Rocky Mountain National Park

Anyone who knows me just a little bit knows that when I take a vacation, I always go to the mountains!  This summer’s vacation was to Rocky Mountain National Park.  We rented a cute little cabin in Estes Park, CO right on the edge of the park.  A very cozy place to retire to every night!  This post is very photo intensive, but only contains a small percentage of the pictures I took.  This place is so beautiful…

Saturday:

We arrived at the Denver Aiport around 9:30 am, rented our car and headed to Estes Park.  We went to the Boulder Farmers Market and got some yummy coffee and some of the most delicous, juicy peaches I’ve ever tasted.  IMO, peaches are one of the BEST things about summer!

While in Boulder, I just had to stop at the Celestial Seasonings Tea Factory.  I’m a long time fan of their herbal teas, with my favorite being Sleepytime, Peppermint, and Chamomile teas.  I would’ve loved to taken pictures of the tour, but photos were prohibited.  One thing that really struck me about this place was how delicious it smelled!  All of those yummy herbs.  I think the highlight of the tour for me was the “Mint Room.”  They have to keep the bulk bags of spearmint and peppermint in a separate room to keep them from infiltrating all of the other herbs!   The mintyness of this room was so strong that it made your eyes water….  The other favorite part was the free tea tasting and the gift shop!

We found our rental, bought park passes and hiking books, then took a quick twilight drive.

Sunday:

We planned a hike to Emerald Lake, which is a path that passes Nymph Lake, Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake. This was our first views of the park…. blown away by the beauty! Really…. I just love mountains! We were lucky as we managed to catch up with a guided hike with a park ranger which was actually really interesting and informative.  This hike was 3.8 miles.

Nymph Lake

View from the Trail

Dream Lake

Emerald Lake

The wind at Emerald Lake was painfully cold, but the view was amazing!

Later in the afternoon, we took a drive on Old Fall River Road-

View of the road and Estes Park Valley

Mountain Peaks

Monday:

Monday’s hike was Mill’s Lake.  This was a 5 mile trail that passes through aspen trees, Alberta Falls, through a high canyon and finally solid rock that finally leads to the lake.  This trail was really rocky in places, making for tough footing and a lot of extra energy expended by stepping around and over all of the rocks… totally worth it though!

Beginning of the Trail

Alberta Falls

Mills Lake

Tuesday:

We (I) needed a little bit of a break from hiking, so we chose this day to do some driving! Our primary destination was Winter Park Colorado, where we tried out their alpine slide (FUN!), rode the chairlift to the top and walked around a bit.

There were tons of mountain bikers around…

We also drove by Breckenridge, turned around in Vail, then hit Georgetown where we had a yummy yummy dinner at the Euro Grill. Highly recommended, especially if you’re into Schnitzels.

Wednesday:

The hike of the day was the Ute Trail. The trailhead is off Trail River Road:

This hike was above the treeline and afforded some wonderful mountain views. We also saw lots of these little critters:

Marmots

Nifty Rock Formations

View

Thursday:

We saw tons of Elk on this trip (along with marmots, mountain goats, rabbits, moose, mule deer and big horn sheep, lots of different birds and chipmunks and squirrels), but this is the best wildlife shot we got. I snapped this on the way to Thursday’s hike – The Crater.

Now you would think that a one mile hike would be a breeze. We’ve had a chance to acclimate a teeny bit to the elevation… this single mile started at ~10,000 feet elevation had 1000 feet of elevation gain. We started walking through a forest and ended up beyond the treeline. Honestly… I had to stop and gasp for oxygen at least 9-10 times along this hike.

The effort was worth it, as we ended up at one of my favorite views! We were also rewarded by seeing the highly elusive big horn sheep.  I’d post the pic I took if you could see more than little white dots on a cliff…

The Crater

Later on in the day we did a less than a mile hike around Lily Lake:

Lily Lake and Lily Lake Mountain

Friday:

Friday we hiked Beirstadt Lake Trail. We started at the top and after a couple hundred feet of elevation gain, the rest of the hike was all downhill.

Another Rocky Trail!

View from the Downhill Switchbacks

Saturday:

This was our last day and decided to drive to the top of Mount Evans. The road up to the top (~14,000 feet) was narrow, a little crumbly in places and generally scary. The views from the top were nice and we also saw the highest telescope in the world on top.

The rest of the day involved driving back to Denver, stopping at places along the way and flying back to Midway.

A wonderful vacation! I can totally see myself going back here someday.

Knots, Knots, Knots…..

So, I took the plunge and started Teresa Layman’s Snow White Rose Red this weekend…

It started a little rough (see white stitches on the roof), but I’m now getting pretty good at colonial knots… after never having done them before. I could never figure out the stitch diagram and couldn’t figure out why so many people claim that they are so much easier than french knots…. Anyway… I’m pretty happy with this and it’s not really as tedious as I thought it would be. Its kind of nice not to have to count anything. I’m not totally happy with the door, which is filled in completely with french knots. There is lots of detail on there with lines, cross braces, handles and bolts in the door… but it is-what-it-is as these buggers are a PITA to pull out.   There’s also a bench underneath the left window that isn’t showing up too well. 

I just remembered that I signed up for a knitting class that starts tomorrow! The class is at Erica’s Craft and Sewing Center in South Bend.  The class project is a scarf.  I bought the yarn required a couple of weeks ago and got something that I thought would match my winter coat, which is kind of a chocolate brown color:

I’m kind of surprised that it only calls for two skeins…  Anyway I can kind of knit, but can’t cast on.  I can do entire rows of knit stitches and purl stitches, but can’t alternate between the two without a knotted mess.  So, I figure some instructions and hands-on guidance will help. 

Went and saw Funny People last night… pretty good and kind of interesting to see Adam Sandler in a more serious role, even though it was still a funny movie.  Man…. he’s starting to look older tho!

July Ornament!!

This is Mill Hill’s Icy Snowflake:

I love these ornaments….. they stitch up quick and are easy to finish.  (I did one of these for my February Ornament also)  The kit actually came with a pretty crystal to go in the center, which I promply lost and had to replace it with another mill hill blue treasure that I had in my stash.  It matched, and I’m happy with it.  I noticed that there’s now a series of these type of designs that are halloween themed.

I’ve got a vacation planned in a couple of weeks and will probably work on my August ornament during the trip.  I’ve got a couple designs in mind, but today started toying with doing this design by Teresa Layman:

Yep…. that’s all french and colonial knots.  I know… its insane, but I love the design and and I saw a model stitched up when I bought the kit.    I’d recommend visiting her page (linked above) and reading about her.  Pretty interesting…  I took a bullion class from her at Celebration of Needlework so in addition to the neat stuff about her on her page, he’s also a nice person and a patient teacher.  Anyway, the instructions say that there are approximately 1100 knots per square inch and its 3-1/2 by 2-5/8 inches.  The pattern is actually printed on the fabric, so no counting or anything…. just lots of knots!  We’ll see how long my patience lasts….

Alpine Seasons Update

I have been SO BAAAD about blogging…. primarily because I haven’t been stitching as much as normal and don’t have a whole lot to show….  Unfortunately, I’ve been playing Mafia Wars on MySpace for a couple of months and this has seriously interefered with my stitching time…

So, here is the last progress pic I posted:

and here is where I am now:

So… not a whole lot of progres, but I don’t have much left of the border to do, then I’ll be onto the fun stuff!

This project has reminded me of my love/hate relatioship with perle silk. 

Love:  luscious colors, soft feel, pretty pretty stitches 

Hate:  curly off the card, hard to lay due to fiber spring, tangles also do to curlyness, constant attention required to keep twist 

The Hate Parts can be alleviated by dampening the length and running it through your fingers, tho, so its not all bad. 

In other news, I booked my summer vacation and am off to the mountains again!!  Colorado this time!  I lived in Denver for a summer in college while doing and internship, so I’m a little familiar wih the area.  Right now I’m trying to get in shape for hiking by doing lots of cardio.. I wonder how much good it does when you are starving for oxygen at 10,000 feet???

Anyone know of a good LNS in Colorado?

Sooo Tempting!

Have you seen the latest Victoria Sampler Exclusive Cyberclass?

Mermaid Song:

OMG I love love love this and have always been happy with the VS Cyberclasses that I’ve taken, which were for exclusive designs that I had to have NOW.  I didn’t think I needed help with stitching the designs, but followed the classes anyway and picked up so many great tips!  Anyway, while I do love the design, my hopes for this cyberclass would be that the finishing instructions were more in depth than what is normally in the leaflets.

I decided to pass this time, mainly because I don’t really want any distractions from some of the stitching goals I have right now.

Anyone taking this cyberclass?

2009 Ornament Update

I’m still not stitching a whole lot, and haven’t felt motivated to pull out any of my larger projects, but I was feeling bad about getting behind on my 2009 Ornament Project, so I’ve stitched these over the last two weekends:

Stitched in June, but will be called the May ornament:

Brittercup’s Poinsettia from JCS 2007 Christmas Ornaments

Just Nan A Little Joy From JCS 2002 Ornaments

I have to say, the Just Nan is my favorite of the 2009 ornaments so far.  It’s pretty sparkly IRL and I love the checked fabric.     Each of these were stitched over a weekend and I think will be easy to finish – whenever I get around to it.  I’ll have an Ornament Finishing Extravaganza on the next rainy weekend.   

Stitching Slump

I haven’t been stitching much the last couple of weeks, so have had nothing interesting to post.  I did have a little finish last night:

Victoria Sampler Summer Biscornu Free Design

I finished this for the contest being held in the Victoria Sampler Yahoo Discussion Group.  Thea published the pattern then invited people to stitch their own version.  There are some beautiful entries already and I added mine to the contest album this morning.  I’m happy with how it turned out, and it is what I envisioned, but honestly feel not worthy to enter up my entry next to the others.  There is a prize being offered, which would be great, but I had a lot of fun picking out colors and thinking about what I wanted to do regardless of any prizes.

I’m feeling a bit in the mood to work on one of my larger projects – maybe Alpine Seasons.  I saw it stitched up and framed at Celebration of Needlwork – it was gorgeous and sparkly with all of the beads and crystals added.  Very inspiring!

I went and saw “Hangover” last night and am still LMAO when I think of certain scenes.

Shopping and Stitching

Saturday I picked up Susan and her son and we headed to LaPorte to visit House of Stitches.  Susan will be moving soon and this might have been our last chance to hang out for a day. 

Susan’s son was kind enough to take our picture out side the shop:

I was looking primarily for fibers for the Victoria Sampler Summer Biscornu Contest (join the group and click on “files” for more info) and found some pretty things…  We also had fun chatting with the ladies who work in the shop.

Anyway, after our shopping, we stopped for lunch then spent the day stitching at Susan’s place.  What a fun day!

Also, I wanted to share the blog award that Eva gave to me a while back.  Thanks so much Eva:

The rules say to nominate others for the award, but I’m short on time so maybe in the future!

An Award!

Thanks to my friend Susan for sending me this nice award and for her kind words about me on her blog:

She has become much more than a “stitching friend” over the years and I treasure our friendship. I sure am going to miss her when she moves!   Tomorrow we are meeting up at House of Stitches for what could be our last shopping trip together for a while! 

Yesterday I took a day off work and went to Cedar Point and spent the day riding amazing rollercoasters…  I can’t believe I live so close and have never been there.  Anyway, I haven’t been on a rollercoaster since my college days… and wow… speed and acceleration have come a long way!  One ride went from 0 to 120 mph in 4 seconds!  Woo hoo!  By far, my favorite coaster was the Millennium Force!  Super fast and super smooth.  I can’t wait until I get to go again!

I haven’t made any big strides in stitching to share… just working a bit here and there on a biscornu…. maybe I’ll have some progress to show by the end of the long weekend?

Pretty Little Scissor Case

I’ve been working on this cute little scissorcase in the evenings and finally finished it up last night!

J Designs

This was a kit given by Julie Norton during the Round Robins at Celebration of Needlework.  It is stitched on 22 count pale pink fabric with DMC.  I don’ t think I’ve ever worked on anything lower than a 25 fabric count, but this unknown fabric was soft and thick and made the over one stitches in the vines a breeze. 

The buttons on either side are meant to hold the folded over edge in place, rather than being a fastener of any type…. and since I cut the fabric a bit short on top, the buttons are over the symrana stitches, rather than below them where they’re supposed to be.  I think it looks OK though.    I finished it with a ladder stitch around the edges.  The kit also came with a leather sheath that fits inside the stitching to protect it from the scissor tip.  What a fun and satisfying stitch!