Mountains are never in a hurry. They sit in the same spot through every season, letting the light and the leaves change around them, and nobody ever asks them to speed it up. Hand quilters understand that completely. Stitched Mountain Views gathers our peaks, ridges and high country valleys, each one drawn like layered appliqué with stitched details you can almost feel, and the name of the place lettered underneath.
The Rockies and the big western peaks
These are the tall ones. Stitchin' in Colorado: Elk in the Rockies sends a proud bull elk past golden aspens and a river winding down between pine-covered cliffs. Stitchin' in Jackson Hole lines up jagged gray peaks above a green valley and a split rail fence. Stitchin' in Denali follows a lone road through a wide valley below the snowy range, with wildlife ambling along the shoulder. Stitchin' in Juneau puts a glacier behind a busy harbor full of boats, and Stitchin' at Coeur d'Alene lines a blue lake with a row of candy-colored boathouses under snowcapped peaks.
Old mountains with soft shoulders
Out east, the mountains are rounder and older, like a well-loved quilt that has been washed a hundred times. Stitchin' in Vermont fills the state shape with red maple leaves, a red barn and a barrel of maple syrup. Stitchin' in the Green Mountains rolls one green ridge into the next, with a moose wading through the meadow and white birches along the edge. Stitchin' in North Carolina stretches a line of blue ridges across the state, and Stitchin' in Asheville sets a grand stone house among autumn trees with a guitar leaning nearby. Stitchin' in the Adirondacks sends campfire smoke curling up toward a sharp blue peak.
Mountains in patchwork
Then there is the one that goes all the way. Patchwork Mountain Dreams pieces a whole range from teal, navy and blush triangles, every peak a different print, with pine trees marching along the bottom and a little sewing machine nestled at the foot of the mountains like a cabin in the woods. It is the mountain view as a quilter dreams it, which is to say with a machine close enough to reach.
For the quilter who packs her project for the cabin
Somewhere right now a quilter is planning her fall trip around the leaves, and she is exactly who we had in mind, along with the friend who brings hand-sewing to the lodge and stitches by the fire, and anyone who has ever stopped at an overlook and thought about thread colors. Pick the peaks she knows by heart, or the ones still on her someday list. And when someone asks when her hand-quilted throw will be finished, she can borrow the mountains' answer: when it is ready, and not one stitch before.
Written by Jacqueline. Thanks for reading.
