April 2023

May 24, 2023 / margaretquilts / 1 Comment

In April, there were neighborhood walks, wildflower hikes, knitting, and quilting – both before and after our trip to Pennsylvania and Connecticut, described in the previous post.

Neighborhood walks –

Spring blooming trees and flowers…

Crabapple

Cherry

Forget me not

Sidewalk cracks and shadows…

Birthdays…

A friend’s tea party

A stranger’s brass band in the park

Knitting –

I made progress on these two blankets – I keep one downstairs and one upstairs, as they are both getting big!

Slip Stitch Blanket

Sliding is Fun blanket

Quilting –

I finished piecing the top for the Modern Quilt Studio 2023 Mystery Quilt, and started piecing together the scraps plus other fabric from my stash into the backing.

Modern Mystery Quilt 2023 Top

Piecing the back with scraps.

Hiking –

We found lots of wildflowers in April, from the earliest trillium in the forests to the beginnings of spring balsamroot fields in the eastern Columbia River Gorge – all the wildflowers are late this year.

April 3 – Tryon Creek, Portland – A rainy day with intervals of hail. We hiked for a couple of miles, and found the earliest trillium blooming along the Cedar Trail:

Indian plum

Hailstones on the bridge

Salmonberry

Trillium

Moss

Trillium

April 20 – Memaloose Hills and Rowena Plateau, Oregon – Checking the wildflower bloom in the eastern gorge – we saw the beginnings of the balsamroot bloom, and some of the last of the early flowers.

Memaloose Hills:

Lower Trail – buttercups in the oak woodland

Blue eyed Mary

Glacier lilies and buttercups

Pacific waterleaf and buttercups

A few balsamroot blooming on Chatfield Hill

View to Tom McCall Point from the top of Chatfield Hill, with desert parsleys, balsam root and paintbrush

Rowena Crest:

Desert parsley on the plateau

Columbia desert parsley on the cliffs, view toward Lyle Chery Orchard trails

Vultures on the cliff

Vultures

One of the last grass widows of spring…

April 25 – Upper Cape Horn Trail, Washington – We walked over the top of Cape Horn to the Nancy Russell Overlook, and back. Lots of trillium in the forest, and snow on the mountains to the north…

View north across the Columbia River from Pioneer Point

Looking south toward Cape Horn

Silverstar Mountain

Trillium in the forest

April 27 – Crawford Oaks, Columbia Hills, Washington – We hiked the Lower Vista Loop, with friends. Balsamroot beginning to bloom out here at the lower elevations – beautiful!

Horsethief Butte and Mt Hood

Eightmile Creek Falls with balsam root and desert parsley

Fleabane and biscuit root

Balsamroot, Dalles Mountain Ranch

Reflections in the Columbia River

Large head clover

Lupine

Showy phlox

The panoramic view across the Columbia River

March 2023 – Back in PDX

April 23, 2023 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

We returned to Portland from New Zealand on the 18th of March. Our daffodil and crocus bulbs that had just started to bloom in February were still blooming because Portland was unusually cold while were gone. Spring flowering trees and bulbs continued to emerge, sprinkling the neighborhood with color.

Camellias

Daffodil

Moon, redbud

Crocus

Viburnum

Cherry

Star magnolia

We took one hike, on March 22nd, at one of our favorite winter season hiking trails, Catherine Creek, WA, and it was the same story out there. I had predicted tons of grass widows while we were gone, but instead, the area had been covered in snow again. By late March, the grass widows were re- or just blooming, and other early spring flowers were out – gold stars, Columbia and pungent desert parsleys, and yellow bells…

Gold stars and grass widows

Pungent desert parsley

Columbia desert parsley

Blue jay

Ent

Grass widows and gold stars, Columbia River, and the orchards of Mosier

Catherine Creek Falls

We made a short visit to the Oregon Historical Society on a rainy morning. I focused on some of the textiles on display.

Knitting: I made just a little progress on a sock while traveling, but then immediately cast on a toddler sweater for the knitting Guild service project when we returned. This is my first ever knit raglan sweater. I used the same Caron Cotton Cake yarn I am using for the Sliding is Fun Blanket, also for the Guild challenge. The blanket will take much longer, and I realized I had way too much yarn, so repurposed some of it into this little sweater.

Flax (Tin Can Knits) toddler sweater

Quilting: I attended an online ColorMixer quilt seminar on the Creative Spark platform this week, and got lots of ideas for future quilts. Next month, I plan to sew the blocks together for my Modern Mystery Quilt that I had made before our New Zealand trip.

Poetic ode to sunlight from a neighborhood Poetry Post:

January 2023

February 6, 2023 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Quiet and cold in Portland this month. I went on four hikes (see next post), met a few times with my knitting group at the local coffee spot, and walked in the neighborhood when it was dry.

Alameda stairs

Moon, January 1, 2023

Knitting:

I thought I was done with knitting gnomes for a while, but then a request came in for a long time friend, so I made one more. I knit myself a new travel mug cosy, and finished my holiday socks. And made progress on my slip stitch blanket.

The last? gnome

Cup cosy

Holiday socks

Slip stitch blanket in progress

Quilting:

I am actually quilting again! I joined the Modern Quilt Studio – Mystery Quilt, as I have learned so much from Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr over the years. I’ve finished the first four clues. I have no idea what the final quilt will look like, but I had fun picking two contrasting palettes of fabric from my existing stash. There will be two more sets of instructions before the big reveal.

Blocks for the first four clues.

Family archeology:

While relearning crochet, I was looking through a collection of my mother’s knitting and sewing books for useful material. These are very outdated craft books that I keep for sentimental reasons. As I was leafing through one of them, a piece of thin note paper covered in my mother’s beautiful cursive handwriting fell out. It is just a notation of a crochet pattern, but my heart filled, and I felt her here with me, advising me in her future, playing the role of a ‘time being’. (Credit to Ruth Ozeki, author of A Tale for the Time Being, which I read recently, and which gave me a whole new definition of the expression ‘time being’.)

Sad news: In January, more racist violence shocked us all…as a mother, daughter, sister, friend, member of the human race, my heart is pierced each time.

With reference to Tyre Nichols, Memphis, TN (photo from the internet)

Meanwhile, an anonymous someone in my neighborhood is trying to spread good wishes…

Looking back on 2022…

February 1, 2023 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Hiking, reading and crafting, goals and accomplishments, life in pandemia….

We begin 2023, adapted to the new ‘ordinary’ life. We are injected with as many booster shots as we can get, and masking whenever in crowds of people. We will probably go on this way for a while. With the best of intentions we move on in our world, acknowledging privileged survival and a relatively easy life here, now.

TRAVEL: We returned to international travel in 2022, hiking in Scotland and Iceland during long summer days. We also traveled to Joshua Tree and southern Utah for hiking, and went twice to Washington DC, to see our daughter, and other east coast relations.

Red Rocks, NV, April

Joshua Tree, CA, February

Zebra Canyon, UT, April

Pennsyvania, March

George Washington Bridge, on the way to CT, March

National Mall, DC, March

Supreme Court, DC, October

Old Rag, VA, October

Thingveller, Iceland, July

Applecross, Scotland, June

HIKING: My 76 hiking and walking adventures added up to 332 miles, and 52,272 feet in elevation, many of these while on our travels. New notable local hikes: finishing the last few miles of Portland’s 39 mile long Wildwood Trail, a pandemic project; the return to fire-scarred Bird Creek meadows on Mt Adams; and our first time to walk around Bayocean Spit on the Oregon coast.

View from Pittock Mansion over Portland after finishing the Wildwood Trail.

Bird Creek Meadows, Mt Adams

Sand pipers and plovers on Bayocean Spit

Our many repeat hikes were satisfying for monitoring seasonal changes, exemplified by these views of Mt Hood:

March, White River

August, East Eliot Moraine

October, Vista Ridge

READING: I finished 88 books last year. I learned the most from nonfiction and memoirs (red stars), written by diverse authors, mostly women: a thru hiker, a mountain climber, a senator, musicians, writers, and even an astrophysicist. My favorite fiction books were: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, and Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather. I also enjoyed rereads of classics and old favorites.

QUILTING: I made one baby quilt.

Baby quilt for a new great niece, March

KNITTING: I knit my way through 9933 yards of yarn, the largest quantity into 15 hats for our guild service project. I also knit at least one gnome every month, for the Year of Gnomes. I made hats and socks for family, and a couple of scarves and gift critters.

Ravelry 2022 project thumbnail pictures

Ravelry 2022 knitting stats

12 gnomes, for the Year of Gnomes

FAMILY: Both of our sons, who had been temporarily living at home, moved out: one nearby, the other to Philadelphia. So we are fully empty nest for now. We were able to visit our daughter in DC twice last year, and she came home twice. She is in a gap year, and may be relocating to a new city for grad school next year. We were able to see some extended family members for the first time since the pandemic, but they live far enough away that regular visits are not easy.

A favorite garden in Eugene, OR, August

More of my favorite photos from 2022:

Portland cherry trees:

March

November

Scotland, June:

New Zealand Tree Fern in the Glasgow Botanical Gardens

Climbing Stob Dubh

Solstice near Glencoe

On the slopes of Stac Pollaidh

Iceland, July:

Street Art in Reykjavik:

Waterfalls and puffins:

Gullfoss

Dynjandi

Kirkjufellsfoss

Latrajbarg cliffs

Plans for 2023: I am relearning crochet so that I can make a blanket for the Guild service project, and a coral for the Coral Reef project. I am midway through knitting a slip stitch blanket. I have started the Modern Quilt Studio Mystery Quilt, and am having fun using my stash again. I hope to see more of family, but that is not always up to me. I plan to continue monthly blog updates, with expected travel interruptions. I am working on about a dozen posts from our 2020 New Zealand trip, and from 2022 Scotland and Iceland trips, and quilt documentation posts. I have to resize pictures in older posts to fit storage limits, adding a layer of time consuming work.

We will continue weekly local hikes, and expect to hike almost daily on our upcoming trips to New Zealand and Italy.

My general wish for the New Year is for good health, and for living in a way that honors diversity and contributes to ecological repair, with kindness, honesty, and generosity.

December 2022 Recap

January 14, 2023January 14, 2023 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

What do I want to remember about December? A freak snowstorm the first week. A lot of grey, rainy cold days which I spent counting down to the winter Solstice. I only went on two hikes this month:

12/6/2022 – Catherine Creek, WA –

We drove through the snowy Columbia River Gorge, and found the early snow at Catherine Creek.

Ice on Rowland Lake

Snow covered slopes on the Lower Trail

We saw a fox run up the slope.

Looking across the Columbia River to Oregon.

Catherine Creek Waterfall

Then we walked up to the snow-covered fairy pools,

and looked across to the Arch.

While eating lunch and warming up in the car, the sun came out, so we decided to walk the trail above the Arch.

Bridge over the creek

I saw a few predator birds in the tree tops – a hawk

American kestrel

Looking up toward Sunflower Hill

We turned around at the top of the Arch, not having adequate footwear for deeper snow and ice.

Eastward view

12/13/2022 – Portland Arboretum –

Another day, we found a slightly dry weather window, and took a 2.5 mile walk through part of the Portland Arboretum.

We found the most color in the Holly Garden.

Bare deciduous trees and grey skies.

Mahonia in the Winter Garden

Cedar

Meanwhile…

I took plenty of walks through the neighborhood looking for cheerful holiday decor.

I remember willing the Solstice and longer days to arrive. For a few days each year, the sun is so low, it shines through our front door windows onto the stairwell wall.

Later in the month, the east winds swept through and pounded our neighborhood, blowing down several very tall fir trees, including one across the street that we had been worried about for years. It fell on the neighbor’s house. Fortunately no one was in the room that was crushed at that moment. Then we watched the street drama of tree removal for several days, front row seat from our living room.

December 22nd, tree down

December 23rd – a thin layer of icy snow over everything…

December 26th – first they removed the other standing tree,

Then used a very tall crane to remove the fallen tree.

Rainproofing the roof; reconstruction and repair will take a while….

Elsewhere in the neighborhood:

Over in the park, Henry Huggins lost his shade tree,

and the tall fir to the left of this nutcracker…

blocked this street for a few weeks until it could be removed.

Fortunately, nobody was hurt an any of these local incidents.

What else…one son moved to Philadelphia at the beginning of the month and was not here for the holidays. We began to settle into our next phase of empty nesting, with no sign of any of the kids living here in the near future. We were glad to have our daughter home for the holidays. Luckily, she moved her flight up one day, and missed the travel craziness that happened this year. We were amazed that our other son arrived home from a business trip on a delayed flight from Denver, at 3 am on Christmas morning…for some reason not cancelled. We enjoyed setting up our tree, admiring the ornaments and the memories they bring; lighting Hanukkah candles, baking cookies, having a lovely Christmas dinner with some of our oldest friends.

New ornament from Scotland

Portland Art Museum – 12/28

My daughter and I went with friends to see a few of the current exhibits.

The golden brush strokes on this special exhibit Botticelli painting drew me in.

Very different from the rectangular smudges on this Impressionism work, which I also loved.

The Japanese woodblock prints of Mt Fuji were much more intricate and detailed, also beautiful!

A large retrospective exhibit of the Native American artist, Oscar Howe, was so interesting. His style evolved from representational to fractured, and was very colorful. These paintings are both dancers, with one arm raised, and feathers hanging down. I loved them!

Other December news:

An artist friend gave me a small painting of Mt Hood that we hung in our kitchen adjacent to one of my husbands’ photos of Mt Hood. We love the mountains!

I knit my way through the month, completing a few gifts, and finishing the year of gnomes.

I made three of these Warm One Hats in Knit Picks Mighty Stitch yarn held double, as gifts for each of my kids.

I made the 12th gnome, Gnova, by Sara Schira, for the December Year of Gnomes.

I made three Little Tigers that have new homes.

I continued knitting the Malabrigo Slip Stitch Blanket after all the gift knitting was done. This one is for me.

I plan to write one more post for 2022 – hopefully soon.

November 2022

December 31, 2022 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Catching up on November at home and in the neighborhood…

We had lots of rainy, cold weather, brightened by leaves beginning their color changing and falling,

tupelo and katsura

sumac

gingko

Leaves staining the cement, and other sidewalk art…

A rainy day with magical sun breaks…

Looking across the Willamettte River to SE Portland from the Marquam Bridge

Meanwhile, the neighborhood is lit up with the western sunbeams pouring in beneath the clouds…

And more leaves glow along the streets…

We had some delicious meals shared with friends:

A beautiful eggplant curry with pomegranate

Thanksgiving pies

Meanwhile, I continued my knitting…

I finished one pair of socks,

and started a Malabrigo slip stitch blanket,

and another pair of socks.

November gnome (Nice to Gnome You by Sarah Schira)

And a Tiny Gnome for gifting (Anna Hrachovec)

We voted at the beginning of the month, with mostly satisfactory results, though there have been some setbacks.

We went on three hikes in November, and to the Maryhill Museum, all to be described in the next post…

October 2022

November 17, 2022 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Autumn comes to the neighborhood:

A book nook

Toy exchange

Painted parkway pony

Ramona, Henry and Ribsy in the autumn light

Foliage

Witches, ghosts, and jack-o-lanterns:

I finished knitting hats for the guild service project, socks, and a new witch gnome for the Halloween decor:

Service project hats

Ensnared socks

Witch gnome, for the October #YearOfGnomes

Back, showing her hair

Joining the local coven

We flew to Washington DC to visit our daughter and hike in the Shenandoah Mountains (next blog post). We returned just in time to greet our neighborhood trick-or-treaters from our porch for the first time in a few years, in the pouring rain this year. I even carved a (two-sided) pumpkin.

And I took note of the annual witch paddle in the Willamette River (photo credit to the Oregonian online). Someday I hope to see it in person.

September 2022….

October 7, 2022 / margaretquilts / 1 Comment

A transition month: one son moved out; after a hot and smoky spell, the weather turned to autumn, but it hasn’t rained much yet. In Scotland, the Queen died; in New Zealand the albatrosses fledged. Meanwhile, we harvested tomatoes, basil and cucumbers; our other son moved back in (temporarily?..), and we have had more post(?)-Covid social meetings – with new neighbors and old friends – that feels good. New vaccines, a new clothes dryer, some new knitting and three hikes (in the next blog post).

Knitting…

I finished four more hats for the guild service project, a Musselburgh Hat (Ysolda Teague) for a family member, and the Choose Your Gnome Adventure mystery gnome by Sarah Schira for the September/Year of Gnomes.

September Gnome

Service project hats

Musselburgh Hat

Neighborhood and garden…

Echinacea

Sidewalk pony

nasturtium

sunflowers

poetry post

dormers

street art

art post

dahlias

fall light

datura

marigolds

The Queen and the albatrosses…

I have no particular relationship with the Queen, except that she has always been there my whole life. She modeled devotion to duty, and lived a life of extreme privilege, but seemed to learn from her mistakes. She represents some part of the fictional world where I have spent so much of my reading time, as many of my favorite authors are British. I feel compelled to remember her here.

Family friend, meeting the Queen in BC about 20 years ago.

Working until the end…

Inspirational message during the pandemic lock down.

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II sits alone in St. George’s Chapel during the funeral of Prince Philip, April 17, 2021(Jonathan Brady/Pool via AP). A heartbreaking image depicting what many experienced during the pandemic (though in less posh surroundings).

Rainbow over Buckingham Palace, from News media

And I continue to watch the albatross web camera, from Dunedin, NZ. The chicks were fledging all month – this one in the pouring rain.

September 3rd, 2022. The Royal Cam chick, 220 days old, fledging. She has been named Lilibet in honor of the Queen.

Inspirational thought:

Blog note: I am trying to resize my photos to address storage issues on this blog. There is so much I don’t know about how it all works, but I will try, as I want to keep the blog going.

August 2022

August 31, 2022 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

The best events this month were visits with family; our daughter visiting for almost two weeks from DC, then a brunch in Eugene, where we got to see folks we have missed for almost three pandemic years. I also went on four hikes, all with views to Mt Hood – described in my next post.

Trip to Eugene

8/13/2022 – Back to the garden I love, so many memories here…

Knitting

Another gnome, some socks, a hat, and a cardigan…

August gnome: Gnome is Where You Hang Your Hat

Gnome parts, pattern by Sarah Schira

Socks, West Yorkshire Spinners yarn, and a really good book I read this month.

Em Dash cardigan, by Lisa Tremery, in Truboo yarn; still needs buttons.

Another hat for the Guild project.

Neighborhood and garden…

Blooming artichokes

Summer fruit

Sidewalk garden cantelope

Sidewalk poetry

And birthday treats…

I am glad to have people I care about to share a nice birthday dinner, a few treats, and they also brought presents…

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I also spent time viewing the videos of Joni Mitchell with Brandi Carlile at the Newport Folk Festival in July. I have listened to her music since I was young; seeing her return after catastrophic health issues brought me to tears.

Catching up in July 2022

July 31, 2022 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Time to write again. We traveled from mid-June to mid-July to Scotland and Iceland. On return I was swamped with jetlag and reentry and hot weather. Life seems to move along twice as fast, time always doubling, and I barely have time to look back, while moving forward, while still living a semi-Covid life. My next post has photo highlights of the trip. This post is catching up with life back in my Portland neighborhood.

Neighborhood –

I always see so many interesting things as I walk through my neighborhood. This month, a tiny tree door I hadn’t noticed before, more sidewalk ponies and chickens, a new poetry post, and so many bright flowers, including at least three colors of cone flowers. We were home in time to get plenty of berries in the freezer, and I had the good luck of partaking of a pineapple upsidedown cake at my book group meeting.

Hikes-

July 15, Vista Ridge – Before this current heat wave, we went with a friend up Vista Ridge on the north side of Mt Hood, hoping to see the avalanche lilies. We hiked up to the snow level, about 5300 feet, not quite up to the Timberline Trail. On the way down, I noticed a couple of my haunted tree friends still standing.

Avalanche lilies blooming on the burned forest floor; Washington Cascade peaks in the distance.

Avalanche lilies

Snow, Mt Hood

Lilies poking up through the melting snow

Mt Hood and Barret Spur

Close up, crevasses forming

Deeper snow – time to turnaround

Avalanche lilies

Haunted tree, Mt Hood

Another haunted tree, Washington peaks beyond.

July 28, Bayocean Spit near Tillamook – Full on heat wave, we drove out to the coast to lovely 65 degrees weather, and walked an 8 mile loop around the spit that bounds Tillamook Bay. Fog, shorebirds, not many people. Lovely!

Over the dune to the foggy beach

North to the jetty, fog lifting

Sanderlings, sand pipers and plovers

Tide coming in

The jetty

Pelicans

Tillamook Bay, gulls,

a couple of Caspian terns

and Yellowlegs.

Knitting-

Not much. I had travel socks, but was too busy looking and planning to knit. None of the wool stores were open when we saw them, either in Scotland or Iceland. I did buy some commercial sock yarn at a variety store in Iceland, so have added those skeins to my queue. On return I knitted the tiniest of Sarah Schira’s gnomes, called Gnibblet, to keep up with her Year of Gnomes challenge. This was the month for it. I have a more ambitious one planned for August.

Sock yarn from Iceland

Gnibblet

Now I am sort of caught up, and looking forward to August, when there are some family visits planned. I’m hoping heat and viruses won’t derail us, knock on wood!

Margaret Quilts

Quilting, Knitting, Hiking

Knitting

April 2023

Neighborhood walks –

Knitting –

Quilting –

Hiking –

March 2023 – Back in PDX

January 2023

Knitting:

Quilting:

Family archeology:

Looking back on 2022…

December 2022 Recap

12/6/2022 – Catherine Creek, WA –

12/13/2022 – Portland Arboretum –

Meanwhile…

Portland Art Museum – 12/28

Other December news:

November 2022

October 2022

September 2022….

Knitting…

Neighborhood and garden…

The Queen and the albatrosses…

Inspirational thought:

August 2022

Trip to Eugene

Knitting

Neighborhood and garden…

And birthday treats…

Catching up in July 2022

Hikes-

Knitting-