Happy Founders Day, everyone. Our National Park Service, in the US, was created on August 25, 1916 and each year on Founders Day, all the national parks waive entrance fees in honour of the occasion. Hope you were able to visit one today!

A little history, the first national park, not only in the US but also in the world, was Yellowstone, which was designated as a park in 1872. It was followed by Sequoia, Yosemite, and Mount Rainier. While the Grand Canyon seems like an obvious choice for a national park, land and mining moguls kept it from becoming protected as a park for years. It finally became a national park in 1919.

A beautiful photo of Yellowstone, the first park to be named a US National Park.

The title of this entry is a double entendre. It refers to the value of the incredible National Parks system as well as lifelong friendships. Now a little about friendship. What’s your definition? I think it’s as individual as the friendships themselves. For me, I like the quote by A. A. Milne: “We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet. Even longer,' said Pooh. Lifelong friends are priceless. They stand by you when no one else does. They find the humour on the darkest days. They finish your sentences for you and they sit with you in silence. Life is easier when you have a true friend by your side.

The idea for this entry came together when my lifelong best friend asking for a Riley Blake “National Parks” quilt. If any of you have looked at Riley Blake’s collection, you know the challenge is deciding which panels to use – follow this link and see what I mean

National Parks - Current Collections - Fabric | Riley Blake Designs

Below is a picture of the panel Leah settled on because it has ALL the parks on it. Her wish was to have tan added as a border with the final border and back being in an Army green. She then chose a fun, outdoor pattern for the quilt pattern.

Here is a great outdoor photo of Leah’s quilt.

In total we have quilted three National Parks quilts and it’s interesting how each began with the same panel, but finished differently. The second one that came in was from Suzanne and she made her National Parks quilt for her Dad and asked us to custom quilt it. She added an olive green and rust coloured border and finished it with a wide border in a really cool striped fabric. She asked that the National Parks portion have an organic feel to the quilting and went with a “wood grain” type pattern. For the outer border, she asked for the woodsy outdoor pattern from Leah’s National Parks quilt. Her Dad loved the quilt, it was a beauty!

Suzanne’s quilt ready to go home for her to bind it.

And for the third National Parks quilt, Melissa asked for the “62” panel to be used and colours from her living room to finish it. Three colours were used, a nice brick red patterned fabric, followed by a rich green, and then a pretty champagne grunge fabric. The quilt pattern for this one is called “Wicked” and also has a real organic feel to it. It turned out fantastic!

Melissa picking up her quilt. It’s always fun to get a photo of the person with their quilt.

To close, on Founders Day today, we hope you’ve been to some of our nation’s beautiful National Parks already in your lifetime. If you haven’t, put that on your bucket list. Right now. In terms of friendship, everyone has ‘a friend’ during each stage of life, but only lucky ones have the ‘same friend’ in all stages of life. I’m blessed to say I have that friend and am that friend.

A Real Gem