Mushing Meets Quilting II

October 24, 20166 Comments

In my September 19th post, I mentioned the “Left Behind” quilt pattern I bought while traveling in Alaska. This is a mini quilt by Melinda Dale, an Alaskan designer. Last week I decided to get started on this quilt project because I wanted to try fusible applique, a new technique for me. Melinda’s pattern was easy to follow and it started with two different light fabrics. One is Kona “Snow” and the other is a sparkly print I had on hand from my quilting travels.

I fused the snow onto the background and then did some machine quilting with my walking foot. I had fun and think I’m brave because I made wavy lines!

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Next came the fun part! I got to make the Alaskan Husky dog with the teeniest, tiniest pieces! She turned out pretty cute and so I fused her to the snow!

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I sewed around my little musher dog, changing threads several times so the thread colors matched. Then I fused the trees and added some texture to their trunks. I used Sulky thread for outlining and texture. I liked sewing with this thread and was pleased with the results.

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As I was getting closer to completion, I added twigs to the trees and the snow. I drew the twigs randomly with a pencil and then sewed over the pencil lines with black Sulky thread. Nice! I made the leash with some decorative stitches on my machine.

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To finish this fun project, I made a very skinny flange border that was 3/4 inches of gold fabric folded in half. Next I added the black binding and that’s it! Project complete!

“Left Behind” Designed by Melinda Dale

I think I will look for some more fusible applique projects. This cute girl has given me inspiration!

Mushing Meets Quilting

September 19, 2016September 19, 20161 Comment

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!)