Cherry Blossoms

Visitors flock to the Tidal Basin every year to see the cherry blossoms in all their glory.  This year was no exception, in spite of the blooms being 2 weeks early due to the unusually warm weather.  Afraid that I would not get to see them before they were gone, I made the trek Friday after work and got some photos as the sun was setting.  While I didn't get to linger long, it was worth the trip.

Playing with Baby

Today I finally took some time to play with my new Babylock.  I have a small quilt from a Karen Eckmeier workshop 2 years ago that needed to be finished.  It needed some more quilting and binding & sleeve added, so I pulled it off the design wall and got to work.  I wanted to get the binding on, but realized I hadn't quilted the border, so that was the first step. I learned how to wind the bobbin and set the machine up for free motion stitching.  After quilting the border, I went ahead and added the binding and a hanging sleeve.  Then I decided to add some more quilting to the landscape.  I have a bit more quilting to do and maybe some more embellishment, but it's closer to being done, AND I got to play with the machine!  Happy with my purchase so far - lots more to explore.

Screen Printing Class

Yesterday, my friend Elizabeth and I taught our thermofax screen printing class for the Virginia Consortium of Quilters. We had a great time with an enthusiastic bunch of students who printed their little hearts out.  Here are a few shots of them in action.

New BabyLock

My new BabyLock sewing/embroidery machine arrived today.  It took a few hours to unbox it, set it up, check out the parts, figure out the threading and do some test stitching.  That's as far as I got.

Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival

Enjoyed several days at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show last week.  There were lots of wonderful quilts - here are some of my favorites.  Enjoy!

Going Dotty - Finished!

Back on Jan. 2, I posted pictures of the Dotty challenge in my local guild.  This past weekend I quilted it, and added the binding, label, and hanging sleeve.  Tonight I finished the hand stitching.  Here is the finished piece, ready for the unveiling at Wednesday's guild meeting.

Bird on Pine Branch

In my last post I shared pictures of another screen printed mini quilt in process. Here is the (almost) finished Bird on a Pine Branch. Both the pine branch and the bird were printed with thermofax screens made from original photos.  I took the photo of the pine; my friend Elizabeth took the photo of hte bird on her trip to South Africa. All it needs is to have the binding stitched down on the back. I'm happy with how this one turned out.  This is also my entry for the January Color Palette Challenge at Patchwork Times. (The January entries appear at the bottom of the February challenge information.)