February, 2024…

March 4, 2024March 4, 2024 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

I’m trying something new here. My desktop computer is temporarily unavailable to me, along with most of my photo library. This month I will try to create my post using only my iPad, and the photos on my phone…

Around the neighborhood…

My monthly collection of shadows and cracks…

Wildlife in the neighborhood…

Street art, Northwest Portland

Hiking…

I only managed two hikes this month…have I mentioned it has been particularly cold and rainy this year? One urban hike, with friends, and one out in the Columbia River Gorge, at Catherine Creek.

February 4, West Hills Long Walk – It was almost seven miles, and 900 feet elevation, all on pavement, sometimes on busy roads, sometimes across one of several cemeteries that are on the tops of the West Hills. Our friends who live in the neighborhood guided us, as this is their regular walking area. Not my favorite kind of walking, because of the traffic and the pavement, and it turned out to aggravate my hip bursitis, which I am still feeling, darn it! But we did enjoy the time with our friends, and the views across the city.

February 12, Bitterroot Trail at Catherine Creek – We walked about 4 miles, on both the lower and upper trails, looking for grass widows, and we found them. We also saw a few salt and pepper parsleys, and lots of water everywhere. This is my one phone picture of the fairy pools. There are a few purple grass widows in the foreground – though the exposure, looking toward the midday sun, is not ideal.

Fairy pools at Catherine Creek, Washington

Quilting – I finished the top of my Modern Quilt Studio Transparency Quilt – Mystery Quilt. I also made the back, and it is now in my queue for quilting.

These mystery blocks were transformed into…

I am improv piecing the back for my Lodge Quilt, which I made from the Modern Quilt Studio summer mystery quiltalong, using the leftovers from that top. I enjoy the process of improv piecing so much more than the extremely precise sewing and point matching required for the Transparency quilt, but both techniques have their place.

Knitting – I finished a few items – hats for the Puddletown Knitters Guild Service Project, the Mystery Shawl for The Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Knitalong, and the most recent pair of socks, and I started a new pair of socks for some upcoming travel knitting…

Six “Warm One” hats for donation, made of Knit Picks Mighty Stitch, held double.

Plumbing!… In December we had a leaky pipe that created a small flood in our basement – we found it and had it fixed before too much damage was done, but it prompted us to replace the 92 year old pipes that run through most of our house. We are currently experiencing the dust and noise created by cutting through plaster and tile – very efficiently, but still not pleasant. Then there will be the patching and painting. Meanwhile, we get a peek inside the walls of our house, which has very good bones…

While preparing for the plumbing work, I took down this twenty year old dragon from the laundry room wall to keep it out of the dust zone.

Quilts in the News….

I did not attend the Quilt Con show in North Carolina. I enjoyed looking at the images on Instagram, and was moved to tears by their Best in Show quilt. The artist, a teacher, crowd sourced the items shown from other teachers, and created this piece. (Images from Instagram)

Split image of front and back of the quilt.

I think the IPad format worked, though a bit time consuming having to learn the new touch prompts. One of the many things I am upgrading this month.

Hiking, January 2024

February 5, 2024 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Two hikes in January – it was mostly too cold, wet, icy to hit the trails this month.

First Day Hike – January 1 – Columbia River Gorge and Powell Butte

The skies were blue and the sun was out! We could see the mountain as we drove east out of Portland!

But in the Gorge, the east winds were strong and cold, and fog banks covered many of the slopes. We turned around and drove back to town on the Historic Highway, stopping for views at Vista House. The winds were so strong I could barely open the car door!

Looking east – white caps on the river!

Looking west…

And Vista House.

We stopped again for a quick view from Women’s Forum/Chanticleer Overlook…

Looking back at Vista House, the Columbia River, Beacon Rock…

And then we drove to Powell Butte in east Portland, where hiking trails lead up the sides and around the top of this volcanic butte. It is also the location of an enormous covered reservoir, a main stop in the Portland water system. Lots of other people were there on this sunny first day, so that we had to hike up from the north parking lot on 148th Avenue because the upper lots were all full. But we persisted, and were rewarded, finally, with a chance to stretch our legs a bit on this beautiful day. It was a lot less windy here!

We could see Mt Hood beyond reservoir infrastructure as we reached the top.

The museum at the top utilizes pipes as part of an exhibit that explains the water system

Pipe as embedded surface art.

We made a loop to the high point on top, with better views of Mt Hood,

and Mt St Helens.

Eventually, we returned down the Blackberry Stairs to our car, after a 3.5 mile hike.

Thus we began the New Year as we mean to go on, with weekly hikes. Nature got a little bit the better of us in this regard…there was snow, ice, and below freezing temperatures for a week, and then a fair amount of rain. But I did get out for one more hike in January – to see the eagles!

January 23 – Balfour-Klickitat Natural Area, and Coyote Wall, WA

There was a lot of snow all through the Gorge, and more than I expected in the eastern Gorge. It was quite beautiful, and not as cold as it had been. We drove over the Hood River Bridge to Washington…

Looking east from the bridge

The views across the Columbia River from the Chamberlain Lake Rest Area on Hwy 14 were sparklinging in the sunlight!

We reached The Balfour-Klickitat Natural Area, just west of Lyle, and found that the parking area had not been plowed. We parked just below, on Hwy 14, and walked up along the Klickitat River on a snowshoe trail. We wore microspikes on our boots to assist our grip on the six inches of snow.

Looking back across the Columbia River from near the parking area.

Walking along the Klickitat River Trail

Klickitat River

A perennial stream enters the Klickitat River on the west side of this little lake.

We reached the overlook to the lake where bald eagles congregate this time of year, and there they were! We counted about 25 different eagles over the course of our observations.

The white plumage of bald eagle pops out against the gray tree branches across the lake.

Closer view

Another one

We noticed these two on our side of the lake…

Zooming in…

The more we scanned the landscape, the more we saw, though the brown juvenile birds are harder to see. Then we noticed a snag in the distance that was covered in birds!

Distant snag, circled in blue

Zooming in. Birds were coming and going. There are also three perched in the trees to the left of the snag.

Nine eagles perched on the snag in this view.

There were also ducks down on the lake, and flying about…

Ducks

Eventually the fog started rolling in, so we returned to our car.

Fog

Goodbye to the eagles for this year.

It is always a treat to see them before they return to Canada.

We drove back west on Hwy 8, planning to walk at Catherine Creek, if possible, but it was completely fogged in. We sat in the car, eating our lunch and hoping the fog would move on, but no luck.

Lunch view at the Catherine Creek Trailhead.

We continued west to the Coyote Wall Trailhead, once again parking near Hwy 14, because the parking area was not plowed. We walked under the cliffs, and along Look Lake to the frozen waterfall, and then turned back, as the fog was beginning to settle here, too.

Looking toward Coyote Wall from the snowplow berm near Hwy 14.

Our path along the old highway under Coyote Wall

Looking back toward sunlit cliffs at the top of Coyote Wall

Look Lake

Sunlight in the melted lake ice

Frozen waterfall

Waterfall icicles

Fog rolling in ahead…

View over Look Lake as we walk back westward.

We had seen enough for the day, and it was time to warm up again.

View to the west as we drove back over the Hood River Bridge. Even the sandflats out along the Hood River Delta were covered with snow.

We will be back next month to see the first spring wildflowers after the snow melts.

January 2024 in Portland…

February 3, 2024 / margaretquilts / Leave a comment

Winter…Rain and cold and ice storms…not much outdoor time this month, a few views of the mountains, and a visit to the eagles of Balfour-Klickitat, a lot of knitting and a bit of quilting…but all is well at the end of January, as we welcome longer days.

First Day Hike – January 1 – We tried to go out to the Gorge, but the wind was cold and relentless. We returned to Portland, and hiked at Powell Butte, which was sheltered from the cold blasts of east wind (next post for details).

Ice Week – January 13 to 19 – It began on Saturday, the 13th, with below freezing temperatures and fine, powdery snow. High winds blew down many trees throughout the city. We were fortunate not to lose power though many did.

Powdery snow

January 16th

Jack frost on the windows – a rare sight.

On Monday, it stayed so cold that nothing melted. The sun came out and I went for a short walk, but the bitter wind made it rather unpleasant.

We wouldn’t see thawing temperatures for a week – and in a city without many snowplows, that means we all stayed home for the week, almost in pandemic lockdown mode, especially after Tuesday, when everything was coated with an inch or two of sparkly but treacherous ice.

An inch of ice on every surface!

January 16th

We counted 25 gold finches on and around our neighbor’s bird feeder.

Also, a hungry squirrel.

January 16th

On Wednesday we were teased with a bit of thawing, but then it all froze again.

Screenshot

Our personal skating rink.

Finally on Sunday we had serious thawing, but it took a few days to melt entirely, and some people were without power for many days. These conditions may be common elsewhere, but I personally am not a fan of the cold temperatures.

The snow and ice added much needed snow to the mountains, and also shut down the roads through the Columbia River Gorge, with icy conditions and fallen trees. Many of the trails still have trees down, landslides, and flooding. We could see some of this the next week when we drove through the Gorge for our annual trek to see the bald eagles near the town of Lyle, Washington (next post for details).

Meanwhile, I have had plenty of time for Knitting and Quilting:

I finished two long time projects – the Anthology Throw, by Helen Stewart, made from 24 different 20 gm leftover balls of sock yarn.

Anthology Throw

The Hitchhiker Shawl by Martina Behm, made from a discontinued silk marino yarn.

Hitchhiker Shawl

I’ve made the first three of many hats I plan to knit as part of the Puddletown Knitters Guild service project, destined for the local women’s shelter.

In progress: I started a pair of socks with the alpaca wool yarn my son bought for me from a Philadelphia yarn shop.

Philadelphia Socks

And I have finished two of the five clues on the Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Shawl KnitALong – the two yarn skeins I bought at the Sacred Sheep event in Portland last fall. it is lovely to work with the bright colors and beads on these gray days.

Rose City Yarn Crawl Mystery Shawl

I also started the Modern Quilt Studio Secret Agent Mystery Quilt Along – with the Transparency fabric. We are about half way through the clues, and I am enjoying the process.

Transparency blocks, in progress

For the record, I have been practicing quilting on my new Juki machine, and hope to have something to show for it next month.

In The Wild….Two of my children were out and about in New York city in January; and the third, in North Carolina, has assured me that her custom knit convertible mittens are really great for biking on cold days.