Ingrid Whitcher

I have been having such a wonderful spring. I always get the urge to get outside this time of year. The sewing suffers but the garden is looking great. Half of it weeded and mulch coming soon. We sent the last few night camping – yes, in tents. Despite a child puking, sunburn and eating hot dogs (since we did not catch any fish), we had a wonderful time.

I am busy preparing for my new “adventure”. I have decided to start a summer sewing program for 8-11 year olds. I am really excited about this and the class is filling up. I think I may need to buy 3 instead of 2 sewing machines. (Oh bummer!) Can one really have too many machines?

My sewing goal the next month is to finish up some projects that have been sitting in my incomplete pile. Today I quilted small quilt, made the binding for it and got one side sewed on. I also put binding on 3 other quilts that have been waiting for some time. (One of the quilts, I had to replace the binding on that my son had worn out.)

Here is a sneak peak at the drawing for my next project. It is based on a picture of an African Iris from my garden. I have been busy doing the quilting for my show quilts for the past few months and now am going through “piecing” withdraw. Hopefully, I will start the process of dyeing or finding fabrics for this project soon.

We had to put our sweet bunny Dominoe down today. Dominoe, a 2 year old French Lop bunny, was Garrett’s bunny. Garrett came to the vet with me so he could say good-bye. Dominoe will be greatly missed – he was buried this afternoon under the shade of the Cassia tree.

Here are a few of the ribbons that I won. I was able to design them again for this show. Fortunately, I was not the one to make all of them. My friend, Sheree, and her Mom made over half of them on their own.

(The white and blue ribbon in the background is from a different show.)

I am so EXCITED! Each of my quilts ended up with a ribbon.

My Lily (In the Garden I) got a 1st and a Judges Recognition for machine quilting.

“In Her Arms” got a 2nd place. (It is hard competing against yourself. Both of my large curved pieced quilts ended up in the same category.)

“Serenity” – my fairy quilt got a 3rd in the art quilt category.

“Hummingbirds in my Garden” – the whole cloth quilt got a 3rd place.

The show set-up is just beautiful and it is so much fun to look at all the fabulous quilts. I will try to post pictures of the show soon. Tomorrow we start teaching classes!