A Little Quilting, Hiking and Kayaking

Hello Everyone and welcome back! We have had another beautiful week here in the middle of August. We took advantage of it and took a couple of cooler mornings to enjoy the mountains and water. This week I also managed to sew four Moda Blockhead 4 blocks together and get a start on some project bags.

I finished blocks 17 – 20 using my lovely Bonnie and Camille collection. Block 17 – Shoreline was designed by Camille of Thimble Blossoms. She showed it in her new fabrics, Nantucket Summer. This block would be so pretty used as multiples to get that ribbon running around the stars. I’m still looking for a late summer design using the Nantucket fabric for a small mini. This could be it.

I’ve been working on the project bag in stages so I don’t get burned out doing too much of one thing at a time. The one thing that I don’t like about making the bags is fusing the fusible fleece and interfacing to the bag pieces. It gets monotonous pressing all the pieces at one time. This time, I’m trying pressing a little then sewing a little. It seems to help.

Early Thursday morning, we hit the trail and headed up to Buzzard Rock North, between Front Royal and Strasburg, VA. It’s close to home and was a fairly easy hike until the end. We were on the trail about 8:45 and were the only ones there. The trail takes you through the woods and across a few small streams as it gently climbs. Above is the first overlook and you are looking towards NNE. After this point, the incline is steeper and it gets to a point where there are large jagged rocks to climb over and around.

This picture is taken from the second overlook, looking east and towards the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah NP. There is still a little early morning fog coming off the Shenandoah River. From this point, you still need to keep going. There was also a big group of jagged rocks here, but it wasn’t open and I had seen pictures of open views, so on we went.

Above is the third overlook. This rock formation ran along the narrow edge of the mountain and needed to be climbed over to get to the top. It is well worth the small scramble.

This is the view North, through the Fort Valley. Signal Knob is the far mountain on the left and is supposed to be a difficult hike. It’s very popular, but we have not attempted that one yet.

This is the view looking straight down. Nothing but a sheer drop.

This is the view to the southwest. There are great views from here for just a little bit of effort.

The trail continued south at this point and met up with another trial that came from the Elizabeth Furnace area. We turned around here and headed back down the mountain. We had the place to ourselves and spent about 15 minutes resting and taking pictures. We didn’t meet anyone until we were at the first overlook, then met several groups heading up on the way down.

The hike was almost 4 miles out and back and the elevation gain was about 670 ft. It took us 2 hours and 40 minutes with the 15 minutes rest on top. It was a great hike and close to home. It would be spectacular in the fall when the leaves are changing. I hope we can make it back then.

It was another beautiful morning on Friday. We took the kayaks out for an hour long paddle and the lake was the calmest I’ve seen. Usually the wind blows here and there are ripples on the lake. It’s also been hazy and not very picture worthy, but that morning it was.

This will be my last quilting update for three or four weeks. We are having some work done on the outside walls of the basement and everything has to be moved. As you can see, this is where all my storage is so all the quilts have to come off the wall and everything has to be taken off the shelves so they can moved. Everything will be covered in plastic, so there will be no working down here. I’m not looking forward to it, but it has to be done. I’ll still be doing my stitching updates and I’m hoping to get some of my finished stitched pieces fully finished during this time. I’ll be moving a cart of finishing tools and fabrics upstairs to work on.

I hope you all have a great week and thanks for stopping by!