Playing, Piecing and Quilting

Sometimes it's simply amazing to me that I can be retired, living a leisurely lifestyle in Florida, and yet be so busy! With breast cancer a thing of the past, and feeling more than 100 percent my old self, I've gotten into activities again. Perhaps too much so!

Last weekend our son, DIL and grandson visited. Little Man Austin turned three years old on Monday, so pretty much all of Saturday and Sunday was spent celebrating his birthday. 

Sunday afternoon, after we all worshipped together, he climbed on a stool to help me in the kitchen as we prepared a salad for our lunch. He seemed fascinated with peeling carrots, and I made sure he helped me as much as possible, realizing that when he helped, he was much more amenable to actually eating some of that salad, a rare occurrence given his tempermental eating habits.

Not being a cake-eater, or much for eating sweets in general, some of Nana's from-scratch brownies sufficed for a "cake" with three birthday candles. 

We're very grateful we could spend his birthday with him. Not surprisingly, of the several gifts we gave him, including Duplo blocks and a Captain Hook pirate ship, stickers were just about the most fun.

Quilting-wise, the past several days have been a hub-bub of activity. We had a good turn-out for our Central Florida MQG meeting, with more quilters than ever showing interest in our chapter... translating to paid membership. Karen and I who are the only two people leading our chapter at this point, are encouraged by expressions of interest, and offers of much-needed help.

During the meeting we shared our latest Bay Area Modern BOM blocks. Here are my own Snail's Trail... 

12-1/2" unfinished

... and Spring Mod blocks

12-1/2" unfinished

Perhaps it's a little sad to admit, but most of my best friends are in the blogging community. I don't know what a psychologist might say about that, but in the past four years I have met and become friends with some of the nicest, friendliest people in the blogosphere. One of those lovely persons is Karen who blogs at NanaGirlQuilts. Though Karen lives in Florida, as I do, we have yet to meet. We're both hoping a face-to-face meeting will happen in the not-too-distant future.

Reading Karen's blog a few weeks ago, I learned about an LED light that attaches to your sewing machine to make free-motion quilting - and all machine sewing, for that matter - easier to see. It's an Ecolux Light. At Karen's recommendation, I sucked it up and ordered the light for my Pfaff Grand Quilter, the machine on which I do my free-motion quilting. Now $80 poorer, I'm relieve to report that I'm happy to have made this investment. 

Here's a picture of my Pfaff with only the light that's built into the machine.

Here's what it looked like after installing the Ecolux Light. Big difference!

Unfortunately, I haven't touched FMQ (free motion quilting) since receiving my breast cancer diagnosis on March 4, so you can imagine that it's felt good, and different, to be back at machine quilting. I'm just finishing quilting on this 36" X 48" quilt to donate to Project Linus. 

This is the how it looks quilting without the Ecolux Light turned on.

And here it is with the Ecolux Light turned on. I don't at all regret making this purchase.

I've also been doing some online fabric shopping - and pretty soon I need to get to some sewing of said fabrics! - finally getting to spend my birthday gift certificates. Team Di who live in my favorite city in the entire world - Sydney, Australia (I am blessed to have visited Sydney four times) are responsible for these fabrics that are now in my quilting stash. Clockwise from the top: Zen Chic Commas/Asterisks, Lotta Jansdotter Glimma, Lizzy House Pearl Bracelets, Alice Kennedy Matilda Chevron, Lucie Summers Summersville Spring. I love them all and will happily play with them to create my next modern quilt. Thank you Di's!

If you happen to live near Salt Lake City, you have the opportunity to visit the Home Machine Quilter's Showcase going on these next few days - May 9-11. I've entered three quilts in this show. If you're able to attend, you'll see:

"Snowflake Medallion", blogged about here.

"Life is a Celebration: Nature", blogged about here.

And my most recent creation, made for the Madrona Road Challenge, "Belts and Buckles," blogged about here.

No "good lucks" are needed. I'm simply honored to be sharing my quilts with others. Linda