Eventing...

How do geocachers celebrate New Year's Eve? with lots and lots of geocaching events, that's how! Of all the events to choose from, we managed four:

Ring out the year with a kick = early morning coffee in Parkland
Thanks 2018, End of Year of the Dog = hot dogs at a cute little place near Green Lake

Did Love find 2018 caches in 2018? = mid-afternoon brew and conversation at Fremont Brewing
Say Goodbye to 2018 with the WSGA = a big party! Dinner and a glass of red with caching friends in Renton. After all the food today, my dinner was a yummy appetizer of Brussels sprouts.

Really, really wet...

Heavy rains were predicted for today... bummer. Because we're going to Shelton for a geocaching event. Breakfast, then driving the back roads and logging roads, picking up geocaches along the way. And today, getting very, very wet.



We did the route backwards, so it was a couple of hours before we started running into fellow cachers. Like at this remote location, south of Lake Cushman in the Olympics. Cold, windy, rainy... searching in the woods for the elusive geocache. Eight of us looked for this one with no luck. We went back to the Pilot, where I stayed. Wisely, I think. Everyone but us gave up and moved on, but DW thought he'd take another look just as another group arrived. And this time, he found it!

We stopped halfway through the route at a cache hidden deep inside a wrecked Model A (I made the find this time)... we were just outside a bakery, and were soaked and cold and needed a break. And hot coffee. And a big scoop of Olympic ice cream.

The day finished up at a local restaurant for dinner, and it was amusing to see the level of commitment of caching friends based on how wet they were. One gal made a beeline for Walmart to buy new clothes, then came to dinner. I was so glad we brought a complete change of clothes, from head to toe.

Family snow...

A day in the mountains (snow!!) is often how my sister chooses to spend her birthday, and this year, I tagged along. There were three generations in my sister's van, and we're going to spend the afternoon sliding down the hills at Stevens Pass.



Heading east on the ferry, out of the rain and into the snow


The nordic area at Stevens has lots of parking, warm bathrooms, and lots of sledding hills. We pulled on snow pants and more layers under warm jackets, and the kids were off and on the hill before we knew it.

This dog was dressed as warmly as I was!



My nephew is a snowboard instructor at Stevens Pass; he met us with a couple of cool snowskates that the little girls took to like ducks to water.







The day couldn't have been better: plenty of fresh snow, comfortable temperatures, lots of giggles and laughter.

I was glad of the hours spent in the snow, especially with my family. The way things are going, it might be the only snow play I will get this winter.

Christmas day...

It's a tradition that I treasure, and look forward to every year:  Christmas day with my sister. When our parents died a couple of weeks before Christmas, we began this tradition of spending this special day together. Our family loved this holiday, and our parents made it special for their three daughters. And we've done what we can to continue their tradition.



So early on Christmas morning, DW and I get up early, and catch a ferry to the island. We start the day at our niece's house, have breakfast and share hugs and talk, watch the little girls open their gifts, eat more breakfast, play games, play pool, and if we're lucky, watch the snow fall.

Then we move the party to my sister's house. We cook dinner together while we snack on brie and crackers and sometimes grilled vegetables, then sit down and have dinner and wine. This year we made mini tamales together, for an appetizer. And my sister made three kinds of enchiladas for dinner, along all the toppings and a big green salad. It was a great meal, shared around a table full of laughter.



Then before the little ones crash, we open more presents. DW and I spend the night, so we sit up late with my sister and brother-in-law, a few special hours just the four of us.

Seeds from my garden...

The past few years, my sister and niece have given me seeds harvested from their beautiful gardens. This year, with all the new perennials I added to a new flowerbed in the fall, I was able to harvest seeds from a lot of new plants. So come Christmas, I decided to repay the favor.



In a basket of stamps, I found the perfect one: From the Garden of. Just what I wanted, and in the perfect size. I ordered tiny kraft envelopes, sorted my seeds among several packets, and dated them. Besides my sister and niece, I have seeds to send to my dear friend, Linda, who lives in Ellensburg.

Columbine, Black-Eyed Susan, Purple Coneflower, Pincushion flower, Rose campion, and Campanula. These grow very well in my garden, and I hope they will do the same in theirs.

Catching up...

The past six months or so, the story of my life where my blog is concerned. Busy, torn between too many passions. When it's nice, I want to be outside. When it rains, or snows, or is too cold... I just want to sew. That's good for the stack of unfinished projects, but not so good for writing and taking photographs. In the new year, just around the corner, I hope that will change.

One of the old projects I've moved to the top of the stack is this log cabin quilt, made from pastels. It's a very old pattern, called Cabin in the Cotton.



I set it aside when I made a wedding quilt for my niece in 2006, and never got around to finishing it. There have been many others that passed under my needle, but not this one. Lately, I've been in the mood to work on it again, and it's been a great project to take to my Wednesday sewing group. I only have about 30 blocks left to make, the large blocks, and the tiny ones, then I can cut the white sashing strips and start making the top. Maybe I'll take this one to my retreat the end of January.

This is the complete quilt from the book. Isn't it gorgeous?

Long lost...

A day of back roads driving, marveling at the green of this December (but I still haven't given up on snow for Christmas). I was headed toward a happy few hours with an old friend from my horse show years, who runs a hunter-jumper barn in Monroe.  There's nothing like walking into a barn and hearing my name called from the other end, "Hello, long-lost friend!" Today was a reminder to treasure friendships, and keep them strong through the years. Those friends will always be there when you need them.

Runners...

In all the years I've been quilting, I've never made a table runner. I've made full size quilts, and tiny quilts just 12 inches square. But never a runner. Until now.

We have a new cabinet for a new television, and I won't put anything on it unless there's something to protect the wood. So, a table runner.

I picked some favorite fabrics from one of my favorite designers, Kansas Troubles Quilts. Dark red and sage green and gold, colors that go with the big area rug in our living room. It's a bit fussy to make, because I've already arranged the fabric squares exactly where I want them. So it will live on the design wall while I add the corner blocks, one square at a time. I think it will be perfect.

Welcome home...

Each year, one of my quilt guilds chooses a project, something we can all work on together. One year, the project was to make applique blocks for a quilt. It could be wool applique, or any form of applique using quilting cottons. Another year, we made a quilt from a panel. Each new project teaches us new techniques.

This year, we're making medallion quilts. And in my usual style, mine is made from tiny quilt blocks.



The first month, I started with the little red farmhouse with a blue sky. The second month, I added the gold and cream frame made with half-square triangles. The third month, I added the black frame. And for December, I made a handful of tiny 9-patch blocks (3-in. square) along with plain squares. So far, my little quilt is 15-in. square. This far, I followed a pattern in a favorite book of Civil War quilts. But from now on, it will be all mine.

I'll keep adding borders until June, when my guild takes a break for the summer. I plan to add some embroidery details, like window frames and a wreath on the door, after I hand-quilt it. And if I'm really happy with the finished quilt, I'll enter it in my other guild's quilt show in 2020.

I named it "Welcome Home" because of the farmhouse. Because every time I come home to my own little farmhouse, it welcomes me home.

The muted colors of winter...

The cold lingered all day yesterday. Everywhere we went, we found icy creeks and frosty pastures, and rocks coated with crazy spires of ice.



But the fallen leaves rimmed with frost were my favorites. Dropped by a multitude of trees and mixed by the wind, they lay together, fused by ice and frost. Green and dark brown, gold and cinnamon.

The muted colors of winter are so beautiful.

Unplanned...

Sometimes unplanned trips work out the best. This weekend we took off for Port Angeles, a quick trip for two nights, for wine club events, some geocaching, and as always, a lot of back roads exploring.

This morning we headed out with mugs of tea, intending to have breakfast at a favorite cafe at the airport south of Port Townsend. Then we wandered the country roads toward the Strait, heading for a few geocaches on our list. We slowed down for a broad corner, and there it was: the Acadia Country Inn. We literally slammed on the brakes and looked at each other. We spent our tenth anniversary in this historic house.



When we stayed there, the house was a bed & breakfast, just one of its many incarnations. Built in 1908, the house and farm began life as a private residence, then a hazelnut and fruit farm, a brewery and speakeasy, a brothel, then a boarding house, bed and breakfast, and a vaudeville circus base camp. Today it's a private residence and event center, and also has a tasting room for wine, cider, and mead.



The first time we stayed here, we had the attic room that included the turret-shaped dormer. The second time, we stayed in the corner room that looks out over a grassy pasture, facing where I was standing today.

Today was a cold and gorgeous day for a drive. The mountains were sporting fresh snow, there was frost on the ground, and the sky was streaked with clouds.

Toes...

I headed out the door this icy cold morning, and on the bottom step of the porch, stopped dead. Lit by the early morning sun, I spotted two small footprints in the frost. So I set down my quilting totes, and took pictures.



No claws showed with the prints, so I don't think this was a racoon (although we've seen a whole family of racoons on our porch before). And they're too big for a house cat. Maybe a bobcat? I should have placed a coin for scale, but I thought of it too late.

Barn symmetry...

When farmhouses still stand side-by-side with their barns, to me that's perfect symmetry.