Rainy Walk and Quilty Talk

We've just come home from our week away in Portland.  One of the highlights of the trip for me is always our trip to the coast.  I've spent about 15 summers on the west coast so for me it's always a little like going home.

I have my little favorites on the Washington and California coasts, but a definite Oregon favorite for me is Cape Meares.  The walk to the beach is just stunning.  It reminds me of some wild areas I've seen in Scotland.

We always see so much wildlife here!

 

It was in the low 40s and raining, and we basically had the place to ourselves!  We quadruple-dressed for warmth...

...and hiked over the scrubby grasses to the beach.

Except for this massive clump of bull kelp, we were completely alone.

So much rain had saturated the ground that a mudslide happened, right on the main road.

Thankfully we made it back with no difficulties!

It's back to work for me, but I took a few hours last night to tackle paper piecing.  It's a different method of quilting in which you sew on the back of a pre-printed sheet of foundation paper (thinner than printer paper)...not where the design shows, but where the piece will eventually be.  It's a little difficult to wrap your head around at first, but here is an amazing tutorial! 

I printed off my sheet...

...and got to work.  Each time you stitch 2 pieces of fabric together on the back of the sheet, you iron them into place and move on.  You then affix the next pieces and carefully stitch on the lines that you see in the photo above.  It makes incredibly sharp and accurate points.  Here is my finished star!

My stitching was actually nearly perfect, but when it came to stitching together the finished pieces, I was still off a bit.

See?  Irritating, but I just need to be more careful.  Sewing the whole thing together, I'd say I was off by about 1/4" on 2 sides.  A *huge* improvement over my last effort...and look at those straight lines!

Overall, I'm really pleased, although I'm still looking for the right pattern and fabric combination.  I'll keep practicing.

Have a great week!