AROUND THE WORLD BLOG HOP

I tagged Chelsea of Patch the Giraffe as part of my Around the World Blog Hop. Please take a look at what she's posted for her contribution. I'm proud to be her friend! Visit her at Patch the Giraffe. She mentions our first conversation. I remember it now, but it had slipped from my memory. I giggled.

Some of you may remember that I am August Queen of my New Quilt Bloggers Bee. I chose a simple nine-patch block. Pam suggested we write out directions completely, in case we had some beginners in our group. I found out it's a lot harder than I realized to write out directions. Anyway, I asked for white (ish) and bright colors. It has been great fun getting little packages in the mail. I love that part!

This is what I have so far:

I LOVE it! It is going to be so nice and bright! There are a few people missing.

Thanks,
Lin

PICTURES FROM AQS

Here are many quilts from the AQS experience

Mr. Buffalo was felted wool. I felt I wanted to pet him.
By Ann Horton from California.

I liked the colors, and that it is assymetrical.  I'm not sure I would ever think to do that.
By Robbi Jo Eklow of Illinios.

Ms. Giraffe is three dimensional, can you tell? Brilliant!
I didn't get the artist of this one.

Aren't they great colors?? You can just see the crystals. Seems like a lot of entrants have crystals.
By Nancy Eisenhauer of Illinios

You know I'm a dog person! These guys have so much life!
By Hiroko Miyama of Japan

Love how they captured the hillside perspective beautifully.
By Sally Manke of Michigan

I guess I really didn't take as many pictures as I thought. Maybe I felt that way because I counted all the class sample pictures I took as well.

Oh well.

Thanks,
Lin

FIRST-EVER LONG ARM EXPERIENCE

As promised, here is a picture from the Jamie Wallen long arm class design I took:

Feathers with tiny fill-in stitching

Dragonfly, not completed

Curved crosshatching, done with a ruler

I really learned a lot from Jamie! I would like to take a whole retreat from him! Maybe someday.

Thanks,
Lin

AQS UPDATE

I spent 4 days driving back and forth to Grand Rapids, MI for the AQS show. It's about 1 hour away, but Wednesday it took me 2 HOURS to get home. I didn't see any reason why. I always wonder why this lane is moving so slowly, but usually, there's no reason evident.

Next year, I hope my BQFF will be going with me to this show, and we can stay in GR and not do the (annoying) drive back and forth. I just didn't want to swallow the cost of a room by myself this year.

As I mentioned in my last post, I met up with my Supernova partner, Pam, on Friday. It was great fun meeting a bloggy buddy. She called me from the lobby, and there I sat, seeing a tall (she told me she was tall) person making a phone call. What a kick! Had a great time seeing the quilts with her.

AQS has the machine vendors supply each classroom with appropriate sewing machine. The longarm classroom had Handi Quilter longarms. There were also irons, cutting mats and rotary cutters provided. Very convenient that you don't have to bring your whole sewing studio with you. I had a NQA class in June that I had to bring my machine. I like having stuff provided.

On the down side of that thought: you are not in control of what type of machine you will get. The whole classroom has one model of machine, but it could be top-of-the-line, or bottom. My last two classes, with Joanie Poole, has lower price Janomes provided. In the last class, several machines were acting up. The top thread kept breaking. So frustrating! I finally packed up early, disgusted with the machine. Told the Janome rep all about it.

This is Joanie's sample, above.

Here's mine, below, as far as I was able to get:

This is (supposed to be) the beginning of barn wood slats. I actually think it's pretty neat.

Here are some pics from the first Joanie class I took, on Thursday:

See my name?

Free motion circle shaped designs. I think there are some inspirations in this sample. Needs work tho, of course.

Tomorrow I'll show you my piece from the long arm class, and finally, I'll post pics from the quilt show. Be ready for a long one that day.

Thanks,
Lin

AQS

No pictures today, so stop reading if you're looking for pics!

As I look around now, I see no one stayed! (sigh)

I am at AQS in Grand Rapids, Michigan this week. Having a great time. Wednesday, I took an all-day class from Sue Nickels on feather design. Thursday I took a class from Jamie Wallen on Thread Fusion. We worked on long arms today, first time for me on a stand up long arm. A very different feel from my sit down long arm. I had thought it might be easier, based on some Craftsy classes and U Tubes I've seen, to move a long arm smoothly. Well, I was comparing apples and oranges. A pro vs. me. I had some pretty wiggly lines. But, all-in-all, I think I did pretty well for my first time on a long arm.

Friday I'm taking a class from Joanie Poole on Circular Free Motion Fun, and Saturday from her again, on The Great Outdoors-EAsy Free Motion Fillers. You'll notice all my classes this year are on free motion quilting. Something I want to improve on.

On Friday, I'm also having a great bit of fun! My Supernova partner, Pam, is coming to the show to meet up! Hope we recognize each other from our blog pictures! So excited about this!

I'll have lots of pics to post from the show soon. Just not yet. Keep you in suspense!

Thanks,
Lin

AROUND THE WORLD BLOG HOP

Hi!
I'm Lin. Welcome to my blog. Gina, of The Occasional Quilter,  did an introduction of me in her blog. She and I have been bloggy friends for a while. I enjoy reading her accounts of her quilting, and I guess she likes mine. She asked me to take part in the Around the World Blog Tour, so here I am.

Gina is a very prolific quilter. This girl is fast! I'm so impressed with her output!

I have been quilting for more than 5 years. Very badly for the first several years. I was a self-taught quilter. That means that the first few quilts I didn't know what the heck I was doing! I did finally take some classes, and found out how much I didn't know. Sound familiar to anyone?

I retired two years ago and have been quilting my brains out since then. I also bought a Handi-Quilter Sweet 16 sit down long arm last year, and have been having a ball with that!

We have several questions we are supposed to answer to help you to know us. So here goes.

1 What am I working on?
I have been quilting my Celtic Solstice for a couple weeks now. This was a Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt that started in the winter. It was pretty involved, lots of pieces.

Bonnie Hunter is the queen of scrappy quilts. I may make it again, but this time with a planned outcome.
Here's some of the quilting:

I also have a number of flimsies waiting for me to quilt them up.

2  How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I'm not sure I do differ substantially, except in that it is *my* work, and my colors, etc.

3 Why do I write/create what I do?
There is no magic formula for me. I simply choose my next project based on what catches my eye. In looking over my output, I am struck by the color differences. I seem to tend to be either very bright, or very subdues in color.

This last one is a WIP Judy Niemeyer pattern from a class in June. I've wanted to do a Judy quilt for a while. Lots more work to do on it.

4 How does my writing/creating process work?
Again, not very revolutionary. I just set myself up to work on a task, and slave away at it. I don't like to have too many projects at once, but I like to keep myself busy. I always need to have something I can work on. Especially when we're camping. I find the busier I keep myself, the more I enjoy being away. I do love to read, and get a lot read while we're away, but need to have other things too.

---

I get to introduce another blogger for your blogging enjoyment. I have asked Chelsea at Patch the Giraffe to be my next tag partner. Chelsea describes herself as a modern quilter who is very organized. I like her in spite of her being "very organized." I'm afraid I'm just not a real organized person. I like to be, but fail miserably sometimes. The clutter just gets beyond me. Then I have a frantic moment when I clean things up and hope it stays that way. (sigh.)

Chelsea keeps me giggling sometimes, and she's very supportive in her comments. I consider her a great bloggy buddy. I hope you check out her blog.

Thanks,
Lin

My internet went down sometime this morning. So my post is late.

MORNING GLORY TIME

I put in a Morning Glory plant in the spring. I've tried growing them from seeds in the same place, and didn't have any luck. This one started out so well. But.....the sprinkler doesn't hit that area of the garden. Poor thing started drying up. I have been diligent since I found it drying out about watering it. It is much happier, but would be so much prettier if I hadn't traumatized it.

I'm trying to give you something to look at while I am busy quilting Celtic Solstice (and golfing). Any update pictures I might take would just be the same things picture after picture. Boring.

I have been doing a lot of golfing this year. Really enjoying it. I am one of those people who don't really tan. Well, this year, I have a tan! Arms up to my shirt sleeves, and legs below my capris. I also have sandal marks. So odd for me.

Thanks,
Lin

UPDATE

I suppose the whole world is waiting to see what I have been up to. I admit, I have been absent from the blogging scene a lot lately. I never said I would post every day, and this summer, I certainly have bee way less than that! Well, I'm here now.

The Rally for the Cure Golf Outing was so much fun! My first golf outing, if you remember. Our foursome, who really teamed up thru serendipity, have so much fun together! A foursome of mixed ages and talents. What fun! We surely didn't win anything, but friendship, and that's a big win!

I took some new pictures of Celtic Solstice that should be in focus. It was suggested by  Yvonne @ Quilting Jetgirl that I take this kind of pictures with my camera in Macro mode. I had to search for it on the camera, not obvious. But here are the pictures:

Will you look at that! You can see the quilting, and they're in focus! Thank you, Yvonne!
At any rate, I added a good bit of quilting. I've been debating if I need to add anything to the top square.
And now, my big question is, what to do with the borders. Here are some pictures of the borders:

The low volume triangles I thought of doing some sort of feather, but I also thought of using  a feather vine in the low volume plain border. (I like doing feathers.) But that seems too feathery. Too much of a good thing. Any suggestions? I could do some pebbles in the triangle border's blues? Ribbon candy in the tan border? Kinda wide tho. Need something for the green one too. sigh.

I can't wait to see how it looks when washed and crinkled.

Thanks,
Lin

EXTRA QUILTING

I said I decided Celtic Solstice needed more quilting on it than I had done. So I am going back and adding.

Here is a square as first done:

It's hard to even see the quilting, isn't it? Maybe you can see the definition in the stitched in the ditch parts.

Here is the second version:

Again, a little hard to see the quilting. Gotta have the angle just right, and I'm afraid I don't. It's also blurry in the foreground. All in all, I guess I'm not such a good photographer.

Thanks,
Lin

GEESE

We keep getting geese from the lake. I guess they have just had a swim and now they want to sun themselves on our grass. I have a certain objection to this: Goose poop! Those darn birds are not potty trained!

There are even more that I didn't get on the picture! In case you don't know it, they leave poodle-size poops.
I guess this makes a pretty poopy post today!

----

I am playing golf today in a Rally for the Cure outing. Our foursome is made up of women from the golf class I took in the spring, which is to say, none of us are very good. But we will have a great time!

This is my first golf outing.

Thanks,

Lin

MORE FLOWERS

Look at these cone flowers. See the pink one sticking its nose into the white ones? Sneaky little thing.

Russian Sage with cone flowers behind

Russian Sage in front of my weeping cherry tree

This is the bed that is filled with daffodils in the spring.

OK, that's enough flowers for today.

Thanks,
Lin

WISDOM--TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE

A few things I have learned while quilting Celtic Solstice:

We have heard to stop pushing the pedal when you stop moving your arms while quilting. I would alter that to take your foot off the pedal  when your arms are not moving. I have inadvertently rested my foot on the pedal *several* times and taken very crooked stitches. Grrr!

I have murdered any number of points when I pieced this big baby. I cut off lots of points  on my HSTs, etc. Is this "pointicide?" I'm embarrassed at how poor my piecing was. But not all of my blocks are *pointless.*
teehee

I need to check my work carefully *before* I get it half quilted!

You can see that the green frame around the pinwheels is not continuous. Big oops. Too late now, I just quilted it and moved on.

Interesting looking at the block like this. I think I will add some more intense quilting when I finish the blocks. They just look a little bare.

Do as I say, not as I do. Words to the wise.


I'm linking today with Pretty Bobbins,
 Lilie's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day
and Lilie's Quilts Small Blog Meet

Thanks,
Lin