Westering Women: Reaching the End of the Trail

I have finally completed my Westering Women quilt!

This was a 2016 block of the month project put together by Barbara Brackman, celebrating women who traveled west on the overland trails in the 19th century. You can find Barbara's introduction to it here. I stuck with fabrics that were either 19th century reproductions or in the 19th century style, all of which I pulled from my stash.

I pieced all of the blocks by hand, but assembled the sashing and borders by machine,

and custom quilted it on my longarm machine.

I have given this quilt to a good friend, who, as a female research geologist, I consider a pioneer of her generation. Years ago she traveled westward a very great distance from her native England to live in central Texas, so it seemed an appropriate gift.

Several months ago she and I agreed to make an attempt on the Grand Teton in 2018, so I am including a couple photos of that beautiful peak. This one, taken along Mormon Row early in the morning, shows the Grand immediately to the right of the barn.

The Grand is the peak on the far left hand side of this image, taken from the south fork of Cascade Canyon (on the west side of the big peaks). 

I just love those high, lush meadows! For scale, note the two hikers in the top right.

While I'm at it with photos from Grand Teton National Park, here are a few wildlife shots from last summer that I never managed to include in a post. This moose may look a little crazed, but really he was just tearing at branches for his meal, and seemed completely oblivious to our presence.

This mule deer, on the other hand, was totally aware of us and seemed to be posing for the camera.

Finally, here is my favorite Teton critter, the pica. Not only are they incredibly adorable, they are great fun to watch.  If you take the time to sit quietly on open, rocky slopes, you will likely see picas scampering among the boulders gathering greenery for their nests, and hear their calls, which sound to me like a squeaky toy you might give your pet.

Any day, sunny or grey, is brightened by a pica sighting. Wishing you many days of pica cuteness!

Family Time in Florida

Earlier this month I spent a couple of weeks with my parents in Florida. Life is pretty quiet where they live, especially during the summer when the heat and humidity keep people indoors for most of the day. It was a good time to work on some knitting and hand sewing projects.

Regular readers may remember that in January I purchased several different kinds of yarn as candidates for a Fair Isle sweater. I am making pillow covers instead of small swatches. In addition to knowing how each yarn will look made up as a sweater, I will have something useful, and reasonably attractive, for my efforts. 

I finished this one while in Florida, using up almost all of five quarter skeins of Hill Country Weaver's incredibly soft Merino Alpaca. The yarn is a pleasure to work with and yields stitch definition that is well-suited to Fair Isle. But at $35 for a full skein it will be kind of pricy to make an entire sweater. I'll just have to see how the other options turn out.

For anyone interested in Fair Isle knitting, I highly recommend the Philosopher's Wool technique, which can be found here. Thanks to Lucy at Quilting with the Past for pointing it out to me two years ago. The strands are worked in as you go, resulting in a back without loose bits to get caught in fingernails or jewelry, and a smooth front that doesn't pucker.

I also made significant progress on my Westering Women quilt top. I've gotten all the sashing attached and the blocks sewn together and now just need to decide on a border. Maybe I can find  something to temper the heavy dose of cheddar in the sashing.

Although I spent a lot of time indoors in Florida, I did get out enough to get a couple of shots of the local color. I spotted this little boat while walking around one morning in the nearby downtown, which is really an outdoor mall.

I enjoyed watching a pair of sandhill cranes that frequented my parents' backyard. Their red faces and orange eyes are rather dramatic.

Westering Women: Reaching the End of the Road

Last January I committed to participating in Barbara Brackman's Westering Women block of the month project. I am pleased that throughout the year I managed to stay up to date and completed each of the twelve blocks not too long after Barbara posted the patterns.

I stuck with traditional prints for these blocks, hoping to use up some of the accumulation in my stash. Although it looks like I've not made even a small dent in my stash, I am happy with the resulting blocks and look forward to putting it all together. If I use generously sized sashing and wide borders it will be big enough for a twin bed.

The route many pioneers followed to the west traversed Wyoming, so here are a few photos from my holiday trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We saw quite a lot of wildlife, just as our predecessors must have done over a hundred years ago.

These elk were on the National Elk Refuge just north of town, so it seems a bit like cheating to have taken photos of them.

This cow moose and her calves (there was a second just out of the frame of this photo) were noshing on branches of this tree. I am always amazed by the kinds of things moose eat and find nourishment from.

I also think they have really cute faces!

Now that I am settled back into a bit of routine after the holidays I have lots of other projects, quilting, knitting and embroidery, in the works and hope to post about them a little more frequently than I did in 2016, so please check back soon.

Does Traversing the Panama Canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific Count as "Westering?"

I ask this question because when I made the traverse in March I discovered that the Pacific end of the canal is actually east of the Atlantic end.  Initially that seemed very strange to me since the Canal was built as a faster route from the east coast to the west coast and here we were farther east than when we started. Of course, it isn't really strange at all. The fastest route between two places is often more a function of elevation change than of distance. By going around the Rocky Mountains, but not all the way around South America, the Panama Canal made the trip between the east and west coasts considerably faster and easier.

Entering the Gatun Locks

Anyway, traversing the Panama Canal is a fascinating way to spend a day. We went through the the Gatun Locks on our very large cruise ship, the Island Princess. Like many ships, it was designed specifically to fit through the canal, with mere inches between the ship and the walls of the locks.

A large container ship was in the lane next to us.

This view of the Culebra Cut at the continental divide gives you an idea of just how much material had to be removed to make the channel.

The Culebra Cut and the Centennial Bridge

The canal first opened over one hundred years ago and the original locks and gates are still in use today, though larger ones currently under construction are due to open within a few months.

Wall of the Miraflores Locks

We traversed the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores Locks on a very small boat, which gave quite a different perspective than the deck of a big cruise ship. We were practically at water level, sharing the locks with the container ship Diamantis P.

The question of "westering" is relevant to me at the moment because I am participating in Barbara Brackman's "Westering Women" block of the month project. I have now completed three blocks and am nearly finished with the fourth. I have been tempted to add the sashing and sew the blocks together, but am holding off to see how the other blocks develop. Rather than choose all my fabrics at the outset, I just gathered together all the reproduction fabrics from my stash and decide on specific fabrics block by block. Since I don't know now what colors I will end up choosing, it seems like a good idea to wait until the blocks are completed before choosing the sashing.

Blocks one through three, all hand pieced

I was thinking that this project would make a big dent in my stash, but I'm a third of the way through and there is no noticeable difference. Sigh.

  

Westering Women

Followers of quilting blogs will likely find the title of this post familiar. That's because it is the name of Barbara Brackman's 2016 block of the month series which celebrates America's overland migrations of the nineteenth century. On the last Wednesday of each month Barbara is posting, for free, a new block pattern, chosen as a reminder of locations along the trail between Missouri and the Pacific. Along with block instructions Barbara is posting historical background including diary entries, maps and illustrations, along with her own insightful commentary.

In spite of all the projects I already have going on, I jumped on the virtual covered wagon for this fascinating journey. It will be a good way to use many of the reproduction fabrics I have in my stash and fun to see what others do.

I completed my first block - all by hand - within four days of the pattern being posted. Let's see if I can keep that up throughout the year.

Block 1: Independence Square by Becky Brown

Reading about these pioneering women makes me appreciate my own trips to the west more than ever and realize how lucky that I am to be able to hop on a plane and arrive in Jackson Hole in only a few hours. My view of the west must be very different from those on the trail in the 1800s. For me, mountains are the destination, not a barrier to my destination; lots of snow means great skiing, not impassable trails. I especially enjoyed our trip to Jackson Hole this past December when days were filled with skiing and evenings were spent enjoying leisurely dinners with family and friends.

We had a particularly memorable day of cross country skiing in Grand Teton National Park. On a very cold but brilliantly clear morning we headed north from the Taggert Lake parking area on the road to Jenny Lake, which is groomed for skiing with two tracks for classic skiers and one track for skate skiers.

The Park Road, groomed for skiing

Although the Grand Teton was hidden by high clouds, the lower peaks were bright with fresh snow.

Steve in front of the South Teton

As we skied clouds began to gather, but arriving at Jenny Lake was like skiing into a snow globe. What a treat to enjoy Jenny Lake without the crowds of summer!

Jenny Lake outflow

We had a quick lunch on the porch of the Jenny Lake Store (which was, of course, closed for the season).

And then turned back towards our car at Taggert Lake. Although it was only about ten miles roundtrip I found it surprisingly tiring, most likely due to my poor skiing technique, but also perhaps due to the cold temperatures and the high altitude.

Heading home from Jenny Lake

I am back east now but as I work on my next Westering Women block I will be reminded of the myriad struggles, adventures and joys that generations of Americans have experienced by traveling west.