ABM Innova longarm quilting machine & triangles quilt

Here I am, working on my new machine. I decided to just make some quilted yardage for my first project, as I have never worked with a longarm before. I'm making insulated grocery bags with the yardage.

It's tons of fun. A whole new craft. I need more practice-It's a good thing that I have 8 tops waiting to be quilted.
Ashley had a few tips to give me. She's fascinated, but wants to be on top of the quilt while I'm working-not a good idea!

After the one practice piece, I decided to do a quilt. This is my cuddle up on the couch quilt -70" X 72".

Close up.

Another closeup.


Back view.

Closeup of back.

Fiber pirates baggo 2008

I belong to a Yahoo group known as Fiber Pirates. We had a Baggo challenge. For those who aren't familiar with baggo's, the rules are as follows: You fill a gallon zip lock bag with an assortment of fabrics, trims, embellishments, etc that you would like in a quilt & mail it to a coordinator. The coordinator sends you back one from someone else, you make a quilt using as much as you want from the baggo, adding to it if necessary, post pictures & when the sender of the baggo claims it, you send them the finished piece. It's a great way to get someone else's artwork made with fabrics that you love. Here's what I started out with: I started out by making 3 pieced rings & then I realized that one of them didn't go with the others, so I decided to make 2 quilts. I named the first one "Red star & Planets".

Ashley helped me to quilt the second one. She loves the BSR on my Bernina. Take note of her perfect control of the quilt! Machine quilting can be exhausting!
After it was quilted, I added embellishments by hand. I love to work outside at our camp.

Here's the second quilt. Charlie came up with the name-"A Galaxy Far Far Away." Here's a closeup of one of the pieced stars:
Now I get to see who to send them to.

A deer & bears

I changed the angle of the camera & got lucky. 3 very good pictures in this download

Look at what we just got

A new 2007 leftover Jeep Patriot. What did we trade in? Nothing. We wanted to keep both the Hummer & the Dodge Ram. I just decided that we needed a "bring home the groceries" runaround vehicle that would use a bit less gas. The Jeep has a 2.4 liter 4 cylinder engine. It's a 4x4 of course. I've never had a Jeep before. The color is called "light khaki metallic" It seems to change from silver to gold depending on the lighting.
No, I'm not afraid to get my new Jeep dirty. We hauled a few logs. The back cargo area is not carpeted, but has a vinyl nonslip surface-a detail that I heartily approve of.

Dogwood climbers

This Red Dogwood tree was planted about 50 years ago. Last month, I drove to my parents' house with my niece & her 2 children. Rowan couldn't wait to climb the tree that she remembered from her last visit. Here she is-as happy as...a kid in a tree.
Later, her 2 cousins, Rebecca & Liam came over & joined her in the tree.

In the top of the tree is Rowan's big brother , Rubin. Just after this picture, a dead branch broke sending him plummeting towards the ground. His legs caught on a limb just long enough to flip him upside down & he landed on his face. Poor kid. The next day he had a black eye & a scraped & swollen cheek.

Animal self portraits-bear & deer

I think that we finally found a bear who knows how to take pictures. Of course, I did need to wade through many butt pictures to get this one, but it's the best picture so far. Mona Lisa eat your heart out. It looks like we also have a Cinnamon Bear-a not too common color variation on the black bear. We think 4-5 different bears visit our camp. (That's why I have a potty chair for night use.)
Here's a deer who is beginning to get the hang of photography.

A bear with a halo?

More game cam pictures:

He looks like a regular black bear, but...
Wait, is that a halo?
Or is Scotty beaming him up?
We got a lot of pictures like this. I guess the food was too close to the camera.

More game cam pics

We set the camera up near our cabin. Look, I'm a turkey farmer.
This guy would like to eat my turkeys. He's either a large gray fox or a coyote.


This looks like a "deer in the headlights". Check the extra set of eyes on the left.

This picture brought tears to my eyes. It looks like our dearly departed Al. He's been gone for almost 2 years, but we still miss him. He's buried about 50 feet from where the picture was taken. We've been calling this a picture of Al's ghost. Al loved the cabin. We always called it his happy hunting grounds.

Kitty tent & snow

It's very hard to get a good picture of Bill Bailey in her tent. She moves away from it when I open the door. This is a picture through the storm door which had some condensation on it. I made this tent with waxed nylon on the outside, 1" foam rubber for the middle layer & wool on the inside. For the cold weather, I added an old heated kitty bed that we had bought for Boney's arthritis. She sleeps in it at night when it's cold, but this was the first time that we saw her in the tent during the daytime. With 6+ inches of snow on the ground, she decided to skip her normal daytime routine. Snow in the back yard.

Birthday card

I made this as a birthday card for my friend & teacher, Pamela Allen. She is known for carrying a fan for hot flashes. On the back, the card reads "Happy birthday from one of your fans. The front of the quilt is all Dupioni silk. It's 10" x 15".