Dots, swirls, and flowers

 Well...I put my doodles to use and tried them out on some flannel.  Not bad for a first try. It makes me wish for a longer arm machine.  For now my Juki will do.  Just have to do smaller sections at a time.

 I was looking at one of the first quilts I quilted this morning when I made our bed.  It's a cream and blue Irish chain.  I thought I did such a good job on it, but now I laugh at it.  Thankfully machine quilting is like most things in life....gets better with time and practice.

 I can't stand using the stylettes and pantographs.  I have a hard time following the lines and it drives me nuts.  I did a baby quilt with one and I was sooooo glad when I took that one off the frames.  Never tried again.  I have to do it all freehand.  I don't think I would like a computerized quilting machine either.

 The weekend has gone by fast.  I'm not sure that we did anything that fun or great.  Did some much needed grocery shopping (which makes cleaning the fridge necessary...not my favorite job).  Have to say the worst thing I did was help Gary clean the duck pond.  It's not too hard just gross.  It grows so much green junk that we have to clean it every week or so.  We have our neighbor's horses in the back half of the yard today.  Gary asked if we could borrow them on and off over the summer so he doesn't have to mow the field so much.  (Also....it irritates our obnoxious back yard neighbor :-) ha ha).  I remember all our big plans for the backyard when we moved here 16 years ago.  Gazebo, grass, trees, cement pad for a BBQ with picnic tables, garden path leading up to an amazing garden...sigh!  Just never got around to it.  We've had horses on and off back there and now the chickens.  A couple of years ago we had a great garden, but this year we gave up on planting with the wet spring.  I think we'll just end up with grass back there someday.  Just don't have the energy anymore to do the big plans.  At least we have a good sized back yard with grass to enjoy and a fence separating it from the field.  I love spending time out there under the apple trees in the evenings.