Thursday, October 30, 2008

Silent Screams

Woohoo! It's only Thursday and I'm posting again. :-) Before I get to the screaming part of the post... Sunday midday we went for a walk at Lake Johnson Park in Raleigh.


We walked the east loop of the trail, about 3 1/2 miles. The weather was absolutely perfect. The dam and spillway are in the distance, through the gap.


North Carolina has brown lakes, from the clay soil. Up close the water is very brown, but in the photos or from a distance the water is blue. The water was very reflective as well. We walked across the bridge in the middle of the lake (parallel to the road).


People were fishing off the bridge and out on boats. I had to laugh at all the fishing paraphernalia hung up on the power lines near the bridge. It was all the way along!


This is the spillway at the end of the lake, just over halfway on our walk. Not a whole lot of "spilling" going on at the moment.


This is the view from the dam, back across to the walking bridge (through the gap).


This is interesting. I have no idea it's exact purpose, but again, the reflections in the water make a nice picture.

A really nice walk. Next time we might rent a boat. They have pedal boats, Jon boats, canoes, kayaks and Sunfish. Fun!

Now for the screaming.... This is my "Silent Scream." Don'tcha love it?


My sewing room was making me feel like screaming. It's only been a year and a half and I'm still rearranging the furniture, trying to get it "perfect". :-) Thank goodness The Tramp likes to humor me. Together we moved the furniture and yesterday I sorted everything out and put it all back on shelves and in drawers. It's a long narrow room which makes it darned awkward but I think I've finally got it sussed. This photo is from the living room doorway.


And this is from the other end.


Everything looks so neat! The Singer is kind of homeless at the moment but I can easily move the cabinet when I want to use it. My Old Tobacco Road quilt is sitting on top of it, all ready for me to take to the Karolina Kwilters' Sew-in this weekend. My plan is to get the borders done.


Most of my African Violets are blooming at the moment so I brought some into the room to enjoy.


And, joy of joys, I finally found a place to put my Peanuts stuff. :-) Nothing special, but I get a kick out of it, especially Lucy.


One of the reasons for moving furniture was to take advantage of my tables in such a way as to make machine quilting easier. Now I have a huge space to spread quilts out on. And if I'm not quilting the table is still available for painting, beading, clay or what have you.


Yes, that's my Orange Crush in the machine. I'm finally getting it quilted. I'm still learning to manage all the fabric. The actual quilting isn't a problem it's getting the large and heavy quilt to move as needed. I was getting pretty frustrated with it. There is some seriously wonky stitching here!


But I felt much better when I turned it over to look at the back. The wonkiness is not so awfully visible and it should be even better after I wash it.


I also used water soluble thread for the first time, to stabilize it. Nice! I still have to do the borders. Maybe tomorrow. :-)


Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Happy Halloween

I just received photos of some Halloween fun Eldest Daughter and LZF had this evening. Sigh.... I think I need a pumpkin of my own.





Pretty cool!

Saturday, October 25, 2008

As usual....

As usual I let too many days go by, and then I have too much to write about all at once. Thank goodness for photos or I'd never remember what we've been doing! LOL

Last weekend the weather was cool but sunny...in other words...gorgeous. On Sunday The Tramp mowed lawns and then we lit the burn pile. While I waited for him I brought out my stitchery and sat in the sun for a while with the dogs. I finished the first of twelve redwork Santas.



Ivy, per usual, worked on her doggy calendar poses.



I gazed at the trees and the stunningly beautiful blue sky.


Then I moseyed over to check out the pecan tree.


And we have pecans bursting out of their pods!


What fun for a "city kid" to start harvesting her first crop! LOL


I also re-treated the fire ant nest in the compost pile. Yick!


And found more nests are still appearing. :-(


Then watched the burning. All in all, a day full of pleasant accomplishment.


Monday, Mom, Dad and I went to the State Fair to check out the needlework exhibits.


I fully realize the State Fair is not a quilt show but we were very disappointed by the quilt display nonetheless. The quilts were hung on rug racks. Even the little wall hangings! We couldn't get close enough to see them properly or discover who made them and what won in what category. I was particularly dismayed that the two big "rug rack" displays meant that a worker was grabbing the sides of the quilts and yanking or frankly "flinging" the racks along to show the quilts to visitors. All day long for eleven days! I'm sure glad one of my quilts wasn't up there! :-(

I know the point was to make it possible to see the large quilts...and it turns out I know many of the ribbon winners from the quilt guild but I had no idea since nothing was labeled. It seemed hardly fair to the quilters who worked so hard.

This week I got my backing put together and got my Orange Crush mystery quilt marked and pin basted. Big job!


I also appliqued and quilted a cute autumn wall hanging. The pattern is by Joined at the Hip.


Last night we went to see Walking With Dinosaurs at the RBC Center. Wow.



I took a few pictures with my cell phone. These are the best of them.







And lastly...today I went to an all day workshop with Lyric Kinard on fabric embellishment. Lyric lives locally and managed to fit us in before she leaves to teach at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. Lucky us! We had a great time. The class included stamp carving, stamping, foiling, photo transfer, stenciling with freezer paper shapes, screen printing and beading. The samples were fun to experiment with.


I particularly enjoyed learning to carve a stamp from a plastic eraser.



And then had even more fun starting a small art quilt. The stamping and foiling is done and now I need to do the beading.

Gosh I'm tired! G'night.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Travels with Barack

No matter what your politics are, she's a heck of a photographer.

The story: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/travels-with-barack.html

The photographs: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0810/callie-bp.html (click on "show more images" at the bottom of each page)