So, here we are at the Lake Quinault Lodge in the lovely Quinault Rain Forest.
It was in the low 60s when we arrived last evening, so C and I grabbed a couple of the old wooden chairs on the lawn and enjoyed a glass of wine while overlooking the lake, and children playing horseshoes on the shore. It was lovely. Later we migrated into the large livingroom and sat reading (and blogging) in front of the huge fireplace, in which there was quite a blaze warming the room.
When we awoke this morning, it was overcast, but appeared dry. We threw on our hiking clothes and took off on one of the many trails around the lodge. I had brought along an umbrella, because the sky appeared threatening. Of course it began to rain......and it hasn't stopped yet. That is ok. We have been blessed with wonderful weather on this trip, and as the hostess in the lodge restaurant reminded a diner, "this is the rain forest".
We took a great ride out to the coast and on down to the town of Aberdeen, where we enjoyed a lunch of razor clams, Dungeness Crab, and shrimp. MMMMMM!
Here are a few pics from the drive:
those of you who know C, are well aware that signs like this simply energize him!
Here are a few more pieces from the rice paste resist on silk class that I took last week in Coupeville.
a piece of silk that I have stenciled with a hand cut stencil and then used the tsutsu to draw the squiggly lines:
I stamped over the blue stenciled area with a chartreuse rice paste resist (above) and then dyed the background with a scarlet red:
The piece below is a lovely textured silk that I first stenciled (blue) and then overstamped (red). I liked how the two techniques seemed to play off of eachother.
After both of the resists were dry, I painted the background with the lemon yellow rice paste resist:
My favorite piece from the class: a collaborative, last-minute effort with Nita, Akemi's class assistant:
isn't it wild?
I am eager to get home and practice what I learned in Akemi's class!PEACE
We've arrived at the Lake Quinault Lodge and I'm attempting to catch up on a bit of blogging and photo editing. I'll share a few more pics of our trip, beginning on Friday when C and I departed from Coupeville.
As we headed north toward Deception Pass, we stopped and bought these wonderful dark sweet cherries from a young man who was selling them out of the back of his truck:
I had never seen dark sweet cherries before, except in a can. These were especially good and sweet. YUMMMMM!
When we returned to Coupeville to take the ferry to Port Townsend, we once again passed Penn Cove, and there was the regatta:
Later that afternoon, we arrived at Domaine Madeleine, which is situated on the Straits of Juan de Fuca, between Sequim and Port Angelese. Here is the wonderful wildflower garden that greeted us as we drove down the lane:
I complimented Ryan, the gardener and son of Jeri our hostess, and he offered me seeds from his gardens. So, I am going home with a large baggie full of wildflower seeds! What wonderful memories will be blooming in my garden next Spring!
This morning we drove past Lake Crescent on our way to the Hoh Rainforest. It is a lovely glacial lake and I was captivated by its beautiful turquoisey/teal color. I hope you can see it in my pics.
I
OK, so here we are at the Hoh Rainforest. Magnificent! Douglas Firs, Sitka Spruce, many ferns and loads of wildflowers blooming everywhere!
Look at these recently fallen giants:
By late afternoon, we were finally getting hungry after our sumptuous five course breakfast at Domaine Madeleine. Our sister-in-law Molly had told us that she had enjoyed a great meal at the restaurant in La Push just a month or so ago, so we thought we'd give it a try.
The special was Dungeness Crab, which C ordered cold, and I enjoyed the sauteed halibut. Another great meal.
Here are a couple more scenes from La Push.
All in all another very great day in Paridise!PEACE
Just quickly now, as we're on our way to breakfast........
Friday morning we drove to the lovely town of LaConner, WA and visited their wonderful quilt museum, which presently has a wonderful show of Japanese quilts hanging.
Much to my surprise, I found this lovely art quilt done by Janet Steadman:
Gerrie and Janet are friends, and we had viewed a few of her pieces at the Penn Cove Pottery art quilt exhibit, so it was nice to find more of Janet's work in LaConner.
LaConner has these lovely metal grates surrounding their trees on the sidewalks.
Since we had been cutting our own stencils in the rice paste resist class, I thought this lovely fish to be quite appropriate! How 'bout them shoes!!
Later in the day, we took the ferry from Coupeville to Port Townsend:
This is Tatoosh Island off of Cape Flattery.
Cape Flattery holds the distinction of being the farthest northwest land on the continental US. The little walk from the parking area to the vista is well worth it. We visited there yesterday, while taking in Neah Bay. Ah, and we saw a Tufted Puffin in the water, along with Sea Lions lounging on the rocks and Pellagic Cormorants flying to their nesting areas on the cliffs.
Today we are heading to the rainforest and then on to Lake Quinault. I am sad to be leaving Domaine Madeleine and the wonderful five course breakfasts that our hostess Jeri serves. Her son Ryan is the gardener and he does an awesome job. If we have wifi at the lodge, I hope to post more this evening, including some photos of Ryan's gardens.
Hope you are well and happy wherever life takes you today.PEACE
This morning's breakfast in Paridise:
banana smoothie with blueberries, caprese on a whole wheat English muffin, poached egg/sausage on English muffin. The caprese was to die for, as was the smoothie. I'm not much of an egg fan though.
We learned about Tsutsugaki this morning. In this technique, dye is added to thickened rice paste, placed in the tsutsu, which is similar to a cake decorating tube, and then designs are drawn on fabric. Here is Akemi drawing with her tsutsu:
This is the stenciled piece that I was working on yesterday, after adding some stamping:
I painted the background on this morning, steamed it, and then forgot to photograph it. Hope I'll remember tomorrow!
This is my favorite piece thus far:
I like the contrast of the two colors and the optical illusion produced by the purple stamp on top of the orange stencil. I painted the background a lemon yellow, but also forgot to photograph it...more for you to wait to see.
Remember the class piece that we had stamped all over at the end of yesterday's post? Here it is after Akemi added the black background:
This is a piece that was done by Teresa. I love the swirls. If you enlarge it, you will see the wonderful effect that she got by painting over a screen.
Tonight the class went out to eat at the local Thai restaurant as a group. We had a great time. Our waiter was a real comedian and kept us laughing throughout dinner. We were invited to go for dessert to the home of Lisa, the administrative assistant at the Coupeville Art Center. She and her husband have a lovely, lovely home and garden, with lots going on. Here are a few shots from her incredible garden:
fireplace made out of recycled materials
stage for performances by their children and grandchildren:
treehouse:
babbling brook:
I'm sad that our four days of class are coming to a close, but C arrives tomorrow, and I am looking forward to touring around with him for a while!PEACE
Charlotte, our hostess at the Coupe de Villa, brings us a lovely breakfast each morning:
This morning Akemi demonstrated how to make potato paste resist, and then we added dyes to the mixture, and painted our backgrounds. Here, Akemi and Gerrie are putting the finishing touches on Gerrie's first piece:
I painted the background on my scarf and then Gerrie and my pieces were steamed, rinsed and hung on the line to dry:
I sketched and cut out this stencil and painted it onto another piece of stretched silk:
It is navy blue, but I am undecided about the background color as yet. I'd better hurry and figure it out, as it needs to be finished tomorrow morning! YiKES!!
After lunch, Akemi demonstrated stamping with rice paste on silk. She encouraged us all to stamp on the same piece with found objects that we had brought from home. Here, Nita, Akemi's class assistant is adding her mark:
This is the piece at the end of the day:
pretty cool eh? Tomorrow it will look even cooler, with a background color added!
Here's Akemi at the end of the day, with a few of our class pieces hanging behind her:
When we got back to the B&B, I wandered out into the backyard to check out what was happenin' on Penn Cove while Gerrie called home. I had left my binocs in the room but was too lazy to go back and get them, and I was having trouble identifying the little birds in the nearby Madrona trees. Suddenly, as if to make my viewing easier, I heard a rather loud squawk and screech and a huge bald eagle flew into view and perched on a large limb nearby! He preened and posed for me......but alas, I had no camera either! Suddenly a second eagle appeared and knocked the first one off of his perch! Gerrie and Charlotte, our hostess, both appeared from opposite sides of the garden, and we all admired Mr. Eagle for quite some time. What a treat!!!
We walked into town this evening and enjoyed steamed Penn Cove Mussels and Fish and Chips at Toby's a long established eatery on the water. YUMMMM!!!
Here's the svelte Gerrie with Coupeville in the background:
We walked 'home' past the Bayleaf and spotted this handsome clump of lavender:
Wish you all were here!
PEACE
those of you who know C, are well aware that signs like this simply energize him!
I stamped over the blue stenciled area with a chartreuse rice paste resist (above) and then dyed the background with a scarlet red:
The piece below is a lovely textured silk that I first stenciled (blue) and then overstamped (red). I liked how the two techniques seemed to play off of eachother.
isn't it wild?
I
