the HEAT!!!

I planned my summer vacation to Washington months ago, thinking it would be three weeks of a wonderful weather getaway from Tucson's horrendous heat. I anticipated balmy breezes, cool mornings sipping coffee on the patio, long pleasant walks. HA!

Instead, I got to experience the worst heat wave EVER recorded, with heat records being broken day after day in the Northwest. And most people here do not have air conditioning, including the friend I'm staying with. Yesterday, it was six degrees hotter and way more humid here than back home in Oro Valley/Tucson. Even the restaurants in Gig Harbor were closing because of the heat, I guess because the kitchens would have been too hot for their workers.

Luckily, my friends are creative when it comes to beating the heat. I'm staying with Nancy, and she set up her sprinkler so that we could plop ourselves in lawn chairs and enjoy the spray, along with a fan blowing on us. We spent hours under the sprinkler yesterday after spending hours in air conditioned stores.

She also turned the hot tub heater down so we could soak in a "cool tub." I didn't bring a bathing suit, so I just went in wearing my street clothes. It was very refreshing, and afterward we sat under the sprinkler.

Gig Harbor is a water town, and it seemed that everyone who owned a boat was out on the water. Here's the view of the harbor from inside Morso's restaurant. 

I got to go on a boat ride thanks to my friend Dawn, who called a friend and asked him to give us a little ride one evening. It was sooooo much cooler out there.

Dawn was house sitting for someone with a beach house and she invited me to stay one night. It didn't have air conditioning, but it did have a lower level with a guest bedroom tucked in the back that was blissfully cool. We also got to do beach walks and dip our feet in the cold water.

Here's a view of Mount Rainier from the boat.

Skiff the dog gazes out at the boat activity from his beach house. The poor thing must have been so hot in his fur coat, but he sought out the shade and took it easy.

And last night the heat broke!

Have a cool day

STITCH and Yoga Girls

I'm back in Gig Harbor getting together with all my groups! It's so good to slip back into the old routine, even if it is only for two weeks.

Four of us from STITCH got together at Andrea's house for show and tell. I haven't had in-person sewing inspiration since I moved because I'm not involved with any Tucson quilt groups yet.

Andrea is working on a king-size quilt of blue circles hand-appliqued onto layer cake squares. It's striking!

Linda showed her paper pieced houses quilt top.

Carol has been doing red French knots on a piece of black and white Australian print fabric. The texture is great.

Carol also showed a paper pieced top.

I also met up with the Yoga Girls at Cutter's Point coffee house. Yay! We went around the table and everyone gave an update on their past year. That took a couple of hours, but I still wanted more time with them. My selfie stick came in handy for getting the group photo.

And did I say that it's hot? Record setting hot. Today is about 100 degrees and humid and it's nearly unbearable without air conditioning. At Nancy's house, where I'm staying, we draped wet towels around our necks and sat in front of the fan with bottles of ice water. It's going to be even hotter tomorrow, but we'll be at an air conditioned house for Sew Day. But Monday will be 108, which is unprecedented here, so we're thinking of hiding out at the movie theater all afternoon.

The harbor looks deceptively cool and refreshing. Normal highs in June are only in the 70s.

Have a colorful day

 

Sweet sweet summertime

I'm in Spokane for the Summer Solstice visiting my daughter, which is one sweet summertime treat! We walked the Centennial Trail through town and she ditched her shoes to dash through the water park with the other kids. 

We walked about five miles on the trail. Here we are above the Spokane River. And below are some more summery shots from the walk.

The day before, we strolled through beautiful Manito Park and spent an hour in the shade of a giant Rainier cherry tree watching a fat marmot gorge on fallen cherries. Robins also loved the fruit, and one looked positively drunk. As humans walked by, they also stopped to pluck ripe cherries from the tree.

We also smelled the roses, something we do every time I visit in the summer.

Back at her house, everything is pretty -- we like the same colors!

I've been getting a lot of snuggle time with her five silky soft fluffy house rabbits.

On the trip up, our pilot did a nice fly by of Mount Rainier -- so different from the dry desert that I left behind.

Speaking of the desert, back home in Tucson this is summer:

My summer spirit doll:

Have a summery day

Spirit doll groove

"Night Energy"

Now that it's too hot to go hiking (115 yesterday!!!), I've been staying inside and making spirit dolls. At first I fumbled along trying to figure out how best to make them, but now I'm in a groove! Getting a glue gun yesterday really simplified things.

Here are the three I made yesterday and this morning -- "Night Energy," "Saguaro," and "Twilight." They range from 14 to 16 inches tall and have a hanging loop on back.

Judy Doane Sall, my friend in Flagstaff, got me started. I wrote about her here: spirit-dolls-with-tie-dye-judy.html

For the body and arms I collect branches and twigs from my yard. The curling white bark is from my acacia tree, but I'm not sure if it would hold up well on a doll. I might use it for hair.

Then I pull out scraps of fabric, yarn, beads, charms, feathers ...

This is fabric that I painted and stamped years ago, and I think it'll make good clothes for spirit dolls.

Judy uses clay faces for hers, but I've been using big buttons from my stash.

Then I just play, adding embellishments until I think it's done but not overdone.

And remember this advice:

 

Have a colorful day

More spirit dolls

I made two more spirit dolls this weekend. The first one, Spirit of the Garden, is for a friend who loves to garden and loves flowers. I used some of her favorite colors. I hope she likes it.

The next one is Spirit of the Trees and Sea for a friend who loves those two things. I used green for the trees, blue for the water, a shell button for the face and some charms for her favorite activities.

Someone asked me what a spirit doll was. For me, it's a "doll" that's made with items that embody the spirit of something. It could be something physical, like the mountains, desert, water or plants. Or it could be something nonphysical, like friendship or healing. The maker thinks about the spirit while making the doll, sometimes even tucking written messages or symbols into it. Generally they are hung on the wall.

Right now, a Spirit of Arizona doll would be in sizzling reds because it's 110 degrees here in Tucson! (But it's a dry heat, only 3 percent humidity.) This quote that was posted on Facebook today pretty accurately sums it up:

Which means that I won't be using my new lap quilt anytime soon! I just finished it and it's about 63 inches square so I decided not to hang it up.

Have a colorful day

Mt. Lemmon and Walnut Canyon

The temperatures are up past 100 in Tucson (heading to 108 today), so this week I made two trips to cooler climes. A few days ago I was in Flagstaff hiking to the cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon, and yesterday Beth and I hiked on  Mt. Lemmon above Tucson.

I was so happy to see a thick carpet of new, green ferns around the trees on Mt. Lemmon that were blackened in last year's big wildfire. Mt. Lemmon was relatively cool (about 88 degrees) because where we hiked was at about 8,500 feet elevation. That's 6,000 feet higher than Tucson.

After the hike we had lunch and individual pies at the Iron Door on the mountain. Mine was a tart cherry crumble. Delicious.

In Flagstaff I was at nearly 7,000 feet, so again it was cooler. But this time I descended a few hundred feet into a canyon to see ancient cliff dwelling remains.

About 240 stairs take you down into the canyon and back out again. Because I wasn't used to the altitude, I stopped a lot. Little kids skipped and jumped up, while their parents trudged behind, heads down, breathing heavily. At the bottom of the stairs, a path wound around about 25 cliff dwellings that were inhabited as recently as the 1200s.

Here's the spectacular view from one of the dwellings:

My companion explained that the criss-cross lines on the white rock formations are ancient sand dunes. Now they're in a high desert pine forest! I could've spent hours there listening to the wind blow through the trees. It was very peaceful.

Have a colorful day