FLORIDA



Sorry about the delay in posts. You faithful viewers were probably wondering what was going on. Well, we decided to make a much over due visit to my aunt in Florida. Such gracious hosts, it was a very relaxing place to be. We also bit the bullet and went to Disney for a day....kids had a blast! Us, not so much :)

So anyway, I am back and very much needing to return to my work but of course am finding other diversions such as; laundry, cleaning, organizing etc! Once the dust settles...literally....I will work, I swear!

BACK TO WINTERSTALE

So here is the Winterstale quilt that I am finally getting back to. I am trying my hand at freehand machine stitching and am having a devil of a time working on tension. It is great practice though. I have double batting inside due to the fact that I have a layer of needlepoint fabric inside and had to conceal it.

I have double batting inside due to the fact that I have a layer of needlepoint fabric inside and had to conceal it.

You can also see the markings from the pen I used to mark it up. This will disappear after it is washed....one hopes!
After all this stitching I am thinking of doing a bit more embroidery and I am going to being doing a painting of a young girl and then stitching it on in trapunto. Tons to do but it is getting there.
This is a detail of some of the stitching and needlepoint.

MINI WINNIES

Well, for practice I made up a couple mini quilts for my girls. I tried different techniques on each quilt. On my first attempt I did not match up the squares just right. On this first one I tried stitching diagonally across the squares, intersecting at the middle and creating an "x" shape with the stitching.



On the second, I choose to practice some free stitching, meandering and spirals on some squares. In the middle I wanted to try my hand at stitching parellel lines. I like the effect of using these different techniques. It made this quilt much stiffer then the other. I have enjoyed seeing how the different stitching really changes the textural and visual quality of each quilt.



The last image is a detail of the parellel lines.



So you can see I am learning. The first photo show my lack of precision and the wobbly edges of the quilt. In the second you can still see some wobbliness but, improved. The parellel lines are not perfectly parellel but getting there.

RUNNING THE 10K




I know this entry is a bit off track but I had to boast :)

I have met my goal and run the Richmond Ukrops 10K. After months of being sick and discovering I had a mold allergy I decided I needed to do something to get my body healthy. The first step was to sign up for this race. I have run in the past and felt it was something I could do without too much fuss. I stuck it through a very cold winter and ran the race on my birthday, March 31st. It was a beautiful day and a ton of fun. A crowd of 20,000 plus runners turned out that day and ran a great race!