Finally.....

I've been very busy and distracted, so I haven't posted in a while. 
Where to start????
I spent last weekend at a Quilt Retreat with several friends from my small quilting group.  It was a much needed time to just sit and sew and relax and visit with friends.  My batteries have been recharged and I am ready to get busy again!  I pieced a table runner using a fun ruler called "Lil Twister" that I got from The Country Schoolhouse (http://www.country-schoolhouse.com/twister_tool.htm).  I'll post a pic when I get it quilted - it was fun and turned out really well.  Now I want the bigger tool because I bought some 10" squares that are scrumptious and would look great using this tool.  During the retreat, I also put a border on a baby quilt and worked on an applique project -not a ton of work accomplished, but enough.  The company of friends and the wonderful food made the weekend complete!

I have a friend's quilt on the Gammill right now - again I will post a pic later. It has embroidered butterflies on squares alternating with a purple print.  I tried to echo quilt the butterflies, but it looked terrible, so I frogged the echo lines and am now micro stippling the squares.  Much better. The purple squares are being quilted with a sort of meander with points.  I'm using Glide thread which I am loving!    I should finish it by this weekend.  (I know - I'm slow, but I also have a regular day job, and  loving husband and dog and chickens.....not to mention wonderful children and grandchildren.)

On Tuesday evenings, I do volunteer work at our local library.  Besides checking out and shelving books,  I also teach a quilting class.  It is very informal - we usually have just a few people who show up each week.
We started with English paper piecing, and have worked on that for a while.  I demonstrated a floating four patch block for one session, and gave each person a chance to make one herself.  Next week I plan on having a session to talk about favorite sewing and quilting tools.  Since we don't have a classroom in our small library, we just set up a table in the library.  We get questions and comments from other patrons, which is a great way to promote quilting!