Maine Quilts

I entered this witch wall hanging in Maine Quilts 2008, which is being held in Augusta this weekend. I had originally planned to still be in Maine at the time of the show, but ended up being back in Florida this weekend instead. A nice fellow HGTV quilting message board member (KC) was volunteering at the show and attended the Champagne Preview last night, which was held after the judging, but before the show had opened to the public today. She was kind enough to take this photo and post it for me on the board late last night. If you squint, you can ALMOST make that ribbon look blue, can't you?? It is actually purple. It got an honorable mention, which is not too bad. There were 650+ quilts in the show. Last year, this category, wall hangings, had the largest number of entries, so I know there was a lot of competition. I think it is a dramatic pattern, which would get people's attention. I will be interested to read the judges comments, and see what I need to do to improve my skills for the next one. This was free motion quilted on my Janome 6600, using metallic thread, which is a pain in the butt. On the inside of her cape and part of her hat, I had put a layer of tulle which had sparkly stones on it, and quilted around that. The tulle shrank a bit while I was quilting it, and there were some raw edges that I probably should have stitched down or finished in some way.

Well, we are home from Maine. I miss the lake, the loons, my family and the simplicity and togetherness of life there. DH, Carmine and I lived together for 5 weeks in a 2 room cabin and always knew where the others were and what they were doing. Now we have gone back to our more separate, busy lives here.

I am glad to see my sweet outdoor kitty, Spooky, who was fed by our neighbor Uncle Dave while we were gone. She has a soft heart and shares her food with any animal passing through who is hungry. But she is no pushover, she will defend her food from other animals who are capable of finding their own. When we left, she had befriended a 3 legged racoon, who has apparently moved on. I haven't seen him since we've been back. Yesterday there was a beautiful white and grey feral cat on the porch with her who ran like the wind when I opened the door to feed Spooky. I am also glad to have a washing machine under the same roof again! Living in the pine woods means a lot of dirt and pitch on clothes and it is a pain to carry them in to town to wash.

Well, today it is back to work for me. I have been doing my work the whole trip via the internet, but this is the first full day back at the hospital and my sleep lab. I have tried to ease into it slowly, stopped in at work for short periods the first few days back. I have the Vacation Brain Syndrome. Everything just looks so different to me after being away. One thing DH and I have agreed on is that we have Too Much Stuff! I was reading a Real Simple magazine the other day while getting my hair cut. In the mag intro, there was a letter from the editor, who had just hired a dumpster (!) to clean out the clutter in her house. Sounds very tempting, but a bit over the top for me. We started last night with cabinets in the garage. Had piles for Toss, Recycle, Donate. It was a start...somehow DH was not able to part with things such as 3 cans of vintage 1980's oven cleaner spray (we have a self cleaning oven!!!) Sounds like something for the HazMat pile.

The Family Photo

Haven't been blogging much...we finally got some sunny days after four solid weeks of rain! I've tried to be outside as much as possible, trying to get the most time in with my family and at the lake. We will be heading back to the steam bath that is South Florida this time of year on Monday or Tuesday, depending on the best weather window for driving. It is about a 25 hour drive home, no matter which route we take.
Today, we had an outdoor photographer come and take a group photo of my side of our family, 13 people ages 88 down to 13 years. I requested that everyone wear a white shirt and blue jeans (The photographer, Emily, called it the "LL Bean" shoot). I guess that is a common theme for family group photos. There was a bit of grumbling about the uniform look, but everyone complied, with a few individual variations. We posed in a few different locations, on a big rock in the woods, at the end of the dock, on the deck. I think it went very well compared with last year's group shot, which I took with my camera propped up on a ladder, using the self timer. Last year, we all wore Life is Good T-shirts with our favorite outdoor activity featured, but the shirts were too dark to show up well, and everyone's patience was worn out by the third try.
Can't wait to see the proofs, she will mail them to me in about 2 weeks.