New hobby

Last summer I decided to get a little more serious about my photography. I took a great class at Watkins Art Institute in Nashville and learned a lot about my camera. I now shoot 95% of the time in manual or out of program mode. Tremendous difference in my ability.

I decided this summer to continue increasing my photography skills by going out and taking pics every other week. I also decided to learn how to knit. I had a private session at sit and stitch this week and started a dish cloth.



My two favorite photo models decided to bring me my knitting last night. I woke up to find this in my bedroom door this morning. Luckily all they did to the knitting was add natural fibers! LOL I hope to finish it today and I'm headed out to take pics at the Belly Rubs Basset Waltz. Going to rub some basset bellies.


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Summer Begins

My first official week off from school and I have rested. Wednesday, I met my sister and bil for dinner. We went to a new to me hibachi restaurant.  Dinner was great and I love spending time with my family. We really need to do it more!

I took the day Thursday and went to two local nature areas. I didn't know they were nearby, both were glades and had a rare species of Tennessee coneflowers. These flowers had been on the endangered species list until last fall. They are making a come back in these two glades. Only a few were in bloom but next weekend is supposed to be the peak. I may go back and take more pictures.

I have decided I am going to try knitting. I hope to go Thursday to sit and stitch at the Stitchin' Post and get a beginner crash course! We'll see how I do. I really need another hobby like a need a hole in the head!

I also have a few quilting and stitching projects planned. Several babies are coming and I been surfing the net and going through my patterns. I will post progress soon.

Home Ownership

Ugh! It really has its ups and downs. Two weeks ago I had a fuse blown in the central unit. Came home from work and started making dinner, then I noticed the house was starting to get warmer. That first night was very warm and I was lucky, the second day was much cooler. Sleeping was much easier. 48 hours later, I had a new fuse and cool air blowing.

Tonight I came home to a notice from the water department that my usage had tripled and to look for a leak. I thought I'd heard something running but when I checked the crawl space I didn't see or hear anything. I had washed the porch a week ago and knew I'd used a lot of water. But this afternoon when I went into the crawl space I was hit by an obvious sound of water running.
Luckily, I have an awesome family who comes to my rescue. Between the boys, one came to my house and shut off my water and attempted repair. I'm afraid it will have to wait until tomorrow when parts can be purchased. But it sure is nice to have talented friends and family.
I'm glad the kitties can be comfortable!
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Mother's Day

First, let me say happy mother's day to the few people who read my blog.

Today is a bittersweet day. I'm happy to celebrate my mom this day. She was such a wonderful lady. She was loving, kind, resourceful, funny, and caring. Mom taught me so much about life, how to love completely, laugh deeply, and squeeze every drop from the lemons we receive.



She and dad traveled all over the US. Dad's job carried them everywhere. I would visit and be amazed at how quickly she would know all the back roads and shortcuts. She would drive us all around for hours just to take photos or see a historical area. Carmen and I both now have a love of photography she instilled.

Mom, great-grand mother Hattie, and her mother passed down the gift of sewing. They were all wonderful seamstresses. G G Grandmother provided for her family by tailoring suits that were then shipped down river to Nashville and sold in shops there. I have a love of quilting today because of these moms in my family.

Mom showered us with love, she could lift what I thought were dark days. I didn't know how dark the days could be until we lost dad and then a few short years later her. But I know Carm and I grieve as deep as we were loved.

I miss her so.

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Reading more than blogging

I realized, as I caught up on google reader, that I've read more blog posts than I've written recently.

Today, I went to our first service at church and then came home. Usually I serve all three services in the media booth. It was quite the change to get home by 10:30.

I changed clothes and hit the porch. It desperately needed washing.





After a good cleaning, it took forever to dry! It was 80+ degrees and there were still damp spots at 5:30. I took time to finish my bible study on the porch and then grilled a delicious dinner.

It was a great Sunday!

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Fun Friday!

Several years ago I found a pattern in a quilting magazine that I decided I had to make! It was for a purse and it used dishtowels. I purchased the necessary parts and pieces, but life happened and I never made the purses.

Today, I was cleaning out the shelves in the garage and found more handles I had purchased along with a couple of towels. I continued putting things away and purging others. I found a couple of dozen quilting magazines that needed to be purged. So after finishing the shelf I was on and putting things away, I sat down and went through the magazines.

I was diligent in keeping magazines that had two or more patterns in them and then pulled patterns from those that only had one pattern. As I went through them, I found the original pattern for the purses. After I finished with the magazines, I sat down at the sewing machine and finished two purses.



The taupe one had issues, the towels were shorter than the pattern called for and it made for a tight fit for the handle. But I loved how they turned out.


Fun Day!!!

Things I've Learned

Today, I decided to work on a quilt I started the winter after mom passed away. I learned several things. First, I shouldn't piece anything complicated when I'm depressed. The blocks aren't the best I've ever sewn, as you can see even when I put the rows together I made constant mistakes. At the time I didn't realized I was in the state I was in. I was trying to get back to normal and thought this class would help.



Second, I've done more unsewing than sewing today. I also shouldn't work with biased edges. As I recall working on this quilt in class, a few people commented about the bias. But I was in a zombie zone and didn't think I was having problems at the moment. But now that I'm working on the final part of the quilt, I realize that I had major issues with all of the biased edges. 

I would love to start over on this quilt but I have no more fabric. :) I will make this patten again but with a totally different piecing technique. I have several more rows to put together before I decide on borders. I think I originally decided to just border in the background print.



The last thing I learned was not to wait so long between piecing and putting the top together.  I have another quilt that is partially pieced and I've lost the directions putting it together. It was the first mystery quilt class I took and I have no idea where the directions went. I thought they were with the fabric but when pulled the project out t see how much work needed to be done, there were no instructions.



As you can see, I had a lot of help from the quilt inspectors, they were really taking their job seriously. ;)

Have a great day,
Tracy