I've been on the road teaching at the Virginia Quilt Consortium Celebration 2012. It is a weekend retreat held at the Smith Mountain Lake 4-H Center. Lovely ladies in a very nice facility!
I was too busy to take many photos but I remembered to take this photo of Peggy with her special applique/lap pillow:
She said that she and her stitch group made these from 5 1/2" squares. Maybe you can figure it out from this photo or, better yet, if you know of the pattern add it to the comments section. It's a nice size, it's cute, and it stays in place.
UPDATE: Claire at Matching Pegs has a tutorial for for her Star Fruit cushion here. It's very good and I appreciate her sharing it with both me and you.
A new friend and fellow teacher, Lyric Kinard, took the photo below of me with my students at show & tell. Hand applique classes are always good for a chuckle at show and tell because there isn't enough time in a day to sew much to a block. It may not look like it but my students learned a lot!
You saw Mom's birthday cake from before I left home. Here's Mom blowing out the candles last week. Jack was very interested.
FYI - Mom's arm is healing well and she and Taz are going to sign up for dog obedience school. Mom is going to learn how to take charge and hopefully the little snert will learn some manners. (Taz being the snert, not Mom!)
I realized I still had some photos on my camera from the week before when I was in San Francisco. I have never seen hen and chicks this size before! Are they still called hen and chicks when they are 12" across?
And these looked like they had the nose of an elephant!
I think that's all I've got for today. Jeff and Celia may have found an apartment in NYC. Imagine seeing that view every day!
Last but not least, the extension agent who saw my plants is stumped. And it's worse out there, not better. I am really afraid that I'm going to lose most of my yard full of plants. I have a call in to a landscaper recommended by the nursery I go to. I hate to spray it and find out I treated the wrong thing. It's always something, isn't it?
