Long Time, No See

No, I didn't really drop off the face of the earth.  Just . . . . Life.  I've been busy, I've been lazy, I've been "under the weather".  You know . . . "things".  I know you all know how you can just get busy and forget the blog.  Not that I forgot, I just never could get around to actually writing a blog post.

the first camellia of the year

So, what have I been busy with?  I taught two bag classes,  I took a class on Liberated Medallion quilts from Gwen Marston.  I got sick.  I'm sure there were other things in there as well.

First, I taught a tote bag class at the local quilt shop "Cow Lick Quilts".  I had a lot of fun, and I think my students did too.  They were all successful and all the bags came out really cute.   Here are some photos from the first class:

L. and her bag made with batiks

J. and her bag made with selvage squares

C. and both her bag (on the left) and the other C.'s bag too

Then, to meet the demand of students that couldn't make the first class, I taught another class a few weeks later.  Unfortunately, I forgot my cell phone that day and so I didn't get any photos.  :(

But J. made another bag and I got a photo of that.  She used an orphan block that is part of an orphan block challenge for the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild.  I love how this one came out!

I had so much fun at my class with Gwen Marston,  We were at Quilted Strait over in Port Gamble again, and their facility is such a great place to sew.  If you want to see some photos of the class, check out Nifty Quilter's blog post about the class.  Nifty sat right across the table from me.  And another table over was Rene of Rene Creates blog.  We all had a great time with Gwen, as usual.  I will do another post, with photos, about the class, so I won't say any more right now.  Yes, you'll have to wait.  Sorry.

The only downside to the class with Gwen is that I got sick right after I got home.  I think the Spring allergies (everything was starting to bloom and the trees were spewing whatever it is they spew) probably caused a sinus infection, which then caused a tooth to flare up.  I ended up with the tooth being pulled and I was on 2 antibiotics for two weeks.  And now I'm continuing one of the antibiotics for another week to get rid of the last of the infection from the tooth.  I'm almost done with that one.  It hasn't been much fun, as I'm sure you can imagine.  And the worst part of all of this is that I haven't felt well enough to work on the quilt I was doing in the class with Gwen.  I've lost my momentum.  I hope to get back to it soon.  I'm still trying to catch up on everything I got behind on by being sick.  

I'm now the Block of the Month chairperson for the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild.  I found a block I really liked last month, but ended up having to write the tutorial for it, since we changing the size of the block.  The block is based on the 3 Dimensional block by Zen Chic.  You can see Zen Chic's video here.

Here is one of my blocks:

And here is the link to the tutorial I wrote.  If you make the block, I'd love to see photos.  I still want to use this block to make a quilt for me!

At the February meeting of the Tacoma Modern Quilt Guild, we did a Make and Take that was some cute pinsies!  These are great for marking your blocks or rows when assembling a quilt.  And they were very easy to do too.

The cute pincushion is one my sister made for me a few years ago, using wool and a found vintage pitcher.

This week I tried something new and joined Instagram.  It will be another adventure!  If you want to find me there, I'm posting as indigo_threads.  

DS and I had some fun this week, dyeing eggs and making Spring cookies.

They're very yummy as well as very cute.  And lots of fun to decorate!

Sadly, the cookies are almost all gone.

Be sure to check out Kelly's post over at Pinkadot Quilts about Simon and Garfunkel.  I also found that video, and strangely, I love Disturbed's version of the song.  It's quite different from S & G, but it's a powerful version.  (Did you know that there are a LOT of different covers of The Sound of Silence?  I counted 35 on Wikipedia.   I didn't know that!)

Happy quilting!
Sharon