Do you remember me?  I’m the quilter who used to blog all the time.  So where have I been?

Ahhhhh, life.  It does what it wants to do, and takes you places you’d rather not go.  The last time I posted anything was on AUGUST 24, 2013.  Since then, I lost my day job, but it was a true blessing.  I won’t go into details, but we’ll just say that things were not all happy and glamorous prior to my leaving.  I spent just under one month being unemployed.  I think that’s pretty good!  However, during that time, I also got to experience what people go through when they try and collect unemployment in the State of Michigan.  It isn’t pretty, it isn’t fun, and I still have not collected a dime.  The State of Michigan’s website – which you have to use to file for unemployment, report on your job search, and communicate with whoever works at the unemployment office – is the worst site I have ever used.  It is not user-friendly at all, nobody gets back with you, it crashes all the time, etc.  There is another option to call the office, but in all the hundreds of calls I made to the only phone number that they have, I never once got through to a human. What a pain! 

<==WORST WEBSITE EVER!

I applied for many different jobs during my few weeks of unemployment.  I knew that the first job I applied for was the one I wanted.  I was called in for an interview, asked to come in for a second, and knew I wanted the position.  It was offered to me, and I must say, I feel SO blessed!  But during the time that I was unemployed, my mother-in-law’s health took a turn for the worse.  She was in a care facility about 15 minutes away from us, and we were visiting with her almost every day.  I started my new job, and just days later at work I got the call that we dreaded.  Mom had passed away.  Ours is a very small family, so decisions and tasks were placed on just a couple people.   To say it was stressful would be an understatement, but we got through it. 

I presented for two quilt guilds over the past two months, and what a joy that was!  The C.A.M.E.O. Quilt Guild in Clawson is such a great group of quilters!  Not only did I do a presentation, but I taught two hand quilting classes to them as well.  Lots of fun!  I also did a presentation for my own quilt guild, the Evening Star Quilters in Davison, Michigan.  Fun, fun, fun!

So what am I doing now as a quilter?  Hmmm.  Hand quilting.  I am still working on my Feathered Star quilt, and making good progress.  However, it is slow going, as I am quilting diagonal lines across the entire quilt which are about one-quarter of an inch apart.  Yes, slow going. Here is a photo of the quilt taken by Anna Palmer from my presentation at the Evening Star Quilters.  I gave them a sneak peak because I have been working on this for so long and don’t really have much else to share during our show-and-tell sessions!  Yes, that is my arm in there pointing to the stitching.

I made a quilt top for my hand quilting students to work with.  It’s a simple 60 inch square Amish-looking Center Diamond quilt in grey, plumb, purple and green.  I know, strange colors to put together.  But I think it will look good when it is finished.  The photo shows it prior to any quilting.  I am now hand quilting it in my hoop using black thread, in-between sessions of quilting my Feathered Star quilt. Perhaps I will give you a sneak peek of the quilting on this quilt in my next post. 

NOTE: The colors on this quilt don’t look right in the photo.  The center is lime green, not yellow.

What are YOU working on?  Please share when you leave a comment below!  I’d love to hear from you!