Yes, it's been more than a year since I last wrote to this lonesome little blog.  There is a draft entry from May 2012 saved under some cobwebs in the corner but it seems pointless to drag it out now.  I don't know if I can remember so far back to December 2011 or all of the things that have come and gone since then, but I'll dig up what I can and hope for the best.

Eagle1 is home safe and sound from across the pond.  Our plans to retire went "Poof!" when the Obama Admin started cutting jobs in the civilian sector with the sequester.   We're 23 years into the camoflauge life and still holding on. 

The new blog background is a photo of a quilt I finished 1 October 2012.  I replaced an old wedding ring quilt that we had on the couch with bright pretty colors that totally clash with everything else we have in the house.  Do I care?  Not a bit!  A few of my friends suggested names for this quilt because I couldn't think of anything that day.  We settled on "Countrytime".  Very fitting if I do say so myself. 

 Eagle1 did drive me all the way to Binghamton (I think that's the name) to buy a Grace quilting frame from a lady who posted on Craigslist.  She advertised it as being "new", but when we got there, well, we were a bit disappointed.  All in all, it was in very good condition and we drove too far to go back empty handed.  It took us quite a few hours to get it put together.  I put my little Brother machine on it just to get the feel of it all and realized two things immediately.  Number one was that I was going to love quilting on this monster of a frame and number two was that I needed a bigger, more powerful machine to go with the frame.  Now, at the time, I didn't realize that all of these new toys that Eagle1 was buying for me were really his sneaky way of buttering me up for when he dropped the bomb that he wanted to buy a Harley, but hindsight is 20/20.  I had a quilt top setting in a tote made of leftovers from a friends present, so when I got the new machine up and running, on the rollers it went.  If you ever liked to doodle on paper with a pencil when you were a kid, this is right up your alley.  Sure, I could have been more creative with it, but to be really honest, it was just too much fun to "scribble" all over that quilt with needle and thread.  It didn't turn out too bad for being my first one. 

I broke out the jellyroll of pretty pastels I'd been hoarding for a while and made another top to doodle on.  I'm not sure what happened during the quilting part of the deal, but the top stretched or distorted while being rolled on the frame bars, so when it came time to trim the edges, nothing lined up straight. 

Seeing as how I'm a little cockeyed myself, you can bet this one came out very not-square by almost an inch despite my best efforts. 
It was still fun to play with, but I learned a very valuable lesson.  (Don't ask me what it is right now.  I can't remember!)  My notes claim that I completed this one on 23 December 2012.  The last one of the year!




Going back in time just a bit to February 2012, I found the "Lattice Quilt" photo. This one, like most of my projects lately, is very scrappy. I don't know if it's because I love the look of scrappy quilts or that I just can't match fabric to save my soul, but scrappy is where I always find happiness so I'm going to stick with it.

The lattice quilt went to my friend Steve in Colorado.  He's always the first to give such sweet compliments on my work when I share photos with friends.  I like knowing that my work goes to people who really enjoy it.

Well, I'll save the rest for another day.  Happy Stitching to all!