At summer camp, my son was elected SPL (Senior Patrol Leader) of our Boy Scout Troop of about 60 boys. He holds this position until January. Today, instead of working at Camp Ireland, he will be at the planning day at Hagg Lake where the boys plan the troop activities for the next year. With the responsibility of SPL, he gets the “bag”. Pretty cool, huh???
Just today I finished this quilt. The pattern is “Happy Hour” from Atkinson Designs and the quilting is free motion feathers in a combination of Suzanne Early and Jodi Robinson (can’t figure out how to add links) books.
Here is a close up of the quilting.
And the back before the binding went on.
My friend, Carole, gave me a lot of the fabrics and I augmented them with others. The quilt looks great in my daughter’s room that is empty because she is now married. That explains the missing drawer. She brings some of her belongings to the new home every once in a while ~~ hoping her husband doesn’t notice.
Most of my piecing projects have been completed and I was looking through my closet yesterday and found a kit my mom sent many years ago. It was quick to put together since it measures about 20″ square. Last night I quilted it and finished the binding today. For the most part, I am quite pleased.
The kit was interesting because it came with a marking pencil, two round disks for hanging, a quilting template, batting sample, label, and the best of all, backing and binding. It is almost unheard of to get backing in a kit.
We took some ribbons at the County Fair which opened today. My husband took seconds on both of his beers. When he took in the bottles, the intake people chuckled at his label.
I only entered one quilt, my Pinwheel Pizazz, and it took first in the professional category. Since I sell quilts, this is the only category I could enter. This is not to say that my quilting is even up to par with “professionals” because it isn’t, but it was fun to enter for my second year.
We have returned from our Boy Scout’s Order of the Arrow service project in Shasta, California. What a great week! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feLMFb6OWBA&feature=related
Upon arrival last Saturday, we were all trained in environmental awareness; tool maintenance, safety, and handling; Leave No Trace Ethics; basic backpacking and trail information. On Sunday, 19 crews headed out to the field to start work on rehabilitating over 100 miles of trails, refurbishing an historic lookout, revamping comfort stations along the Pacific Crest Trail and cleaning up illegal dump sites.
Base camp was the Mt. Shasta Ski Park. We slept on the hill Saturday and then again Thursday and Friday.
Each crew lined up their packs before hiking out.
In the back country, we camped by an incredible river. It was just like being in the Flintstones.
The guys set up bear bags in two locations to hold our food and “smellables”.
Here is a sample of the group’s breakfast. Each packet feeds two people.
Every morning, we had a “tool talk” and every evening, the tools were stashed.
This is the biggest project we worked on. The trail was incredibly muddy, but in the end, a work of art… All 21 of us worked on this. Most of us were rock and gravel haulers. We would pick out the size of rock they wanted, place them in buckets or bags and haul them up the hill from the river. The guys set up a relay for this and it went pretty fast, but we picked and hauled for two days.
Here is the finished trail!
This is the river we crossed to get the rocks.
Moving rocks into place on the trail.
My son and I leave in the morning for ArrowCorp5, a Boy ScoutOrder of the Arrow service project in Shasta-Trinity. We are packed and ready for a great adventure! I am still using my honeymoon backpack and tent ~~ 22 years later and it shows what taking care of gear means! My pack is weighing in at 35 lbs without food and tools.
The duffel stays at our base camp while we are out in the back country doing trail maintenance and my yellow bag holds my hand piecing for the drive to and from. Yes, there is a little pack of hand quilting for the trail. We return in a week!
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In 2005, several of us backpacked 50 miles in the Olympic National Park. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I brought along some hand piecing. There wasn’t nearly as much time as I had thought there would be to relax. Today, nearly three years later the last stitch was sewn. This piece is 30″ square. It was hand pieced and machine quilted.
Here is a picture of a glacial fed river, the Elwha. It was absolutely gorgeous there.
Saturday, my son and I leave on Arrowcorp 5, with Boy Scout’s Order of the Arrow. It is a service project in Shasta-Trinity. We are packed and, yes, I do have a piecing project to stuff into my backpack as well as handwork to do on the drive down and back. Later in the summer, we have a short 20 mile pack and then will do the Timberline Loop around Mt. Hood. Since part of the trail is washed out from a few years ago, we’ll enter at Tilly Jane in the northeast corner and travel clockwise. Hopefully, the snow will melt by then.
Here are a few scenes from our town’s 4th of July parade. There were 140 entrants and it lasted about two hours. My daughter and her husband’s family joined us for a great morning!
Back in June, we scored four tickets to the Olympic Trials in Eugene on the 4th! We had a great night. Our older son’s friend who is a U of Oregon student joined us.
And here is another journal art quilt that I made for our friends whose cabin we visited a few weekends ago.
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