After Vilalba, and Baamonde, there is a split in the route

Hello, everyone.

As mentioned, after Baamonde, as one walks, one enounters a decision point.

 The helpful map explaining the different routes.
Y'all will notice that someone has added helpful crayon-like notes to one side.
We took the longer side, because we could stay at about the midway point on the way.

These are the paired way marks, telling which one is which. It is really important to keep an eye out for this kind of paired mark, as otherwise one walks to a place that was not intended. We met a very friendly young lady in Tapia who had missed the paired signs and ended up walking at least 10 km extra as she had a great desire to visit the famously scenic albergue in Tapia.

The shorter-appearing route here is to be done in one day, while the longer-appearing route can be split.

Witericus feels like it's in the middle of nothing. (Possibly there is another access that the walking pilgrim doesn't notice.) This was our morning break on the second part of this walk. As usual, I had manzanilla and DH had cafe leche.

It was starting to feel like going downhill here--not yet at the rush that is the Frances when the Norte joins up with it, but still a definite feeling that we were approaching the end.

Camino memories: Vilalba and some nature

Hello, everyone.

I would put up pictures of flowers, but it's been really hot--no, really? July in Texas?--and it's not been inspiring to take photos of the blossoms.

Instead, some photos of Vilalba and the following day on the Camino del Norte last summer.

The town has a lovely little map pole to study. 

Carvings around the church area. (This is not the church dedicated to Santiago, it's another one.)

The next day, we encountered the ants' mating festival. They were all gathering on the log to fly out.

More Stash-busting

Hello, everyone.

I was looking at Pinterest and got reminded of a place (web "place") with lots of stash busters:
Sew4home which is a blog with many, many projects.

The link goes to the post which inspired the latest stash-eating project:

 Side view of gift bag (customized for the box that goes inside it)

Top view of the gift bag

This was quick and fun. I used some Shape-Flex iron on interfacing for stability. It worked great!

Stash-busting

Hello, everyone.

As y'all know, there is a great lot of stash around the place. Clothing fabric stash, some of it ripstop and the like, zipper stash, quilting fabric stash, bead stash, embroidery thread stash...so much. But various projects are either about to begin or under way to use up the things.

One project that has been done a few times now was found on the blog A Spoonful of Sugar which is hosted by an English lady. It is a fabric bowl made from circles of fabric.

The blue-and-orange one was made first. I used some fabric from a blue blouse and some quilting fabric. The next bowl got a spiral of quilting on the bottom of the bowl to help it sit stably on the table.

Then the bowl became a project for our Sewing Club meeting.

This was an in-progress look at the gathering. The lower round of fabric is an un-gathered bowl.

 All of the demo bowls were made from leftover seersucker that had been used for a dress years ago, combined with quilting muslin for the inside.











This was one of the in-progress bowls about to get its top binding. On this one, instead of using an on-grain strip of quilting fabric (that worked very well!) I got lazy and tried using a piece of bias binding from the stash. It works better with the on-grain fabric, IMHO.








The completed demo bowls (mostly finished off at home), with a bit of rickrack included in the binding seam on the one in front.

The rickrack worked out very well.

As with many of the sewing club projects that have been done, the two at the back have found their way to a new home. The one in front, as it's my very first time with rickrack, is going to the next meeting for show and tell.

Each bowl in this (about 4" across) size takes up 2 8 inch circles of fabric and one of thin batting.

They make great wine bottle coasters and containers for odds and ends on the night stand.