By the OHIO

      Two days ago it was 80 degrees.  I was driving by the Ohio river to one of my favorite quilt shops ,  Ingrams in South Point.    Today, it is rainy and cold ( around 40 ) ------ a good day for staying in and quilting.   I have been so caught up in the Black Arts in America site and getting wall repaired, painted, and refitted with design wall that I haven't spent anytime here.   This is my problem with blogs,  I will write conscientiously for awhile, then drop off.   I journal too and my rhythm is the same.  When I've taught journaling classes, people tend to think that its something you have to do every day.  Not true.  I have boxes of journals that have accumulated over the years from my sporadic journaling.

      Anyway, I loved the way the sun sparkled over the water the day I drove over to the quilt shop.   I had to get out and climb down the hill to get a picture that showed this.   You can see my angle is from between the weeds there that were taller than me.  The design made by the (is that golden rod) makes me want to make a landscape quilt from this pic.  I love landscape quilts too, as you can see from the Mountain Mama Garden .   WV and my hometown Huntington offer a billion opportunities for designing in this genre.

I finally published two pics ( one of my son Chris, and one of my friend, Frank) on the BAIA site and I'd like to publish a few more.   I love going there and looking at what some of the other artists have put up. I love the diversity of images the site hosts.   I discovered yet another fabric artists (Margene May), I'll have to go back and check the name.   But I was blown away by her work.  She does, like Linc, a sort of  raw edge patch using a variety of ethnic fabrics, in constructing her faces.   Her images are mostly full body, and she seems to have developed her own human look, although they may be based on real people.   Her work is very beautiful.

                                                 Christmas table cover^

     I'm still playing with the Handiquilter 16.   I quilted one baby quilt  on it ( using large stippling pattern) and I've started on the Christmas cover top which I messed up royally.   But that is what makes it wonderful for this sort of practice.  I'm learning to control my speed and I figure by the time I finish this project, I'll have trained my foot to know exactly how to control the speed to what I want.  Those flaps have to be sewn down.  the quilt, though difficult at first for me to balance evenly, went together easily, once I realized I had to layout each row and consistently work to keep flaps even and seamline meeting.  UGhhhhh.   Now it's great practice for leaning to quilt around each flap in every row in a circular manner.   There is no zigzag, sooooo I'm doing a wiggly line around each flap.

Peace and love to readers.