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.

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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!

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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