Week in Review

Lots of little things happened this week --

I've been working on my Wicked Challenge (Cherrywood Hand Dyed Fabrics) as much as possible, squeezing it in here and there.  Not many pictures to share as I've been trying my best to keep it a secret.  A girls gotta have some sort of mystery right?  But, here is what I can share:

That's me stitching around the applique pieces.  What you can't see (and this picture doesn't show well), is that instead of just stitching my appliques, I'm also adding trapunto -- I'm stitching the edges down to a high-loft poly batting -- kind of killing two birds with one stone.  I then cut away the excess batt and when I'm ready to quilt it will be pre-trapunto'd.  I really just skipped a step, making it easier in my world.

I am so excited about this challenge!  I can't wait to see all the entries, I'm sure some will be similar just due to the subject matter, but I am sure they are all going to be awesome.  Hopefully I'll be quilting this sometime next week and then binding and blocking and then shipping it off to Cherrywood.  I can't wait until after the due date (August 1) to be able to share it with all of you -- don't worry, I've been taking lots of pictures!

And on the business side I managed to finish a couple of client quilts, you can check them out on my other blog:  http://creativelongarmquilting.blogspot.com/

I took some amazing pictures for a new quilt - can't share them yet, but hopefully soon.  I've also been messing around with the macro lens feature on the new camera - what fun!  Here's a couple pics of my orchid using the macro lens:

And this weeks latest trip to the garden center resulted in my snapping this picture of an awesome hibiscus.  Strangely the fluorescent lights made the colors so intense, perhaps because it was at dusk and other than those lights it was pretty dark.  For whatever reason it was beautiful.  No, I didn't buy it.

We made our purchases and came home.  I posted a pic of the flower on Instagram and Facebook and people loved it.  I couldn't stop looking at my picture -- it was all I could think about.  So, the next morning I ran back to the garden center and grabbed it.  It is called Spin the Bottle -- cool name for an awesome flower.  It's technical name is: hibiscus rosa-sinensis (for all you horticultural-type peeps). So here's a pic of the tag and the plant -- of course, when I went back to get it they had just watered so the coloring is slightly different -- I'm thinking those fluorescent lights had a big impact on how the colors photographed.  We'll have to wait and see, once it's planted I'll be grabbing a few more pictures of it -- perhaps a quilt as well, we'll have to wait and see...

Oh, almost forgot!  My quilts were shipped off to the Minnesota Quilters Show which is next week (June 12-14, 2014).  If you go to the show, you'll see Down the Rabbit Hole and also Thought Process.  If you see them, snap a picture and share it with me!  If you want to read about the stories behind the quilts, feel free to click on the links.  

The biggest part of my week I spent working on class outlines.  No, not just the description part, that is difficult enough, but an actual outline for me to stay on track and make sure my students truly benefit from the class.  This is crazy-difficult for me, you have no idea.  I wish I could just teach a class called Pick My Brain - just questions, answers, and let me show you. That would work so much better for me.  Ahhhh... I really hate the left-brain stuff, it drains me! So, you're probably wondering about the cause of of this worry -- there is big news coming up about some super-cool teaching events in my future -- I will share it soon, oh and I'm also scheduling more private lessons soon -- info coming up and emailing those that requested!

Not a super exciting week, kinda normal for me.  Hoping your week was fantastic!