Life with Lilli

Practice, practice, practice...

Today I worked on a "fill" pattern that has a name but I can't remember it, along with pebbles, also referred to as circles.

Then I practiced some leaves

I doubt anyone would confuse these with any known tree or plant.

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Life with Lilli

Found a little more time to practice and worked on crescents...

I think I curled them too much ;o(  but I try to find one that I'm happy with each time I practice.  One row was going left to right and the other was right to left.  One direction doesn't appear to be any better than the other.

From there to leaves...

There were two different kinds, fat ones and skinny ones.  Leaves are the easiest for me, so far.

These brought me to the end of my practice sandwich and not I need to get my act together and make another one.

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Life with Lili

Managed some time in the quilting room aka cellar today.  Practiced some snowballs...

Well...one sort of looks like a snowball.

I had an empty space above the "snowballs", so I did some loop de loops.  I'm pretty happy with them.

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Life with Lilli

Since most quilters name their machine, don't ask me why, they just do, I decided to name my machine Lilli.  For some reason I was thinking about a cat we had in Shapleigh, named Lily and our first foster dog with puppies was named Lily and it just seemed right.  

As it turned out, it was a very good thing I brought her home with me that fateful day.  I returned a couple of days later to ask a question and they told me several others had stopped in after me, looking to buy her.  

Well, that was a little over two months ago and I finally started stitching.  

There were a couple of hiccups along the way.  As I said, we had to clean the seller and move things around.  Bill had to put the frame together.  He did a stellar job.  Then we had to make sure the table was level...front to back and left to right, which required quite a bit of tweaking.  Next we added the carriage and machine, which also had to be level.  Try as we might, it wobbled front to back, although the frame was level.  Back to the quilt store where Gabrielle gave me excellent advice, which worked perfectly. 

HA, that was a few weeks ago.  Although in the meantime, I had filled a bobbin, threaded the machine and turned it on. I had to prepare a quilt sandwich (two pieces of fabric with batting in between) to load onto the frame.   Finally - Voila...ready to go but I always seem to find something else that needs to be done before I get downstairs.

Today was a cold, gray, wet and windy day...perfect for being in the cellar.  Bill bought new LED light bulbs and light fixtures, which really brighten up the area.  We already had a nice fluorescent light above the quilting table and he repainted a couple of walls for me.

I follow a group on FB, and the administrator provides free written instructions and videos to teach people to free motion quilt.  I sat down last night and started reading, watched a couple of videos and today I was ready.

It's all about practice, practice, practice, although I think it helps to have some natural artistic ability, which I do not have.  So...instead, I'll practice.

All loaded up and ready to go

I drew lines on the fabric to help with size and sort of keep things in a row.

scallops or clamshells

Yeah, I know, it doesn't look like much but the idea is to work on muscle memory, so hopefully, they start looking better.

Practicing left to right and coming back, right to left, intersecting the previous scallop.  I found one I liked ;o)

Lastly, the egg and dart.  Hahaha, mine don't look like eggs or darts.

Really terrible...oh well.

I had fun today, wonder when I'll get back down there...

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Papa's Got a Brand New Ride

Bill traded in the 2009 RAV 4 and upgraded to this beauty!

It's a 2018 Ford F150, Magna Red.  Sometimes it looks red, black or even brown depending on the light.  He has been thinking about a new truck for awhile and finally decided to go ahead.  He feels we will be safer while on the road back and forth to Florida and we can put ALL our stuff that we can't live without for 3.5 months in the back.  Everything will be safe and secure once he gets the tonneau cover on.

He put a protective cover on the back seats, where Titan will travel and we are finally getting the dog a harness, so he will be safer traveling and he won't turn into a 60# projectile, if there was an accident.  

I will be driving the 2013 RAV 4 and he sold the Thule roof top carrier to Greg.

Very exciting!

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Bike, to Hike, to Bike Adventure.

Wendy and Dan planned today's adventure...bike, then hike, hike and hike some more, then bike again .  It was overcast, windy and cool but rather than cancel, if they were going...we were going along.

We left about 9:50 with a temperature of 57* and winds blowing at 13 mph.  We arrived at the Brown Mtn. Gatehouse at 10:09 under a light rain ;o(

We rode our bikes along the Hadlock Brook Loop.  First time I've ridden with a backpack, which I'm sure weighed about 50 pounds, since I brought along a lot of warm clothes ...just in case! At least there was some water at the Waterfall Bridge.

And the other side...

We rode until we reached the Parkman/Bald Mtn. Trail, although we weren't hiking either of those.  Go figure...

We secured our bikes to trees, changed our shoes and off we went - down the trail and across the road to the Goat Trail, our way up Norumbega Mtn.

It's called the Goat Trail for good reason!  It rises 600 feet in only .3 mile.

At least there are steps!

Serious steepness...

We were often hiking in a light mist, just enough to make the rocks slippery.

No steps here.

This rock seems a little out of place.

It took us an hour to reach the summit.

They are so darn cute ;o)

The view from the summit is obscured by trees (and fog, today) but about 150 yards further down the trail, there is a nice ledge with good views, or so the guide book says.

Pano view

We ate lunch here before heading down.  It was a long walk back, taking two hours, but better than going down the Goat Trail!  

Once we reached the bottom, we had to walk back along Lower Hadlock Pond in order to reach the Goat Trail trailhead, then hike back to the bikes.

It was nice walking along the pond, and once we reached the upper end, there was a waterfall and a nice bridge.  Good place to take a short rest.

This trail is quite shady and damp, which leads to some great lichen and moss.

Very white and soft to the touch

There's no way these pictures do the feeling of this place justice.  I told Bill it seems like a place where fairies live.

There was some strange growth on the trees, too.

This was the first time I hiked in bike pants and by now I felt like I had a pile of poo in my pants.  Not that comfortable...

We eventually made it back to the bikes and back to the car.  I couldn't decide if I should change from my hiking boots into my bike shoes for the final ride and although Wendy said "I'm pretty sure it's almost all downhill from here", I did change my shoes.  As it turns out...it was "almost all downhill" by Acadia standards, but it was most definitely NOT almost all downhill.  ;o)

It took us about 5 hours start to finish, including a 3.9 mile bike ride and a 3.2 mile hike.

From here to The Asticou Inn where we settled ourselves on the deck overlooking Northeast Harbor for a much deserved cup of soup, hot popovers and beverages.

Ahhhhh...great adventure, great company!

We followed Wendy & Dan into town to be sure they didn't run out of gas before reaching the gas station and got back to our cottage about 5:30.  We were pooped.

Watched the Red Sox until it became clear they were going to get creamed by the Yankees, then took a shower.

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Bar Harbor Here We Come

It's finally here, our annual visit to our "home away from home" or at least that's how we feel.  

We LOVE it here and it never gets old!

View from our cottage - Edgewater No. 6

We left home about 9:20, stopped at McDonalds for breakfast and were on the road by 9:55.  We stopped in Belfast for lunch and arrived at our cottage at 2:20.  It was 81* and partly cloudy!  We brought in all our stuff, then went for a drive along the Park Look Road.

We seldom see much wildlife while driving but today we spotted one deer along the side of the road, although we weren't able to stop.  Then, not too much further along, we saw another one, then another and another.  Three of them right in front of us.

We could have sat and watched them all afternoon but someone was coming up quickly behind us and we were afraid we would get run over, plus they got scared and ran off.  

We stopped at Sand Beach and were surprised to see such large waves.  It's usually pretty calm.

Mostly because I didn't want wet, sandy feet, I didn't want to get my feet wet but was wondering how cold it was, so Bill went and checked it out.

He said it was chilly but not super cold.

From there we drove to Thunder Hole, where we got out and watched the surf for awhile.  It was pretty rough and the bottom section of the walk was closed.

While we were walking back to the car, we noticed one of the cruise ships heading out.

There were three anchored off the coast today.  There have been more the past week due to Hurricane Florence making landfall in NC causing them to divert their course.

We took a terrible selfie, which seems to be the norm lately.  

We had dinner with Wendy and Dan to celebrate their seventh anniversary, on the 23rd.  We brought fillets, they provided corn and green beans and some wonderful garlic butter.  We even found a gluten free dessert!  Bill won the game of Racko, we said good night and walked next door to our cottage.

Hiking tomorrow ;o)

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The "Biff"

My good friend, Sue Nye, lost her husband, Biff recently.  He was a 20 year pancreatic cancer survivor but got sick earlier in the summer and could not overcome the illness.  

She mentioned to me at the retired firefighters breakfast, that she was trying to sell his tractor.  Oddly enough, Bill has been wanting a tractor for quite awhile, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to pick one up at a reasonable price.  

We went up to her house to look at it and after starting it up and checking it over, Bill told her it was "sold".  

He had to have it loaded up and brought to the house because it's too heavy for him to use his trailer.  It's a 25 year old Ford, well used and Bill is super happy, which makes me super happy, too.

We are going to call it The Biff in honor of it's previous owner, Lindsey "Biff" Nye.

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Catching Some Rays at Fort Foster

Beautiful day...temps in the high 70's and very few clouds, although a little windy.

panorama

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