June 1... REALLY?

Hi All,
Where did May go?  Had fun over the weekend with our daughter and her family.  It was beautiful weather and the lake was 4th of July crazy busy!  If this is any indication what the traffic on the lake will be like this summer, we will have to pick and choose the times we go out to enjoy it.

As soon as I can figure out how to get my pictures from the photo library to here you will see some shots.

In the mean time I'm sewing.  Making an apron for a friend, making samples for block of the month at guild which I am teaching soon. And making samples of crafts for VBS.  If there is any time left, I would like to make myself some clothes for our trip to Florida the last week of June.

HMMM.  then there are all kinds of apts, and social outings scheduled.  I guess June is going to fly by as well.  Can't procrastinate.  Sew I better get busy.

I feel bad about no pictures, but I'll get it figured out soon.

Sew see you later,
Bette

Kayaking in Savannah

I was busy getting ready for our quilt guild quilt show in April.  Then my computer died!

Then my kayak group made a trip to Savannah.  Well, here we are back home still no computer.  I am on my husbands computer.  So I'll show you a few shots of kayaking in Savannah.  Hope to be up and running on my own computer by next week.

One of our guides, Nigel.  Bea from our group in the background.  We were all in tandem expedition kayaks except our guides.  The first day we circumvented Little Tybee Island.  Actually it was high tide and we were going over some of the marsh.

This is our second guide, Kristin.

Our third guide on the left, Robin.  Wendy on the right is one of us.

My kayak partner Linda P.

Here we are crossing over to the marsh area.

This is the second day kayaking more of a  marsh
 area near where our hostess lives.

Have a great day

Sew see you later hopefully on my own computer.

Bette

Pimped up machine part 2

OK I'm done with my machine.  I've even taken it out and sewn with it.

 In part 1 I left the background white.  Well after looking at it long enough I felt I needed to color the background.  I used Setacolor paint that was watered down.  It beaded up so I took a paper towel and wiped it. I really liked the look so I did the rest of the machine.

Here is a close up of the flowers before they are all painted.

Here it is all painted.  Once the flowers were done I felt it needed another layer.  so I took a couple of my stencils and used Setacolor cobalt blue to stencil on the vines and leaves.  It still needed more so I used a script stencil with dark blue Setacolor paint.

then I went back over some of the flowers with the fine point black sharpie to add definition.  Then to seal it all in I sprayed a clear acrylic sealer in gloss finish.  I only put a few coats on so it is not shiny gloss like before I painted it.  It should stay better longer though.

Here it is all done and ready for service.

Sew see you later,
Bette

Getting Ready for Quilt Show

The last several weeks I've been really busy sewing, quilting and embellishing a couple of quilts for the Lake Quilters Guild Quilt Show this weekend.  "QUILTING... The Thread of Life" will be held on April 13 & 14 at Trinity Ecumenical Parish, Rt 122, Moneta, VA.  Friday, 9:30-4:30 Saturday, 9:30-4:00. Admission: $5 Donation.  If you are in the area, come by and see all of the quilts. (over 100).

 I did this last year as a block of the month.  It is MaKenna Ryan's Beach Walk pattern.  Last year I had finished all of the blocks but then it was full on holidays...  There they sat.
Only when I realized about a month ago how little time was left before our quilt show that I got busy.  I actually finished it a week before I had to turn it in!  NOTHING LIKE DEADLINES to get us moving.

This is the other one that wasn't finished. It was a round robin quilt our bee did.  We each ended up with a quilt.











I also sewed the pieces together for our Bee project.... 1600 inch quilt.  Next week we get together and put the borders on it.  We each brought 42- 2 1/2" strips, put them in a bag then we passed the bags around until we all had 42 strips again.

 Here is my 1600 quilt so far.











Sew See you later!
Bette

Pimping My Sewing Machine

Over the last several months Kathy Southern from StudioKats Design has been showing sewing machines that people have decorated.  That really got me interested in decorating my travel sewing machine (inexpensive machine).  I started a couple of months ago to use sharpies, but I wasn't happy with the lack of color.  So this week Kathy bit the bullet or should I say inspiration and started working on her extra machine.  Today I had some time with nothing planned.  So with Kathy's inspiration I've started.

 I started by putting masking tape over all openings.  It is a working sewing machine for me.

 Having experience with paint coming off of plastic items, I sprayed several light coats of white spray paint for plastic.  This now becomes my primer coat of paint.

 Next I took a fine black sharpie to draw on the back of the machine.

Next came the fun of painting in the flowers and dots.  My name is on the back so when I'm in class the teacher will know who I am.  Several of the colors I used are metallic.  I know you can't see it here.









Sew see you soon!
Bette

Quilting Beach Walk

Our guild quilt show is now about 2 weeks away.  I am in the process of quilting the largest quilt I've done on my sewing machine.  Today I spent a little over 6 hours on it.  I got 4 blocks quilted.  Phew.  No more today.

I now have 2 1/2 blocks to quilt plus the border.  Then it's square it up again and put the binding on and embellishments.

After that is done I need to finish up the round robin quilt for the show.  That should be easy... just square it up, and put the binding and embellishments on it.

Here is Beach Walk all pinned and ready to start quilting.  ( 9 blocks total).  It's a McKenna Ryan pattern.

Sew see you next time.

Bette

Hail

 OK so yesterday about 5:25 PM we were about to leave for a church activity.  It begins to hail, and just kept up for about 20 minutes.  The wind blew, it made a horrendous noise hitting the windows and sky lights.  It also rained like crazy with the hail.  Of course I was standing by the sliding door taking pictures.  We didn't know it at the time but there was a tornado watch for our area.  I do know that hail can often accompany tornado's.  I was listening for a loud train noise and if I had herd it, would have run fast.  That may have been too late????  Anyway, no tornado, just some homes with vinyl siding were damaged by the hail.  We are all OK.

The brown river on the right is not a ditch!

This is our side porch this morning.