Today I learned how to tie my shoes

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Knot exactly but I learned how to tie a double knot for my running and hiking shoes that unties easily.  This was my old way.  I don’t use the bunny ears any longer. I tie a square  double knot that lies flat and then tie the bows into another knot.  I only learned about the square knot in my 30’s. I learned the new way last week with my hiking group and tested it today during a run.   It works.
Wrap the shoelace twice before pulling the bow through

Pull the bow through both wraps

Finished knot

The best thing about this knot is that it unties with a tug on one of the laces.

Nesting

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We didn’t rob the nest. We found this abandoned nest on our lawn. It was upside down and is only about four inches across. I’ve been nesting as well. I’ve finished all 42 quilt blocks and am starting to piece it together. I’m working on Tim’s birthday present (I can’t say what it is) but probably won’t be done by Friday.

Last week I went out for a walk about town with my local hiking group and last night I saw Janis Ian and Karla Bonoff at The Egg in Albany. Tomorrow I’m off to Providence to see Chelsea.

Sideways and lefty

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I’ve played around with some pictures and flipped them upside down or sideways to see how my brain perceives it. I think this shadow is sideways.

Last week when Cooper was here, we went bowling. First of all, I don’t go out among people too much, so I ended up with a wicked cold, but it was worth it. We were tiring and getting sort of bored with bowling and feeling minor aches and pains until we decided to bowl lefty. Then we were hysterical. We had to carefully plan our approach and release. Bowling balls were bouncing into the gutter left and right. Our scores fell by half. And a good time was had by all.

My flying geese’s wings are broken, does that mean my quilt won’t fly?

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I’m working on my first quilt in 30 years.  It’s a traditional quilt pattern that incorporates “flying geese” which are formed by joining 2 small and one large triangle together (as best as I can tell).  Now that i am on block 34 of 42, I am getting the hang of it.  The key is to get the points and seams to line up.  In about 25 of the blocks, they don’t exactly.
Now I am wondering how this will ever form square sides.  I guess it will entail some creative seaming.  When i’m not sewing I am reading about how to make a quilt.  I’m trying to decide if I will hand sew the 3 layers that make up a quilt, which takes forever; machine quilt it on my old machine that I am not sure is capable of doing it for technical reasons about feet, feeds, etc;  or send it to a professional to quilt it at an exorbinant fee.  When I am not actually working on the quilt or reading instructions, I am on ebay or somewhere else looking for parts for my 1940’s National sewing machine.
Notice the even point

Not so much

Another oops

A walk down the block

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Tim and I can both be a bit compulsive.  For me, anything I am working on at the moment can become a priority.  So after several hours of quilting yesterday, we went for a local walk in the neighborhood and these are the views we stumbled upon.  We couldn’t quite see our house but could see the ski area next door from the top of a local hill.

view to home

tall view to giant mountain

giant mountain

local lean to

Then I stumbled upon a geocache treasure.

This morning, the views were just as good from home.
View from home