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!

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.