Presentation, and Quilting

On Monday I visited the 126-member Piecemakers Quilt Guild of Brandon, in Brandon, Florida near Tampa, about 90 minutes from me. I was invited to join seven of them for a restaurant dinner, followed by their meeting that began at 7 pm. Sixty-seven members were in attendance.

I had a good time sharing my Powerpoint presentation with tips and suggestions about domestic machine quilting, followed by a trunk show of ten quilts. Piecemakers quilters were an attentive group, and asked good questions afterward.

 

At home I've been practicing what I preach - domestic machine quilting. Quilting is all I've done this week as set myself to finish quilting this "Ring Me" quilt. I'm still calling it Ring Me for want of a better name, but it is an adaptation of Amanda Jean Nyberg's quilt in her book No Scrap Left Behind.

Mine has now been washed to remove any residual purple disappearing ink.

I was dismayed to see that a couple fabrics bled in spite of the fact that I pre-wash all my fabrics, and a color catcher was in the wash.

These may have been some bits of hand-dyed fabrics I bought many years ago. All I can do is shrug my shoulders. This quilt doesn't have a home to go to so it really doesn't matter.

I've been auditioning bindings and expect to finish that task in time for Show and Tell at Monday's Central Florida MQG meeting. The middle one might be selected.

Since finishing the quilting on Ring Me, I've moved on to quilting my selvage/selvedge quilt. I used my clear acrylic sheet and dry erase markers to try on different designs, and settled on this one. I'll use an arc ruler for ruler quilting.

I will machine quilt through the pinwheel and selvages with a 90 needle and 50-weight Aurifil thread, changing thread colors to match selvage units.

I finished listening to another book. The audiobook reader, Erin Bennett, was excellent! The Winemakers by Jan Moran follows a romantic plot to uncover family secrets a wine-making mother has kept from her daughter, Carina Rosetta. A present-day (1956) trip to Italy by Carina helps her begin unearthing truths that must be faced at Mille Étoile  her mother's Napa winery. The part of this book I most enjoyed was authentic winery, grape-growing, wine-blending, and wine-tasting descriptions. I wanted to believe that Mille Étoile was a real winery I could visit. Linda's Score: 3.8/5.



This week I walked Hogan near a neighborhood pond and saw this four to five foot-long alligator. Everyone says that every Florida body of water contains an alligator (or more), and it's true!

Linda