New starts and improvements

I had lots of fun playing with the long-arm quilting machine today, as you can see. I tried every kind of design I could think of. The instructor, Becky, was pleased that I seemed to catch on so quickly. The lesson took two hours, and half of that was threading the machine and pining the quilt layers to the leaders. The second hour was actually using the machine.

Half the battle is knowing what design you want to make before you get to the point of doing it. The seagull design started out to be a duck but he evolved as I drew him. I was able to write my name (not shown) fairly legibly as well. Becky was very patient with me and let me try anything I wanted to try. Mainly I just doodled.

The hearts and the fishes were fairly easy to do. The fork-like shape--I don't know what that was supposed to be! I decided that I can do this as long as I have a drawing in front of me of what my finished design is supposed to be. The lesson was well worth the $40 it cost me. I'm nowhere near perfect, but it's good enough for my purposes.

DH bought this coleus for me and planted it in the front flower-bed. I wanted some instant color, and this plant jumped out and grabbed me at the nursery. He is replanting the bed to use as a demonstration bed for his iris. The air conditioner condensate drips into this area, so it's always moist--perfect for his bog iris and flags.

I had been wishing for months that I had a dining table, but we couldn't really afford to buy one. I suddenly remembered that my DS and DDIL, who live with us, had a dining table they were storing in our backyard shed. They were fine with letting me use it until they need it. So now I have a dining table that I can spread a quilt out on, or work on other crafts and be able to spread out. We won't eat on it unless we have company (we can't see the TV from the dining room!) I'll be spending the next few days getting all my sewing stuff rearranged to fit around the table.