Smith Mountain in Moline --

First off ----I BOUGHT ANOTHER MACHINE!!!!!

Hahahahaha!! Maniacal Laughing!!!

:::APRIL FOOLS!::::

((Had you going there for a second, didn't I? Admit it!! But after spending the Day on the Deere Estate, I think I need one in John Deere Green! :cD))

This photo is of the OUTSIDE of the “garage” that belonged to John Deere’s Daugher --- the house was built for her when she got married as a gift from her father --- this is such a cool place!

The class room photos from the inside look dark because of the camera’s reaction to the back-light from the windows, but let me assure you, the natural light in this room is awesome! There are windows all around ----

Goodness we are having a great time. And these are some seriously fun quilters ---one gal drove all the way from Pennsylvania! She was in my class in Carlisle….and came all this way to play some more!

We have a couple of quilters from Indiana – who drove over 6 hours to come stay the WHOLE TIME I am here with me ---that’s 3 days of workshops, and a lecture ---

We have former student friends who came to see me in Storm Lake, IA last June ----who drove over 3 hours to come spend time here in Moline ---

All of these people who were strangers yesterday morning, are now enjoying each other, going out to meals with us and shopping locally while they are here, making friends, networking ---It’s like shaking up a snowglobe and watching all the good things happen , AND being in the midst of it at the same time! WONDERFUL!

After a yummy lunch, we broke for show and tell --- and some really great quilts were shown!

This is June’s Virginia Bound! She acented the border with appliqued flowers and buttons….TOO CUTE!

Here’s a close up of her corner detail --- she did big stitch quilting in this, and it turned out GREAT!

In the pink on the left is our Pennsylvania Contingency, Debbie! She brought her Crabapples top to share with us…I LOVE her solid red sashings ---they frame those busy tree blocks so well!

Jo from Jo’s Country Junction brought her crumb quilts for me to drool over! I love the alphabet in the border of this one! If you don’t have the Word Play Quilts book yet, it has the step by step directions to do the free-form letters --- find it HERE!

Here is Jo’s latest crumb-fection Love the addition of the string parts in this! I was so encouraged to hear her tell us that when we first did neutral strings in Roll Roll Cotton Boll that she thought she was going to HATE strings --- and how she has graduated to LOVING them. Good….that’s one more crazy on my side! :cD This quilt is so fun up close because there is so much going on in it ---

Jo’s daughter Kelli brought some cute stuff too…but she was first to do show and tell, and I was a holder, so I didn’t get pics…..

Take a look at all we got up to yesterday! Smith Mountain Morning is a hard class to photograph --- many many units…..half square triangles, quarter square triangles, tri recs units ---and often 6 hours of workshop time learning to use new rulers and techniques while at the same time needing a lot of variety of fabrics in the units means that students are lucky to have a couple of blocks put together at the end of the day out of the little piles of pieces-parts they’ve been working on all day long….

		Smith Mountain Morning, Moline IL 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Today we are playing with shirts again --- it’s a Virginia Bound day!

Happy Sunday, Everyone!