Second update on pilgrimage 2021

 Hello, everyone. 

Yesterday we started in Poladura, where we had stayed in the lovely Hotel Rural El Embrujo. (No signs of any actual wizarding here! Just a very nice room, great shower, wonderful dinner.) 

We were "scheduled" for an 18.7 km day. Well. Those were some long kilometers! We started by  walking up to the Cruz del Salvador. This was a bit steeep.  Happily, a fellow pilgrim from Chlekia arrived as we did and snapped a picture for us. Then we passed the high point of the Camino...don't know which crest of the trail it was exactly...then down and when we reached Puerto de Pajares we found the first bar all day. Cafe leche a little strong on the coffee side for my taste. Left there and passed around the back side through the most beautiful autumn crocuses, went through a gate and on down to cross the highway. Then through a nature park and up to the hamlet of Santa Marina (4 inhabitants, they told us) where we asked after the albergue and the nice bartender took us outside and pointed to the next peak in the mountains. "Only 30 minutes, I did it all the time when I was a kid," the nice man said. His older neighbor muttered "more like 50" as we thanked them and left, greeting the old ladies sitting on their stoops enjoying the late afternoon. The trail around the mountainside was lovely, thank God it wasn't dark yet.

About 8 pm, as the albergue was commencing to serve the very good supper, our Chek fellow pilgrim arrived. The sun had set about 7:25, I know how he did that trail in falling darkness!

At the end, in Llanos de Someron (alternate spelling Chanos de Someron) we found alovely, new albergue. Great supper, too. 

Update on pilgrimage 2021

 Hello, everyone.

I left off with our (long) day getting to Leon. 

What with all of the ridiculous airline changes (looking at you Air Canada) we ended up leaving on a different day altogether and because of the date changes we only spent one night in Leon. 

We walked to La Robla the next day, 27 km by the book. That's the same distance as the walk from Deba to Markina on the Norte route, which is famously difficult with much climbing. This was was nearly as hard for us, with a bunch of ups and downs in the middle third. The countryside is beautiful and we saw a lot more flowers than I had expected.

The following day we set off to Poladura. This began gently but we began climbing even before Buiza and there was a big climb after the town.

The city sign is a popular photo spot.

The big climb of the day went over a mountain and the down to the village of Poladura. The info on Gronze.com says 24 km but they were tough ones.

More in next post!

Pilgrimade 2021 is on the road!!!

 Hello everyone. 

We thought this walk would fail like the last two attempts did. It almost did fail. But some date changes, a ticket cancellation, and totally new tickets saved the day. Or at least the pilgrimage walk.

We stayed up for around 36 hours, flying from our home airport to DFW. Then DFW to Madrid.

We then bussed to the northern region of Spain. It was a really long day Wednesday-Thursday so I didn't make a post.

This very unusual machine was at a remote-area stop on the way to Leon. It is really big and tall. I took the photo through the bus window.

Today was also very tiring so I will discuss it in the next post.

Return to the Bicycle Built For Two

 Hello, everyone.

Some while back, y'all may remember, I attended an embroidery class at my local quilt shop, and we made a tote bag with a bicycle embroidery design. We learned how to sew out a multi-hooped design in that class.  And all of us left with the instruction to "do it again soon, before you forget how it's done" in our ears.

Time passed, but I kept intending to do another bicycle tote.

It has finally been done.

This was done from scratch, as I didn't have a handy Kimberbell blank on hand to use. This time I didn't box the bottom corners, as I had the thought that the recipient might want to carry paper or other flat things in it.

I also dispensed with the little saying that came with the design.

The fringe flowers gave me a little bit of work, because I forgot that I had gotten a spool of dissolving thread to use as the bobbin on the fringe work. (Those are the large red flowers that look a little bit like Life-Savers candies.)

It was fun making another bicycle for two.

Update on the little ghosts

 Hello, everyone.

This is a small update on the cute little ghosties I mentioned the other day.

As y'all can see, they acquired a friend. He's a bat, also a freebie at Kreative Kiwi. He didn't come with eyes, but I thought he looked incomplete. Fortunately, in the bead stash there are some Czech seed beeds that go with the "Happy" letters.

I added little ribbon loops to each dangler and stapled them to a 3/8" black ribbon. The bat has two ribbons. 

I suppose that they could make a vertical door hanger if the ribbon arrangements were different...can't leave them outside in the weather for very long, though, as if it gets rainy the mold will attack the cotton fabric.

I wonder how they would look done in an outdoor type of fabric? One could skip the little pockets on the front--a door hanger wouldn't have any likelihood of having something tucked into the pockets. I only included them because my Sewing Club sister had done hers that way and it looks like little aprons or skirts to me--if the pockets weren't there there is room for a small BOO on even the little ghosts fronts. 

DD2 thought that the collection needed more bats...actually the bat pattern has different sizes of bats in it, some without the letters as the design is too small, others larger than this 5x7 one.

Peach pie makings

 Hello, everyone.

While we were visiting family, I found a farm stand with fresh, Illinois peaches for sale.  Nabbed a nice bag of them, quick.

To make pie, they needed to be peeled...and I had never tried that before.

Following instructions on various web sites and Youtube videos, I cut a cross in the bottom of the fruit. Then I put them into boiling water for just a few seconds (if you've peeled tomatoes, this is the same game) and then put the now scalded peaches into a bowl of ice water to shock them and stop the cooking.  Then I used a knife to pull the skin away from the flesh of the fruit. Sliced the peeled peaches and put them into a bowl to macerate with some sugar.

These are the peels and pits after the peaches were peeled. It's a surprisingly small pile for a bag of 8 or 10 peaches.

These are the sliced peaches, with about a half cup of sugar to bring out the juice, waiting until time to be put into the pie shell.

This was the first of two pies that got made during our visit. The second pie, not pictured, was Granny Smith apples.

I love making pies. The grandchildren liked eating them for breakfast, too. 

I was inspired by my Sewing Club sister's Show N Share

 Hello, everyone.

At our sewing club meeting, one of our group brought the cutest little ghost decorations. She mentioned that she had found the pattern at Kreative Kiwi. They were so cute I had to make some myself. (I had not removed the excess wash away stabilizer around the edges yet here.) 

The first little "ghostie" bag. I will add a loop to the top for hanging. This is the smaller size, and it uses up stash most amazingly.