A while ago in our move, my mom found an old quilting frame that's really cool. It's about twice as wide as my torso and oval shaped. She had bought it at a yard sale a long while ago, and gave it to me since I've been working on a lot of embroidery lately. I looked and looked if I could find more like it online, but it seemed pretty elusive. I thought I'd use it for embroidery rather than hand quilting because even though I have a couple quilts that are ready to be hand stitched, it's pretty complicated, and I enjoy embroidery much more right now. I like to keep my wooden hoops as the frames on embroidery, so I figured I'd have to do something pretty special with this guy. I decided to do Van Gogh's Starry Night sky over a mountain scene, and am getting pretty far along. Here are some photos of my progress!

Yesterday,I made another quilt! Quilt in a day! The iBoost is still holding up, this quilt was slightly bigger, made from fabric quarters and a LARGE sheet from goodwill. I finally learned how to wind the thread around the bobbin, and got the tension settings just right. You see, there are no settings for tension, you just have to twist the spring until you hit the sweet spot. I tested out mom's Baby Lock sewing machine, which was a total disaster. I wish it was the kind of disaster where it would spit out all kinds of fancy, weird stitches, but sadly, the poor thing just hummed and hummed, needle in place, so much potential, yet no way to unlock it. Dang! It was so fancy too! It looked like it could do all kinds of stitches, all kinds of fancy things, such beauty, and it even had a little light. See, the iBoost, while cheap and glitchy, is simple. No light, no fancy settings. But it actually works! And that's all I need at the moment. 
I hope to get the actual sales on this website running soon, so I can have an additional source of income to fund a real sewing machine. Until then, guess who got a job at McDonalds?! Huh! Ha ha ha, I'm thinking of it as spy work into the industrial food sector, spy work into how to change the industrial food sector, how to eliminate it, how to reimagine the old way of service. You see, things are kind of heating up in the world, and a lot of change needs to happen if we are to create a world we really want to live in. Is fast food what we really need or want to change? Oh heavens no! It's lifestyles we need to change. And fast food is a big part of that. You see, we eat constantly, it fuels us. So to return--or rather not return--but to reimagine our future, we need to reinagine the way we fuel ourselves. Every time ew eat at fast food or a restaurant chain that isn't local, we are supporting thousands of pounds of industrial conventionally grown agriculture products, most of which are of comprised of four species of plant. Potatoes, corn, wheat, rice. And every second we support these four species, we eek out hundreds, thousands, millions of species of vegetable and fruit variety that are struggling, dying, going fricking extinct. Do you know how they taste? What will you tell your children when they ask you what those vegetables tasted like? Will they even wonder, will they even know those species existed? We are a species. 
Thus, I have turned my menial job at Mickey D's into a secret spy mission. Much more exciting, eh? And thus, I will bring back the magic of Appalachian quilt making in honor of my MiMi, with my McDonalds money. 
So, here is the quilt I made for my sister Josephine on her 18th birthday. 

And, she's in the books! Thanks iBoost! Thanks Chris's mom!

Last weekend we started canning! Despite all our garden mishaps, we still have tomatoes from my wonderful grandparents down in Georgia! I brought up about two gallons when I came back up from my trip. Milt has this wonderful system in his high tunnel where he ties the tomatoes so they can vine up a string, and he lets them grow diagonally so they can produce more. He prunes all the limbs except the most productive ones. And boy does it work! 
Our garden got mostly frozen out when we planted it in March (bad idea with no protection for the plants). But, I took those two gallons of tomatoes, a large onion, three zucchinis, and some other stuff, and made my gazpacho! Four pints of it! and we learned the canning process with our fabulous presto canner. CAN--'t wait to do more canning, maybe with my jams next time!

Here are the pics of the car key pouch and quilt top I made with the iBoost!

Here's a preview of the chicken hats I'm making for WBFP! Only 11 more to go!

Hey folks! As I promised, an update on the quilt!
So, after much though, I decided not to enter the yo-yo quilt in the fair this season, because I want it to be looking amazing. Right now, it's more than halfway done, but I though I'd give myself a little more time, so that I can get it looking really beautiful for the fair. I still need to finish a few more tiles (the latest photo is not accurate, but I will take a pic tonight and upload it!) Then, once all the tiles are done, I am making mini yo's out of the scraps to fill out the edges, which I will line in a different gold. After all of that, I have to make a sleeve so that it can be hung on a rod for display. Although, Chris and I plan on putting it over our comforter for daily use, the display sleeve will mainly be necessary for the fair. 
In other news, Chris's mom got me a mini sewing machine and today I finally sat down and learned how to use it! Exciting, right? I've wanted one for like forever, and last weekend she surprised us with it! So, I tested it out with this extra fabric and made a little pouch for car keys. Then, I pulled out a couple charm packs (pre cut fabric squares for quilting) and finally finished my very first quilt top. It's a bit rough, but I like it! Will post pics! Anyhow, the iBoost sewing machine is worth the money. Very compact, nice for traveling and small apartments filled with a bazillion other crafty things. 
I decided I am going to enter some of my embroidery in the fair, the big one of the Kentucky, Unbridled Spirit; and the chickens. I may enter Disco Chicken of Love as well, if I get him done this weekend. I'm also making some small chicken embroidered hats for the WBFP Cohort. Oh, y'all! I am so excited to meet all of them! I met a few at this Wendell Berry event about a week ago, and have been chatting with everybody on Facebook since. Less than 50 days until move in!