Skagit Valley Road Trip May 26

Last Saturday the Peggy's, MaryEllin and I hit the road in Peggy's new van, a Chrysler Town & Country, for a day-long meandering through the Skagit Valley.  

Our goal was to get out of town, hopefully with good weather, and hit a couple of favorite destination stores: the yarn shop and the quilt shop in Mt. Vernon (WildFibers and Paw Patch Quilt Shop) and then anything else that came along. 

The weather was glorious, the perfect combination of a cloudless sky and a high of 71.  There was a light breeze.  We headed out at 8:15am.

First: breakfast at the Blue Bird Cafe in Arlington.  

3/4's a success: blueberry pancakes, the eggs and especially the hash-browns were all very good; the French Toast a dismal failure.

 

 

 

 As we left the Blue Bird, we found this place just up the street: Petite Sweets.  We'll try it for brunch next trip.

Then we crossed the street (had to, the Van was parked over there) and found this little treasure:

The Quiltmaker's Shoppe.  She opened a few minutes early when she saw 4 sets of eyes ogling the window display.  We went into what looked like a tiny shop of two small rooms, but it went on and on to the back of the store and then we found the sale rack, 40% off 1 yard or more, 60% off of 3 yards or more.  We quickly discussed the possibility of a 'Pillow Case Marathon Weekend', decided "OH YEAH" and this is what I bought: Moda in three colors, enough for 6 pillow cases and plenty of left-overs for cuffs and trim for many more.

Peggy chose these.

She also found Grandma's Stain Stick, which we will give a try next laundry day.

After Arlington we headed north to Anacortes and Ana-Cross Stitch.

There was evidence of a Yarn Bombing out front. 

Here we have 4 sks of Poems, a total impulse buy which I haven't done for years, at least not with yarn.  Guess I was due.

 

On the way back southbound from Anacortes, we stopped at the Rexville Grocery on the extreme outskirts of Mt. Vernon, a brief stop with some excellent photo ops:

 The building is vintage. 

Their floors are precious to them, so they ask the multitude of cyclists to remove any footwear with cleats before entering.  People actually do read signs, so this is probably very effective...

The gas is real.

 

 The ice is very cold.




The displays are...quaint.
 

Worth a short visit.  No need to return.

Working our way to La Conner around 2pm, we stopped for a late lunch of fish & chips at the Waterfront Cafe.

This is lunch before,

 and this is after.

The fish & chips: fine, not outstanding.  Certainly not the 'best'.  But the company was excellent, which mattered more.

We cruised a couple of La Conner shops, (very touristy, La Conner) and came away with shaking heads at the sad, sad, sad Jennings Yarn Shop.  It's just sad.  They are offering yarn we haven't seen for years at any other yarn shop; the staffer was uninterested in eye contact, let alone speaking.  We think there is huge potential to make this a destination yarn shop, ala Churchmouse or Ana-Cross Stitch ~ it would be so easy and keep sales up in the lean, non-tourist months, but (again, sadly) they aren't any different than they were the last time I was there, in the last decade of the last century, which is just SAD!  Don't be misled by the two 5-star reviews on yelp for Jennings, but if you're interested in buying an established yarn store in a quaint, tourist-trap town, you might want to find out if Jennings is for sale.

We never did make it to the two stores in Mt. Vernon that we started out thinking were a 'must see' this trip.  We got back home at 6pm, tired and happy, and considering dates for the next road trip.

By the way, the Van rocks.  Smooth ride and quiet.  We were all four able to hold a conversation between front and back seats, bonus.  Gas was $54. round trip.  A bit spendy but if you consider it a full day of fun split four ways, not bad at $13.50/ea (not counting individual food and shopping.)

Twins Sons and Daughters of Different Mothers

Here we go with one of our favorite games: 

finding twins born of different mothers.

Feel free to play along.

Lilacs (or the promise of them)

Right now we have the lilac bushes in big pots on the deck.  When the back yard is cleared of ivy and blackberries we'll move them down to permanent locations, with good soil and steer manure.  

We didn't get many blooms this year, only two blues, and two of the double color (white & purple) but one bush gave us loads of a heavenly scented pink double flowers.  Two bushes did no flowering at all, but we saw the squirrels eating the buds off of one of them, so that could be a factor.  The bastards.

Double blue

Double pink

 Deep purple with white edges

 See all the ivy climbing the tree trunk in the background just to the right of the flowers?  That's the type of stuff we're trying to get rid of.  That and the wild blackberries.

Squirrels

This is our suet feeder on Squirrel.  

Those bastards. 

This is the battle rejoined: 

   

A cylinder, with ends.  A suet feeder within a cage. 

JoAnne at Wild Birds Unlimited in 

Lake Forest Park Town Center  

says the woodpeckers can still use it 

by hanging on underneath, 

which is what we wanted the original for, woodpeckers and flickers.

The little birdies can hop inside the cage 

and nosh away.

Road Trip to Wonderful Woolies

041412 3lb, 10oz pre-wash. Humphrey, the moorit wether. The woman I bought it from said Humphry was a ‘fleece machine’ but sadly ‘his own brother’ so couldn’t be shown in a judging situation. I don’t know what that means; we tried to figure it out on the way home but couldn’t. I will email his owner and ask.

I haven’t spun CVM yet, so since I was attracted by the light brown (with some color variation) and the price was right for my budget, I bought it.

The woman I bought it from suggested soaking it in cold water for a few days, even up to a week, so some of the veggie/dirt loosens and breaks down. Peggy and I both have our fleeces soaking out in the garden so we can pour the gunky water on the new spring growth ~ a little natural fertilizer.

This was our first time attending the Wonderful Woolies Fiber Sale outside of Bellingham, WA. We arrived shortly after the 10:00am opening, only to find 2 friends, Natasha and AnnMarie, had been there ahead of us and purchased all the good fleece. KIDDING! They did get some good ones but not the sort we were after so, whew. Lot’s of Romeldale and CVM, some Shetland and Lincoln crosses. There were some beautiful black fleeces, SO gorgeous but out of my price range. Besides, black? I’d go blind. Seriously.

This is more than just a fleece sale. There was also processed roving, yarn, Turkish drop spindles, and more. There were at least 3 farms involved and I overheard a conversation about a 4th who missed it because her processor couldn’t get her product to her in time. I think she had sent out her fleece to be spun.

An overall excellent adventure. We will no doubt be returning, if not every year than at least every other. This year we were shut out of Blacksheep because we didn’t make a motel reservation in December for the June event. Apparently there are Olympic trials happening in Eugene that week, as well as some other huge event and Blacksheep. Motels were completely booked by early January. Who knew? Lesson learned, though.

The Wonderful Woolies Fiber Sale is not a substitute for Blacksheep, because, really, how can you compare them, but it did take the sting out of not being able to go. We will definitely do it again.

The road-trip to Bellingham was excellent. Peggy, the Other Peggy and I left Edmonds around 8:15am, had breakfast at Fanny’s in Marysville ~ to mixed reviews. The service was good, the french toast was hot and so was the syrup, but it was served with a margarine/butter blend, which took it down a notch or two. The cornbeef hash was not good. The eggs were fine. BIG glass of orange juice was only $1 more than a very small glass of grapefruit juice. We didn’t try the coffee.

We stopped at a nursery on the way back, bought some ground cover strawberries and a whacked out pine thingy that looks like something from Little Shop of Horrors.

We also stopped at NW Handspun in Bellingham. A very crowded shop on the lower level, it was a relief to go upstairs to the spinning section. Other Peggy bought some Potluck fiber to use in her fledgling spinning career. Peggy and Other Peggy sat down with the Hansen electric when we got home, shortly after 6pm, and with snacks and glasses of wine, we had us some good spinning. Other Peggy took the Hansen home with her, to keep the vibe going on her own. We think she’ll be just fine.

For lunch we went to Fairhaven to one of the Other Peggy's favorite restaurants: Colophon Cafe and Deli. We enjoyed the food, walked around the neighborhood a little, found a new yarn shop which has been open only 2 weeks and is in the midst of serious growing pains as they only had Cascade products, and a very tiny amount of other things. It's a nice space, Mrs. Hudson's Yarn & Tea. I didn't see any tea, but I also didn't look for it. I was drawn next door to a kid's store with shiny objects that I just had to look at.

Knitting Olympics and Ravelympics Gold (in handspun)

Out of 4oz of Crown Mt. Shetland Roving:

Peggy spun 200 yds of 2 ply for the 2010 Ravelympics.

She then knit up the Peter Seamans Scarf
from Myrna Stahman's Shawls & Scarves book
using handspun 5% chinchilla, and 95% wool.
The ‘chinchilla’ fiber is from Kate Painter
at Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival 2009

I used almost all of the 1080 yards of handspun Jacob/Angora for my second February Lady Sweater:

This year we're committed to knitting only with handspun so we're busy figuring out what to work on next. Swatching is a huge part of the process, more than usual although we always swatch a lot. We both finished our Olympic projects early and spent the rest of the time going through stash and swatching, pulling out patterns and comparing swatch results to potential projects. I do believe some designing will be involved...

Peggy's February Lady Sweater

It’s countdown to 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies!

We're ready to knit and dreaming of 2010 Gold.

Just to show you what can be accomplished
we give you Peggy's 2008 Ravelympics Project
and the twists and turns of a very tough knitting venue.

Here's her story:

Aug 8/08 6:00 am PDT - cast on for the Ravelympics, even though I didn’t actually sign up to be a competitor until August 18th (sorry, my bad.) The February Lady Sweater was only one of two patterns that I could find which would use ALL of this particular handspun-twice dyed yarn without going over AND one of two patterns that I wanted to knit.

Aug 11/08 6:00 pm PDT - injury! OH NO. Infected index finger may slow knitting. Doctor visited for antibiotics. Note to self: wear gloves when gardening, especially if I have a cut on my finger which may pick up a puss-causing vile infectious bug.

Aug 15/08 7:15 am PDT - detected MISTAKE in lace pattern 4 inches back. Frogged back and reknit incorrect row. Lost 2 whole days re-knitting to where I was before frogging. SAD and DISAPPOINTED that GOLD may now be out of reach. sob.

Aug 18/08 6:55 pm PDT - Regrouped and picked up for the sleeves, using two 29” circulars to knit both at the same time. Wrapping my brain around right back and left front on one needle, and the right front and left back on the other and then knitting in the round – it will be a challenge on the commuter bus!


Aug 20/08 7:51 am PDT - posted the photo on Ravelry showing the finished body length, and 5 pattern repeats into the sleeves. How will this ever be finished by Sunday when I still have to go to work every day???

Aug 23/08 4:37 pm PDT - Knitting done, ends sewn in and into the tub of water for soaking before blocking! Yea!! Posted a pre-blocking photo at 5:25p.

Aug 24/08 11:15 am PDT - Buttons on. Finished photo posted to the Ravelympics page for the Sweater Sprint. (Many thanks to Ellen for helping with that.)

The Gold Medal was awarded by

The Head of The International Ravelympic Committee:

Adonis Dionysius Bobicus Maximus

"I was just so darned proud to compete for my craft."

...Peggy

***************

Reunion

Here's a photo from 1959,
Second Grade, the beginning of our Bluebird Group.

Front row: Clair, Jan, Tina, Ann
Middle row: Donna, Bobbi, RoseLee, Becky, Miss. Eddy
Top row: Janice, Barbara, Peggy, Liz, Mary

(same little girls, different order)

Fast forward to July 31st, 2009

and our reunion weekend in

La Push, Washington
15.3 miles from the famous Forks, WA,
(the rainiest location in the US)
It sports a beautiful beach which is visible even in the fog
and is about 10 to 20 degrees cooler than Seattle,
which was a real relief to many of us who had recently dealt with
the high 90's for over a week and over 100 degrees one day. ick.

Martha, Diane and Peggy chatting on the beach

back row: Peggy F., Jan, Sue, Valerie
front row: Bobbi, Martha, Diane, Robin

back row: Mary, Jan, Rebecca, Martha, Peggy F.
front row: Bobbi, Valerie, Peggy M.

Same group with Diane at the top left.Jan and Mary

In 1986 many of the group contributed to a quilt,
presented to our long-time leader, Eddy Duryee.
Eddy was pivotal in our lives, mentoring and befriending,
encouraging and counseling for not just our school years but
on into adulthood, until the day she died.

We've managed to meet twice since this trip to the coast, not so many of us each time but some that didn't make it to the initial event were able to join the holiday potluck in December and the small dinner party at Bobbi's house on Feb. 5th. It looks like we'll be able to keep in touch more often now and it's fun to reconnect.