Fastest Quilt Top Ever

Today was my first day of a week long vacation and after an outing with the dogs in the morning I returned home and got to work on this quilt. When I stopped last night I had 40 blocks completed. I finished the remaining 16 blocks by around 7:00 pm tonight, took the dogs for their evening walk, then came home and sewed the vertical rows together.

It’s hard to comprehend that I have this much surface area in batik scraps. And there’s still a ton left.

Tomorrow I’ll sew the rows together. I’m going to go to Costco in the morning for my big monthly stock up and then we’ll take a drive up the Columbia River Gorge in the afternoon. Maybe head up to Hood River and see if we can find some fresh fruit and maybe some spectacular views of Mt. Hood.

This morning we headed up to Frenchman’s Bar on the Columbia River for our first vacation outing. We took a walk around a big field and racked up about two miles. The grass was really tall and there was a fair amount of stinging nettle to navigate. The front of my calves are stinging tonight. It’s finally easing off, but I can still feel it.

Then we retraced our steps back down this path trying to find the foot path to the river that we’ve always used. We got back down to the far end and found the path. It was really overgrown by blackberries so we had to form a plan B. We walked back down the field  to the more formal path that goes from the parking area to the river. And in about a half mile, we were there. By this point we had walked about four miles.

The dogs were really ready for a nice cool swim by the time we got to the river.

That’s Rico above, and then bender below.

The river was gorgeous today. Smooth as glass. The sky was incredibly blue with just a few clouds. And we almost had the entire place to ourselves.

These boys are so patient with all the posing I make them do!

We walked along the beach most of the distance back to the car. By the time we were done, I had walked five miles and the dogs had probably run ten! They are completely wiped out tonight!

All ready for a good night’s sleep and day two of vacation tomorrow.