The New Braunfels Area Quilt Guild –my quilt guild– is having its biennial show later this month. I am so looking forward to it. I am signed up to be a White Glove Lady- my favorite job as I get to hang out at the show looking at all of the quilts, handling all of the quilts with my white gloves and chatting with the guests. What a great way to spend an afternoon.

Raffle Quilt

In the meantime I am keeping busy working on quilts for the show. We have many talented quilters in the guild and I feel honored to be working on the quilts with them.

I’m sure I’ve already shown you the feathers on this border. But, hey, feathers are always worth a second look, right?! And here are a few of the blocks that go with the border:

The many varied batiks are beautiful but were a real challenge for me. The backing was a dense batik too so I was having an impossible time getting the stitch tension right. I finally broke down and bought a can of spray silicone. It really does work! I sprayed it right on to the quilt and the tension was a lot more even and consistent. So there is another tool I will be keeping up my sleeve, or rather on my shelf.

I bought this new toy tool for my quilting machine. It is a magnifying glass that clamps on to the machine and then I can position it where ever I want. Too cool! Now I can actually see what I am doing!

I’m going to have to develop some nifty neat-o microstippling now!!

It is so funny. On the warning label it says Fire Hazard! Do not leave glass in direct sunlight! I guess I’d better tell my boys, “No, you cannot borrow my magnifying glass to go out and burn ants!”

For those of you that might be interested, here is a link.

We did a week’s worth of shopping today and were able to fit it all into 4 bags, except for the milk and juice bottles; they are easier to carry without a bag anyway. And I found the bags easier to carry because the handles are long enough to go over my shoulder.The checkout clerk was not too happy with me though. It seems that the reusable bags are harder to pack. Too bad I think that she will get over it.

I never did count how many plastic bags I used to use, but I would estimate 12- 15 every week. So in a month’s time I may save 53 plastic bags from the dump! Yea! I’m going to stick the bags back in the van so that I won’t forget them… theoretically.

Now, what to do about all of those plastic bottles…

YUMM-YUMM!!

I’ve been trying change some of my habits in an effort to help out the environment. One of my un-green habits is using all of those plastic bags every week when I go grocery shopping. I use a ridiculous amount of plastic.

The stores around here sell reusable bags but they all have their logos on them. I don’t like to be a walking advertisement for someone, especially when I paid for the bag! Now if they gave me the bag, I might consider advertising for them… but probably not.

So… orphan blocks to the rescue! I bought a couple of the logo-bearing bags yesterday and found a couple of orphan blocks to cover up those logos! Too cool! After making a few more of these I should be all set.

And… if I can just remember to take them with me when I go shopping!

One of my neighbors made this King size quilt to remind her of her cruises in the Caribbean. Didn’t she do a great job of choosing the colors?

For the quilting I used Superior’s Rainbows thread- the color is Montego Bay- and Jodi Beamish’s Water World panto.

The Rainbows threads are so wonderful. I love working with them. They make the quilting look great every time.

Just a couple of photos of a quilt I quilted on recently. Is there anything harder to photograph than black thread on black fabric?

Note to self: Start saving pennies to buy some photography equipment.

What have I been doing lately? One thing is that I am reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. WOW! What a good read. The story line is good but what I really love about it is the vocabulary. Ms Bronte has such a command of words. She uses very descriptive words so that there is no misunderstanding what her meaning is. She uses words such as lugubrious, confabulation, imposing, phlegmatic and pith.

OK, so a few of them I had to look up in the dictionary to see what the meaning was, but once I read the definition there was no misunderstanding!

I’m only half way through Jane Eyre but already I can tell that I will be reading it again.