Unexcused absence

Oh my, the summer got away from me. I didn't intend to back off from blogging, but I got b(l)ogged down and couldn't give it the attention I wanted to. I think things are on a more even keel once again.

Since I last posted, most of my quilting has been for Project Linus. I do enjoy it, but it seems to have taken over my quilting and I am trying to contain it. And on the personal front, we had some big family celebrations this summer (two major birthdays) and both our daughters moved -- one to Berkeley, California, and one to New York City! Wow! I foresee a lot of travel in my future...but I couldn't ask for more fun places to visit.

In a renewed effort to do my own quilting, I am heading downstairs to clean up my space and get going. Here are just a few photos until I have some real stuff stuff to show.
My guild's biennial quilt show was a couple weeks ago. Very cool -- the quilts were hung among the historic aircraft in the Rantoul Air and Space museum! Here's the Project Linus booth -- you can see our string quilts and strippie quilts (thank you, Mary, for the instructions!), as well as others that we made. Almost all our Project Linus info was picked up on the first day of the show!
And this is Carol Doak, Queen of Paper Piecing, wrapped up in her special Tribute to Carol Doak quilt. She taught a class here in town, and she's a fantastic instructor. Paper piecing has never been my thing, but I feel now like I can do it when I decide I want to. She was terrific.
And the skills we work so hard to develop, Mother Nature simply gives to spiders. Look at this amazing web I saw on my walk the other morning -- and look at that HUGE green spider in the middle! There was a section of the park I have dubbed Spider Alley because it was one web after another.
Isn't this one just gorgeous?

For those of you who emailed me or just checked to see if I was posting, thank you. I'm baaaaack!