Quiltville.com Quilt Top Finished

Yesterday, I finally finished a beautiful top.  I saw it on Bonnie Hunter’s site last month and fell in love with it.  The colors were what attracted me to it, so I didn’t change anything.  The best part is that I only purchased the cheddar ~~ and it was $2.99 a yard on sale.  I think I’ll use this for my entry to the County Fair this summer.  http://quiltville.com/doubledelightintro.shtml/

My Gregory Pack does another 15 miles

We hiked through hail, snow, rain and sunshine this weekend along the Wilson River.  I believe there were 21 of us yesterday, Valentine’s Day.

The terrain was wild.  Sometimes it was lush with ferns and moss, other times, snow packed and other times, fall leaves were still on the trail.

Today’s hike involved a lot of getting over logs and stuff.  Here is my son on some of the smaller stuff we crossed.

My husband joined us after yesterday’s nine miles and hiked with us today.

Gregory Backpack Wants a Partner

Vintage Gregory Pack Wants a Partner (new, but sturdy like the old one)

http://www.gregorypacks.com has an offer if they use your story in their blog.  Here’s hoping that they will use mine!

 

My Gregory Mt. Washington backpack is 23 years old and has been on countless backpacking trips beginning with my honeymoon back in 1986 on the Appalachian Trail to last weekend near Mt. Hood.  Lately, I’ve been adding the daypack from my husband’s equally-vintage Gregory backpack to the top of mine to accommodate a Camelback.

 

Our Boy Scout Troop’s Sisters, OR backpack the summer of 2007 with my son.

Here my son and I are near the base of Mt. Hood last weekend.  We snow shoed in with Scouts and spent the night.  Hopefully, this weekend will bring more adventures on another lake near the same area.  Certainly, I have way too much stuff hanging on the pack, but it works for me.

 

In addition to the more than 85 miles I used my pack for last summer, it went to Shasta-Trinity National Forest for ArrowCorps 5, a Boy Scout’s Order of the Arrow project in which we did trail maintenance on the Sisson-Callaghan Trail in early July.  Here is the pack line at the end of the work.  I can see my pack!

This is shortly after the “1986 honeymoon” with friends in Desolation Wilderness out of Tahoe, California.

 

Here is my Gregory Mt. Washington and Kevin’s Gregory pack shortly after our third child.  This is July of 1992.

Here is Kevin with his pack in 1997.

Kevin (with his Gregory pack) and Andrew last summer near Ramona Falls with Mt. Hood in the background.

The durability of our packs is incredible.  Having two left feet, I have tumbled down many trails and my Gregory pack has held up amazingly well.  My husband keeps thinking of getting me new gear, but I am so proud of my “honeymoon” pack and tent, that he never makes the purchase.  Thank you for the amazing design of our packs and the adventure owning them has brought to us and will continue to bring!  We are in the midst of many “shake-down hikes” in preparation for a Philmont Scout Ranch (New Mexico Boy Scout High Adventure Base) backpacking trek this summer.

 

Spun Sugar Quilt

My youngest sister told me how much she liked a quilt in American Patchwork & Quilting (Dec 2007) just last October.  We decided that if she purchases the fabric, I’d make the quilt for her.  The designer of Spun Sugar and fabric kit can be found at www.homesteadhearth.com  As it turned out, other than the kit, the rest of the fabric was $2.50/yard, so we got a bunch for the back.  I used a frisky feathers pantograph  in the center, crosshatched the brown inner border and did a swag for the first time with templates from www.constantinequilts.com.  Easy peasy and it looks great!

Any thoughts on getting the bottom left star to stand out more would be appreciated…  perhaps an artistic person could use a fabric marker?

Selvage Heart Banner

Here are two more Selvage items ~~ this time hearts for Valentine gifts.  Again, thanks to http://www.selvageblog.blogspot.com/ for the great ideas and book!  These were quilted with Petal Flambe by Jellybean Quilter’s pantograph.  It comes in three sizes and has a sort of heart in the design.

Check this out!

http://suzanneearley.net/2009/02/the-giveaway-quilt

Go to Suzanne’s site and enter to win a beautiful quilt!

Another Forest Park Hike

Today’s hike was between 30 and 40 degrees and no rain.  Sometimes the sun shone through the trees and others, fog was everywhere.  We hiked 9 miles on Wildwood off Germantown Rd.

I guess I like taking pictures of trail markers ~~ and my son.  My husband ran the loop oposite us and, since he only had two hours of sleep, crawled into a sleeping bag in the car and slept until we returned.

It’s hard to tell, but this was an incredibly steep hill to descend.