Twisp of Fate

Last week we spent 3 nights out at Lake Quinault at our friends’ cabin resort:  Lochaerie Resort on the north shore, in the Olympic National Park (see link in sidebar).  The occasion was a fund-raising bike ride around the lake (31 miles if you make it all the way) for the Quinault Cancer Fund.  I believe this was the 22nd annual ride!  There were 10 of us plus our hosts:

who moved there last year after retirement and spent the wettest winter in recent memory (which is saying a lot, since this is the rainforest we are talking about) tearing down and rebuilding the main house, while living in one of the cabins.  But it is substantially done and they are moved in now.  It’s a fabulous house:

The bedrooms are on the top floor and Rick and I got to stay in the guest room in the main house.  The view is magnificent out to the lake, and down on the cabins below:

On Friday Rick and I drove out to the ocean (only about 45 minutes from Lochaerie).  We went for a little beach hike at Beach 4, just north of Kalaloch.  It was a beautiful day and we hadn’t been out to the Washington coast for quite a long time.   So nice to see and smell the ocean.

trail to Beach 4

looking north up the beach

Tide was low so we had tidepools!

Saturday was the actual bike ride, and we had a perfect day for it – sunny but not hot.  We made it about 20 miles, over to the Rainforest Resort on the south shore, lunch on the lawn and the “sag wagon” back to Lochaerie.  That’s what we managed last year, as well, and our behinds were just as sore and legs as weary as last year, too.  But it was fun!

Here’s some of the group having wine/beer/appetizers after the ride:

They all like to cook, so our potluck meals were delicious and I came home with 2 new recipes.

While there, I finished the shawl I have been knitting out of handspun wool & silk.  It’s a pattern from the internet called Bell Pattern Shawl.   Just got pictures today:

One of my pet peeves about triangular shawls is that the ends don’t drape nicely but want to head off towards the side.  In an attempt to avoid this, I added two extra repeats of the Bell Pattern just at each end, using short rows, so the first repeat spans 8 “Bells” at each end, and the second repeat only the 4 outer “Bells” at each end.  Kind of hard to describe, but here is a photo:

short row shaping at end of Bell Pattern Shawl

I think it worked, as you can see in the first photo above.  The points hang straight down instead of pointing off to the sides.  I am quite pleased with how this turned out, actually.  The pattern was suitable for this rather rustic yarn with lots of flecks of silk in it – it didn’t show regular lace patterning well at all (I know, I tried…).  It was easy but not boring to knit.  The size is just right for wearing over a shirt in the evening.  And, I only had about 2 feet of my handspun yarn left when done!