hiking – Lazy Saturday Quilts

When there’s so much nature to see, who has time for quilting?

Our middle daughter recently purchased an inflatable paddle board. This inspired my husband and me to purchase an inflatable kayak so we could spend time on the water with her. Plus, as an added bonus, we’d have something economical to use to float down the Manistee River. (Or any other river.) Renting a canoe, raft, or kayaks from the local liveries can be costly, especially if you want to go often. In the past we’ve only taken maybe four or five trips over a bit more than 20 years. Since purchasing our kayak just a few weeks ago, we’ve been on the Manistee River twice and one of our local lakes once.

Our first trip on the river lasted about an hour. Our ending point was a sketchy looking “dock” at a campground. After deflating our kayak and stowing it in the car, we added a couple miles onto our North Country Trail goal for the year. Our hiking miles aren’t adding up quickly this year, but we keep plugging away.

This past weekend we spent a bit over four hours on the river. We saw lots of turtles, some ducks, and a MONKEY. I am not kidding. An actual MONKEY. A woman was floating down the river in a canoe with a monkey on her lap. I think that ranks up there as one of the the most bizarre things I have ever seen!

Last night we spent an hour on the lake. Last week I spent a couple hours at the beach with our daughter. I’m turning into a water person who has a tan, and this was not something I ever thought would happen when I was canoeing for the first time at 19 and was so terrified about falling in that I sat super still and didn’t even help paddle until maybe the last ten minutes of the trip. Actually I’m still terrified about falling in, but the kayak is a bit steadier in the water than a canoe.

Side note: On our way home from the beach, we stopped at a health food store to purchase some bulk grains. (Wild rice is so ridiculously expensive!) Our daughter found some dark chocolate-covered ginger and wanted to try some. I would NOT recommend anyone ever try such a thing. My mouth was burning up and I got a nice stringy chunk of ginger that I couldn’t chew up no matter how long I worked at it. So chocolate-covered ginger is a big thumbs down for me.

So remember when I said that I didn’t have time to sew? I lied a bit. I managed to finish the Lemon Pepper quilt top by sneaking in a few minutes of sewing over several days. I probably won’t start quilting it until fall. Here it is:

Hello from Northern Michigan–Up North…not to be confused with the UP–where our winters are long and the need for warm, cozy quilts draped over beds and couches is great.

My name is Susan. That’s my husband and me in the photo. When we aren’t finding crazy places to have adventures (like Turkey Run State Park in Indiana where the photo was taken), adding hiked miles to our North Country Trail goal (as we do every summer despite a harrowing number of tick encounters), spending time with our kids and pets (3 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, and 2 guinea pigs), or working (I’m a musician), I like to get creative in the sewing room.

Join me as I share what I’ve made (like the quilt on the right that was a 19-year project begun when I was pregnant with my eldest daughter and finished the year she graduated from high school), share new projects that hopefully don’t take 19 years to complete, provide free patterns and ideas, and give my opinion on everything quilting or crafting related.

Project note: This pattern was Feathered Star from Heirloom Quilts. It was listed as a skill level 5, which as a new quilter I had no business attempting! That’s probably why it took 19 years. The pillows on the far right and far left were the Bear’s Paw and Geese over the Mountain patterns from the same book. I believe I found the pattern for the star pillow in the middle back on Pinterest. The other two were of my own design. All were made from leftover scraps and all were quilted by me on a regular sewing machine. I’ve since vowed to never quilt a queen-size quilt on my machine again!