Quilted Circles

One of the items I bought at the Road 2 CA quilt show was a set of Quilter's Rule nestled circled templates to use on my HQ Sweet 16 machine. Using plastic templates are new to me, but I used masking tape and felt shapes as guides when I quilt on my Viking, so I decided to give the templates a try. I LOVE circles, so I bought the whole set and hoped for the best.

Here's the wholes set nestled together. The little rectangles are like sticky backed sand paper that I added to each circle to prevent them from slipping. The fabric it's sitting on was my first practice piece.

I've taken some of the circles taken away so you can see how the increments break apart. I placed one template on the marked guideline, held on tight and stitched around it. Apparently, an easier way is to tape several rings together (say 5) with an X of blue painters tape, place on the fabric and stitch. I didn't find this out until after I did all this stitching! I have since tried the tape version and found that it is easier than trying to hold one of these skinny rings still. So, don't do what I did.

 Here's the result of my circle play time. It's not too bad as long as you don't look too close! I'm not used to quilting between the lines like this and adjusting the size of your pattern as you go around in a circle. It sort of reminds me of a spirograph . . . which I loved as a kid. I think these templates will help make my circles a lot more accurate.

Road Trip

Click and hold . . . That's what happened many times on the bus ride home from the Road 2 CA Quilt Show. Once the sunset started, I pulled my camera out and the fun began. This is when my quilt show experience became very different from all the rest of the passengers on the bus.

Each photo was considerably different than the one taken before. Some exposures were long and some were short. It just depended on how many lights were present in the background.

If you look closely at this photo, you'll see vertical lines caused by the bus hitting pot holes during the exposure.

This light dance happened while passing a car lot.

The only lights available here were from the passing vehicles. If you look carefully, you can see the outline of several cars.

Strip malls always have great lights. As Lora said, "In-N-Out Burger never looked so good."

I took photos of the quilt show too, but those are for my own enjoyment. I've never been comfortable posting other people's quilts on my blog without their permission. I emailed photos to a couple of people that don't live nearby and they appreciated receiving them. We had a nice time, saw some great quilts and I took some great night shots too.