York County and the Eclipse

On Monday and Tuesday this week I was in Rock Hill, South Carolina with York County Quilters. During the day Monday and Tuesday, I taught domestic machine quilting (both walking foot and free motion) in six-hour workshops.

A lot of this was happening...

... with a total of 38 quilters in the two workshops. I appreciated how this quilter tried to quilt a palm!

On Monday, the class agreed to shorten our lunch break so we would have enough time to go outdoors for the eclipse. At our location the eclipse was at 99.1% at 2:41 pm. Several of the quilters had brought along solar eclipse glasses, and were willing to share - as I hoped! I sure appreciated that!

I had only my Canon S100 point-and-shoot for picture-taking. This is what I got when I just aimed the camera toward the sky. 

However, when I put the glasses over the camera lens, the picture was much more distinguishable. 

Nice enough, but even when the eclipse reached 99.1%, my camera wasn't good enough to capture the moon blocking the sun.

One of the quilters used a hole-punch to make a perfect circle in a piece of aluminum foil.

Really, it was all quite fascinating. I feel privileged to have seen it. And it's remarkable too in that this is as dark as it got where we were. It was surprising to me that the sky wasn't darker with only .9% of the sun shining. Mark your calendars for the next eclipse on April 8, 2024! It will have a southwest to northeast course.

Monday evening was the York County Quilter's guild meeting with 80 in attendance.  

President Jane (in the blue top) was my friendly hostess for the four days/three nights I was there. She was generous to host me in her home. And boy, did we hit it off! So many things to talk about as she previously worked for Bernina, and YLI thread.  This whole event wouldn't have happened if Teresa (far right in the striped top) wasn't one of my blog readers! She's the guild VP, and is responsible for workshops. She too is friendly and made sure everything was pulled together for my two workshops. I owe heaps of thanks to Jane and Teresa - and really, all of York County Quilters. You made me feel very welcome!

York County Quilters are a generous bunch too, making shorts and pillowcase dresses by the hundreds for Little Dresses/Britches for Africa.

Since last year I've been hanging on to these six pillowcase dresses, meaning to make more to add to the pile. But rather than wait, as soon as I returned home, I boxed them up and sent them to York County Quilters. 

We traveled by car to/from South Carolina (Dan went on to visit a friend in Cary, North Carolina) and Hogan went along. He travels well!

Back at home on the 23rd, we had rain in the early evening. After the eclipse phenomenon, it was almost as surreal to watch the rain fall... while the sun was shining!

Sunny Rain, 16 seconds

I mean, I could have been out there tanning too! Bazaar.

Saturday, August 26 marks our 45th wedding anniversary. Gosh, we were such kids in 1972!

Linda