Rainbows Rainbows everywhere

I'm only slightly getting the hang of this. Actually, that's not true, I have not yet gotten the hang of the blog thing, but trying my hand when I get the chance. It's been a busy summer so far, and so beginning new endeavors has been tough. HOWEVER, in my navigating around Flickr I came across a group that very much caught my interest. Fabric designer Anna Maria Horner has helmed a charity project to aid her local community, mid-Tennessee flooding victims. She calls it Rainbow Around the Block, and is asking for donations of monochromatic (or "harmonious color") blocks, all 12 1/2" with seam allowance (12" finished) of any patchwork style. This was exactly the sort of project I've been needing to get back behind my sewing machine and standing at the cutting table and DOING something.

But for now it's off to work and maybe it will be a good day.

Crossing off the list

In between frequent trips to any of 4 new boxes of kleenex around the house, I have been able to get some finishing touches on a couple different projects today. I finished quilting the lap quilt I have been working on for my friends Annie and Russell's wedding gift. They got married a bit over a year ago, just before he deployed. Now he's back in the states, and they're doing a renewal ceremony in a couple of months. The ceremony in June was always my target for having the quilt completed. For once I will have made my target!

And once the binding was stitched down on that quilt, I decided to run with the walking foot and get the binding on yet another quilt which has been hanging around for well over a year just waiting for that last little detail. Since it has no specific destination or recipient it got moved to the back burner, as they so often do...

Next step for the day is to continue cutting down my scraps to uniform sizes, while picking out fabrics to start yet another wedding gift. And while I've been doing all this cutting and stitching, J has been studiously working in the darkroom. For a while we had a battle of the operas going on between our two radios - he playing some classical opera with soprano diva belting it out, while I had The Who's Tommy - a Rock Opera going. To each his own, right?

Starting up

I can't say that I've never blogged, but it was long before anything like today's blog sites existed. I've been thinking about it recently, however, and seeing some other wonderful and active blogs has inspired me to give it a shot.

I've been relatively active on Flickr since last fall, when my boyfriend J brought to my attention a call for entries for a photo show here in town. We both submitted to the show, and both had pieces accepted (yay!). But what that show did for me more than get me rolling again on producing my photos (it was actually quite a frustrating experience figuring out how to print a traditional color print in this day and age of digital) was to introduce me to a whole new community through Flickr - the Quilters. Though there is no question that photography is a love of mine, and is part of my genetic code, it is quilting that is my inspiration. And now that Flickr community has led me to consider joining a quilting guild, something that honestly had never crossed my mind. The chapter's second meeting is coming up next week, and I plan to attend and just see what it's all about. I'm excited and nervous, but mostly excited.