A NEW DAY -- A NEW SKILL

The beginning of a new day always brings the opportunity for new experiences, but I never really think too much about that fact unless that start of the new day has a special majesty. This past Thursday, the last day of January, was just one of those days. In all honesty, when I saw the sunrise I knew that I had to share its beauty with my on line friends. (The photos were taken at about 5 minute intervals.)






For those of you who do not know, my husband and I are blessed to live on the banks of the Tennessee River, overlooking the Smokie Mountains. These views were too beautiful not to share.

But since this is supposed to be about quilting and/or knitting, I thought that I'd also share the new things that I have been doing. OK, I know that some of you probably get tired of me showing the same old project in various stages, but I think the PROCESS is just as great as the finished project, so here it is. You have been following the process of my first rag quilt. Well, here is the finished project:

The "raggy" part reminds me of the those frilly nylon ruffles on little girls' socs.

But, wait, there's something else that's new to me on this quilt--no, not just all the snipping with the special spring loaded scissors:



(And believe me, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to be using the keyboard today if I had done all that snipping with regular scissors.)

But in the corner of the quilt (photo taken before the final snipping and washer/dryer cycle), are my initials and the date--done with my Janome Harmony 8100.


Now those of you who are familiar with Janomes know that mine is a dinosaur in the world of embroidery machines. I hate to admit that I have had the machine for over 3 years and this is the first that I have gotten around to playing with the embroidery. I also learned that that model had been on the market for at least 4 years when I happened upon it on sale (about 1/2 price what I knew the initial cost to be) at Hancocks.

I have a few memory cards that came with the machine. I did play around a bit with one of my cards:



Sad thing is: I have learned that unfortunately the cards to fit my machine are not longer made. My machine also does not have the capability to download images. So I will be limited in what I will be able to embroider. Luckily machine embroidery is not something that I would get all that "in to " anyway, but if any of you out there happen to know where I might find some cards (ones for the 9000 series work for it), I'd love to hear from you.