The Stitch Up

Travel and Inspiration

I've been doing a little traveling over the last month or two and it felt GREAT!!!!  It was so nice to get out of my usual routine, see some new places and get inspired.  

I've been wanting to explore West Texas for a while so we planned a trip to hit Alpine, Marfa and Marathon. We also managed to fit in a side trip to Fort Davis and basically saw a ton of beautiful scenery while road tripping around the area.

We started out our trip in Alpine, TX which is so cute and has beautiful street art.  There are murals all over the down town area and you can just walk around and enjoy art between the cute shops.  

After Alpine we headed into Marfa.  There are a lot of posts from social media influencers about what to see and do in Marfa.  They're pretty good at hitting the highlights of Marfa, but as someone who is a little (a lot) older than the average influencer, my focus is on activities that are not particularly trendy.  With that said, I did feel pretty hip in Marfa.  There are lots of cool bars and restaurants and every place you stop to take a photo looks like a magazine layout.

Marfa is weird and artsy and forces you to slow down a bit.  Most shops and restaurants we went to were on their own schedule.  Some just open for a few hours each day, some only open a couple days a week.  You couldn't stick to a strict itinerary so you had to just go with the flow.  That is not my usual m.o., but it really made for a relaxing vacation.  No plans, just walking around and seeing what's around the corner.

Despite enjoying the laid back vibe of Marfa I DID need a little bit of exercise to balance out the day drinking and Mexican food we'd been indulging in, so we headed over to Fort Davis to do a little hiking.  There are a lot of spots to hike in the state park but we just did some short hikes from the botanical garden - which was spectacular!

The town of Fort Davis is also really cute with some great shops and a lovely downtown.

The last stop on our West Texas adventure was a stay at the Gage Hotel in Marathon.  Marathon is a very small and quiet town but there are several really pretty spots to relax, including the Gage Gardens: a super quirky garden area just a block from the hotel itself.  If you have the chance to check out this hotel you should!  It's historic and beautiful and full of personality.

During the entire trip the landscape threw us beautiful sunrises and sunsets.  My favorite sunset was in Marathon on the last night there:

It really is a beautiful area of the country - check out my Flickr feed if you'd like to see more pics of the trip.  Especially all of the sunsets!

I brought an embroidery "travel project" with me on the trip and actually got a little bit done - I'll post about that next time.  I designed the project with Texas in mind, but after this trip I had so many more ideas!  This trip did exactly what I think travel should do: relaxed and inspired me!

I hope everyone is getting out and enjoying the weather and some travel too!

 

Crafting in Montana

We mainly stayed in Whitefish Montana during our vacation in September.  When we were there several years ago I had found an awesome shop called the Back Door General Store.  They have a ton of cute things, and - most important to me - a section for quilters.  They carry patterns by McKenna Ryan, a local Montana artist and I loved her quilt designs.  They are mainly inspired by the outdoors - animals and moutain scenes from Montana and I picked up three applique quilt kits on my last trip.

However, as often happens, when I got home, life took over and these awesome quilt kits just sat in my "some day" craft pile.  On our most recent trip however, I dropped back in to Back Door General Store and found out they have classes on applique quilting and use McKenna Ryan patterns in the instruction.  I was down for this in a big way, so in between fishing - I scheduled a class.

We used a simple pattern - the applique was made up of just a few pieces.  The instructor is the owners daughter.  She was very patient and fun.  On the day I took the class it was just the two of us, but I think she gets more students once the tourist season lightens up.

I just finished quilting and framing this piece last week - it's a nice souvenir.

And while my main purpose in taking the class was to get skilled at applique so I could complete the McKenna Ryan kits I'd already bought, they had just stocked her line of Christmas patterns, so I didn't leave empty handed:

It's Bears in Santa hats - I had to get it.

Despite spending most of my craft time (and dollars) in the Backdoor General Store - I did manage to find some spare moments to check out a very cool yarn store in Whitefish.  The Knit n Needle Yarn Shoppe has a great selection of beautiful yarns and some of the most helpful staff I've met.  I told them I was just shopping without any project in mind, but after finding some beautiful yarn for socks, they gave me a beginner sock pattern and some basic instruction.  They would have sent this to my Ravelry account if I'd had one, but I don't.  Although this made me think I could use one.

I haven't had a chance to start on this, but the winter months after Christmas are perfect for knitting - so I'm all set.

It's always nice when my outdoor side and my indoor crafty side can coexist on vacation.  Whitefish was a perfect location for both and I can't wait to get back.

Our Montana Trip

In September we took a good bye to Summer/hello to Fall trip to Montana.  With all that's been happening, including Frankenstorms and general work craziness, I haven't had a chance to blog all about it.  We love Montana and this is the second trip we've taken to the area around Glacier National Park.  We made it just before they closed down the main route through the park the "Going to the Sun Road" and just a few weeks before they started getting some serious snow. 

They were actually doing some construction on the road, so there were a few times that we had to hand out and wait, but that just provided time to snap some pictures of our gorgeous surroundings in the park.

We stayed outside the park, but the hotels inside the park are historic and lovely.  We stopped on our way into the park at Lake McDonald Lodge.  It's a beautiful hotel in a gorgeous location.  

The interior of the hotel is all cool exposed timber and stone:

Our main purpose for the trip was fishing and we did a bunch.  Once you get a fishing license there are a ton of great fishing sites in the local state parks and inside Glacier Park itself.  We hit a different spot almost every day.  I can't say I was very lucky with catching fish - but the old saying of "a bad day fishing" being better than just about a great day doing anything else was very true - especially in Montana:

 

We also did a little hiking around the area as there are just so many pretty locations to see.

The fishing and fresh air and beautiful sights really recharged my batteries.  There is also a pretty great crafting community in Whitefish, Montana where we stayed.  I hit a yarn store, took an applique class and stocked up on some quilt patterns from local artists.  I'll post my crafty vacation activities next time!