Here’s what I have been doing for the last almost a week. This is my donation to the SAQA Foot Square 2nd annual online fund raising auction which goes live November 10. You can see the entries here.

“Don’t Piss Off The Fairies” is 12 x 12″, of course, and was great fun to do. Shopping for p-o’d fairy flesh fabric was a bit challenging but I think I found the perfect piece of batik. I just love searching for the right fabric! I found that wonderful background in PA while I was there. She is entirely pieced and quilted by machine.

I am having computer problems again and cannot access email on this computer. I can get email on my old computer, but I can’t do much else online on that one. So I read email over there then come here to follow up and do other stuff, which may or may not work because there is something wrong with this computer! My computer guru is temporarily unavailable wouldn’t you know, so everything takes longer than it should.

We have found the last of the morels for this year, I’m sure. They are starting to look a little dried out and so we left some to hopefully encourage next year’s crop. Here’s how they look growing – hard to see sometimes!

Yesterday I said you could see Picklefish and Seahorses in the Gallery. Wrong! I sure thought they were there. Turns out I don’t even have a digital shot of Seahorses! So I will have to remedy that; in the meantime here is Picklefish:

While making Pickledish I noticed that it could easily be translated into fish and those vertical lines could become seaweed and sparkles of light. This one is heavily hand quilted with hand appliqued fish and shells.

Some photos from my walk:

it looks like it will be a good year for wild strawberries, each of those white dots will be a wonderful berry when the time comes – probably while we are in Alaska.

Multiple blossoms on every plant promise a nice crop of luscious fruit!

I always so enjoy the Dogwoods when I go to Kentucky in the spring, but I think I tend to overlook the beauty of our own native redbuds when their blooms sprinkle the woods and roadsides with magenta.

I haven’t been doing much quilty stuff lately. With the weather so nice I am working outside more. There was a nice machine quilting class Saturday that I enjoyed teaching and now I’m getting things ready for the Rodeo Days exhibit next Saturday.
Yesterday I shipped “Watermelon Wine” to Florida for the I-4 Corridor Exhibit and must prepare some more entries to submit before I leave for Alaska.

News just arrived that “Picklefish” and “Seahorses” were among the 26 quilts chosen to hang in the “IQF Long Beach “Surf’s Up” exhibit this summer!

It’s really starting to feel like Spring! The first batch of morels have been picked and there are some of the biggest ones we’ve ever gotten! Those big ones are about 6-7″. Yum!

This is a sure sign of spring along with the asparagus and the blooming redbuds. It’s a beautiful time. I’ve been doing some rock work, making a space for the hammock in the shade garden. And planting and transplanting things as the weather, being cool with rain predicted, is perfect for that. And pulling weeds. Always, there are WEEDS!

On the quilting scene, I’m doing some drawing and planning for my donation to the SAQA One Foot Square thing. More on that later if I come up with anything.

Yesterday I posted the two newest works to the Gallery pages on the website – Burlingame Fire and Nasturtiums. You’ve seen the teaser shots here in the blog, but they have been accepted, Burlingame Fire to IQA’s Tactile Architecture and Nasturtiums to In Full Bloom, so now you can see the full shots by clicking on Gallery on the left.

In the meantime I need to go out and put down some mulch before the rain comes today.

Yikes! I’ve been home for a week without posting. You know, I was afraid this would happen when I gave in and started a blog. Sometimes there is just not room on the plate for one more thing!! I did try but my camera was not communicating with my computer. Turned out to be a cable thing.

Paducah and AQS was even better than I remembered. The new space is wonderful. The town turns out to welcome the quilters and there is much to see. Go if you can!

Highlights were the Quilt Museum, connecting once again with the wonderful past winners and seeing the new exhibits; Hancocks (oh, oh, the first visit I found NOTHING to buy! I worried about me. Am I getting jaded? But the second time I did fine! I’m OK); the dogwoods, it’s a lucky year when they are blooming; the food! – Max’s Brick Oven for the artisan pizza that I dream about during the rest of the year is still cranking them out. We had to go there TWICE!; the vendors, I came home with 26 new yards of fabric that I didn’t really need – and I was worried about me?; Ricky Tims’ concert was wonderful, see it if you get the chance, we stood in line for over an hour but were rewarded with very good seats. Rain threatened but didn’t materialize until minutes before the doors opened and in the meantime we were entertained watching the parade of prom couples in their tuxs and gorgeous gowns. There were so many beautiful quilts in the show to see and the quality of the work was amazing. I was disappointed in the way my entry was hung. I sent it folded in thirds, well padded, right sides out so there would be no creases, but apparently it was unpacked folded in half right sides in, and placed at the bottom of a pile for a week judging by the nasty crease right through the middle! Mine was not the only one that looked that way. It’s sad when the work is not respected.

Here’s what 26 yards of fabric looks like! Wish you could see the good stuff that’s underneath!!