I am continuing to report about “what I did on my summer vacation.” Mushing? What’s that you ask?! Mushing means driving a dogsled and mushers are the humans who actually do the driving.
While visiting Denali National Park, we had the opportunity tour DogGoneIt which is the home and kennel of Itidarod Musher, Mike Santos and his wife, Caitlin. This was a highlight of our trip and we witnessed the strong, mutual affection between these dogs and their humans!
Mike and Caitlin provided us with a demonstration of how the dogs are trained when there is no snow. The dogs are hitched to an ATV and they “pull” the ATV while Mike drives. The dogs chosen for the demonstration were so happy they got to do their job! The dogs left behind were barking and clearly jealous, they wanted to work, too!

DogGoneIt, Cantwell, Alaska
So how does mushing meet quilting you ask? After the DogGoneIt tour, I was shopping in a quilt store in Talkeetna and came across a mini quilt pattern called “Left Behind” by Melinda Dale from Willow, Alaska. It shows a forlorn looking Alaskan Husky looking like he was left behind and I immediately thought about the DogGoneIt dogs that were left behind during the training demonstration.
This is a fusible applique pattern with some embroidery for texture. Since I had such good memories of our DogGoneIt tour, I bought the pattern and plan to make this cute mini quilt (sorry Norma and Sadie…I still love you, my dear canines!)

Left Behind Quilt Pattern by Melinda Dale
So that’s the story about how mushing meets quilting! Another Alaskan quilt in the works with fond memories attached.
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