Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

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  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

Spring lace: helado hat pattern

Yesterday afternoon was beautiful and it was my recovery day, so Ellie and I spent a goodly part of the early evening on the studio porch finishing my hat and watching the neighbors attempt to bring down a tree branch America’s Funniest Home Videos style.

The pattern is Helado by Tanis Gray, and the yarn was a new Plucky Knitter base for me–Snug (worsted) in the early light colorway.  The alpaca makes it a snuggly hat indeed–my thought was that this would be a spring hat, but it definitely feels warm enough for winter even with the lace!  Details on my ravelry page.

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Hopefully we’re all done with our winter weather for the year and I won’t have to bust this one out any time soon!  But since it looked like this five days ago it’s hard to say…

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Fran Cooper - Gorgeous!! And so is the hat!

Kelly Henry - Love it!!! It’s awesome and totally looks professionally made! You rock!

Mt Cutler Hike Review

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At under 1 mile up and 1 mile back, with just enough elevation gain to make you feel like you’re really hiking and to give you some spectacular views, I think Mt Cutler is the perfect beginning hike.  We took both Will and Ellie on it for their first under-their-own-steam hikes at age 2.  Little ones might need a little prodding along in places but it’s a great place to start, and if you end up having to carry them at least it’s not far!

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Pros:  Short, fun, lots of variety, it’s steep enough that it feels like a real hike but you’ll still make it down in time for lunch and naptime.  I also like this one for weekday hikes without Nic and Will–there’s enough traffic on it that I feel comfortable taking just Ellie hiking.  You can see Seven Falls from the south side of the mountain as you near the top of the trail as well as the Shrine of the Sun above the zoo.  If you’re there at the top of the hour, you can hear the bells, too!

Cons:  If you have a fear of heights, this one might get to you.  The trail on the southwest side of the mountain has been widened in the last couple of years, and this makes it much less of a terrifying prospect for anyone with a fear of heights and a toddler, but it is still a good drop down.  This is also a popular trail for people to take dogs on.  Most are very good about taking their pet’s waste with them, but there are occasionally off leash dogs or overly friendly dogs on this trail.  (Little hiker tip:  When Ellie was little we’d prompt her along by telling her she might see a dog if she just kept going!)

Distance/difficulty:  2 miles, 400ft elevation gain.  There are enough steep sections that if this trail were longer, it would be difficult, but at just 1 mile up it’s a great hike for beginning little hikers.  Ellie and Will were both conquering this trail under their own steam at 2 years old.

Directions:  From I-25 take exit 140 for Nevada Ave.  Travel south on Nevada Ave for approximately 1/2 mile before turning right to go west on Cheyenne Blvd.  Take a right at the Starsmore Discovery Center onto N. Cheyenne Canyon Rd.  Drive approximately 1 mile to the marked trailhead parking area on the left.

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Trail teaching:

  • The trail has seen some hard days in recent years with the heavy rains of 2013 and 2014.  It was completely destroyed in sections and required rebuilding last year (or maybe the summer before?  I’m getting old–it’s hard for me to remember these things).  The back section that used to so terrify me is a little wider now after rebuilding (hurray!) and the hard work of volunteers is an excellent opportunity to talk with kids about trail building, volunteering, and the way national, state, and city parks are funded and how they were started.  This usually leads into a tax discussion with Will.  Who needs school when we can just go on hikes?!

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  • Erosion–plenty of opportunities to observe that here, particularly if you become Mt Cutler regulars.  We’ve seen the gap between these roots and the trail grow large enough for the kids to pass under!

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  • You might spot some pyrite if you keep a look out!

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  • You’ll often experience a good range of temps as you emerge from lower in the canyon onto the south side of Mt Cutler.  A good time to talk about the different types of flora that may enjoy the different areas of shade and sun.

Photos:

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Further reading:  This post from Colorado Photo Hikes includes lots of great photos of the trail.

F Cooper - Great description. Thank you!

thrifty quilting: how to piece batting

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Like most quilters, I have acquired a large amount of randomly sized pieces of batting.  Every so often I remember that using up my batting scraps instead of buying brand new batting for a project leaves me more money for FABRIC, and then I get all responsible like my momma and I piece together my batting for my quilt.

The good news is that it couldn’t be easier.

  1. Lay out your batting pieces until they make one large piece at least 4″ wider and longer than your quilt top.
  2. If your pieces aren’t cut with a nice straight line, use a rotary cutter to make the edges neat.  When I am quilting using stippling, I use a straight line seam (making sure it is not running straight down the middle of the quilt, since this is how it will often be folded).  If I was doing straight line quilting, I would use a curved edge like the one shown in this Moda bakeshop tutorial.
  3. To piece them, set your machine to a zigzag stitch.
  4. Place the pieces side by side (versus how we’re used to piecing–right sides together).  Butt the edges up next to one another in line with the center of your sewing machine foot and start feeding it through.  You can overlap them slightly or just have them side-by-side.  The zigzag stitch and pressure of the foot melds the fabric together beautifully either way.

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The finished seam is almost invisible!

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Happy Mother’s Day

A very happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and nurturers out there!  I was lucky enough to wake up to my mommy (who sadly had to fly back out before lunch).  She taught me to appreciate all the crafty parts of life, like Halloween costumes made by hand and scrapbooks and quilts.  She was 20 years before her time–she would have been the QUEEN of the mommy bloggers if there had just been an internet for her to blow away in the 1980s!  Instead, we just won Halloween costume competitions and had unique hair bows with glitter inside them and all my British friends wanted to come to my house where it was like “an American television family.”

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She brought her latest quilt finish with her and I made her stand out in our snow this morning for an obligatory quilt shot.  My mom taught me the importance of adding a color that ‘pops’ into a quilt–just look at that orange!  She did not, however, pass on her affinity for not buying fabric and only using what she already has.  The self control gene apparently went a different way.

Kelly - I think I took all of that gene…although it can also have it’s downside when you are working on a project and do not have enough fabric. Then you have to wait to buy it and wash it…it blows.

Love the blog!

Yo Momma - You have taught me more than I will ever teach you! And gone farther with your skills than I ever will! Potholders and straight line quilting is as far as I go! 😉

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for inviting us to camp last weekend and for the sweet Mother’s Day post. Getting to see both my girls and both of my grandkids on Mother’s Day is the best gift EVER!
xoxox

The Berlin Wall Between Me and SUMMER

This week every time I say “summer” I sound a lot like Olaf. My stats final (and a whole lot of pre-company-arrival cleaning) is the only thing left between me and my first summer without either weddings or online classes in what feels like a million years. I AM SO EXCITED. I can’t really buckle down on the dumbness that is studying for this high stakes final when I could instead dink around on the internet and drink coffee.

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So while I sit down and try to figure out what in the heckfire the central limit theorem actually is, I will be thinking of the studio and all that awaits me when SUMMER STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!

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I have fabric ready for an Olive&S Tea Party Dress for Ellie (made from that adorable Milk, Sugar, Flower print)  and a couple of knits for me.  I WILL CONQUER KNITS THIS SUMMER!

Palmer Lake Trail Review

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We enjoyed a new-to-us hike this weekend to the Lower and Upper Palmer Lake Reservoirs following the Palmer Lake Trail along North Manitou Creek. The hike to the far end of the Upper Reservoir comes in at just under 2 miles, and the elevation gain on the way up was steady, so it was a good beginning to the hiking season to break in our 5 year old’s legs.

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Pros:  Plenty of views of the North Manitou Creek and the two reservoirs, good intermediate distance (I’ve noticed it’s hard to find hikes in the 3-5 mile range), ice cream nearby for an after hike treat.  The ‘ice caves’ are a detour off the main trail that we will check out next time!

Cons:  Infrastructure and wide road keeps it from feeling like a true escape into nature, popularity means it could be crowded on a day with nicer weather.

Distance/difficulty:  Less steep than Mt Cutler (my favorite beginner hike), this is a longer trail (about 3 miles if you stop when you first come to the Upper Reservoir, 4 if you continue onto the back) and so good for stretching out distance with your little hikers.  Ellie at 5 tackled this as her second hike of the season without any difficulty whatsoever–she have easily gone farther.  I’d say this would be great for an experienced 3 year old or a novice 4 year old.

Directions:  The large parking area is at the end of Old Carriage Rd in Palmer Lake (note: no restrooms or portapotties).  From exit 161 of I-25 travel west on C-105 to Palmer Lake.  Take a left on S. Valley Rd and another left onto Old Carriage Rd.  The parking and trail head are at the bottom of the hill.

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Trail teaching:  Plenty of opportunities for learning on this one!

  • Purpose of dams and reservoirs (and though these aren’t producing hydroelectric power you can certainly talk about how they might–a great segue into some physics with discussion of potential and kinetic energy)

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  • Lots of granite, quartz and pyrite
  • We spotted wild strawberries as well as a few other flowers.  (As always, please let me know if you can identify any of these flowers–I would love to know the names to share with the kids!)

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  • Discussion of the power of water to erode and sculpt canyons when it is moving quickly, and the way it drops its load and becomes a building influence when the land levels out (you can see this depositing action as the water enters both reservoirs)
  • Boulder field-more erosion and rock talk!  This would also be a fun place to let kids scramble around if you don’t work in a hospital and see death and dismemberment at every turn.

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Further reading:  Jennifer has a great description of the hike in her post here.

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