Make your every move count.
Pick your target and hit it.
Perfect concentration means
Effortless flowing.
Deng Ming~Dao

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that perfect concentration is not something that comes easy for me and is usually why I hesitate to do join alongs. 
The time that I took away from the internet and social media this summer went a long way with helping me to stay a bit more focused, so I decided to take an online class that starts in a few weeks.

The class is a photography processing class called Start To Finish and is taught by Kim Klassen.  I do own a class of hers and have found her teaching methods easy to follow along with.  Because the class I already have is a go at your own pace class it was easy for me to not stay with it and forever forgetting what I had learned..aggh.  It proved to be very frustrating for me.  (how ironic the name of this new class is for me..ha)

This time I am going to do the class with a group, which I know I will be more likely to stay with it.  One of the reasons I am taking this class is because I want to completely revamp my website.  I want to learn how to take better pictures and more importantly come up with a logo that I will be proud of.

So in trying to have all of my ducks in a row ahead of time instead of my typical rush the day or night before, I have downloaded Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom using their new Creative Cloud and set about cleaning all of my lenses and my camera.

 A while back my brother who is a fantastic photographer recommended some affordable and a few that were a little bit of a stretch lenses to me for my camera bag.  I had the sensor on my older Nikon D300 professionally cleaned and I used this video to clean the lenses.  Wow, what a difference.  You don't realize how dirty they can get. 
Norman has a great website, go check it out!

So, I am really looking forward to this class and hope that I not only learn some new things, but hope that my cluttery brain can retain it this time around!

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend in your corner of the world!

Today's Ten on Tuesday's subject is 10 Books That Have Stayed With Me Long After I’ve Read Them.

One of the nicest things about this summer has been reconnecting with my love of reading.  As a child, I was friends with a lot of kids who spent their summers at camp or vacation with their families.  My family wasn't able to do that, so reading filled my long summer days.  I used to love to read in a tree in front of our house or spend hot summer days in our local library.  I read so much that the librarians actually allowed me to go into the adult section a year before it was normally allowed as I had plowed through most of the junior books.  Back then I so wanted to be a Librarian, I just loved my local Librarians. 🙂

Here are some of the books that were memorable ones for me.  These are not listed in any specific order, but they are ones that left a memory for me.  Some of these books carried me through stressful/challenging times in my life or happy quiet ones, so I won't get into the descriptions other than to say I would still read each one of them again today, and many of them have been read many times.

1.  Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd

2.  The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein

3.  The Diary of Anne Frank, words written by Anne Frank, retrieved by Miep Gies

4.  In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote

5.  The Executioner's Song, by Norman Mailer

6.  Pearl, by Tabitha King

7.  Go Ask Alice, by Beatrice Sparks

8.  The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

9.  The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

10. The Stand, by Stephen King

11.  365 Days of Tao, by Deng Ming~Dao  (I almost forgot my most favorite!)

and a few favorite summer mindless beach movie reads from my teen years, both read before I saw the movies and both books were so much better than the movies….

1.  The Poseidan Adventure byPaul Gallico
2.  Jaws, by Peter Benchley

There are so many more, I could go on and on, but thankfully it's Ten on Tuesday. 🙂

 

It's been a while since I have been here to visit with you all.  I decided to take some time away from the internet and social media to concentrate on enjoying some of the things that I find I find I no longer have time for.  In reality it's because I spend too much time sitting in front of my computer reading about what everyone else is doing and then time just slips away…whoosh!

Ken and I had an extremely enjoyable summer.  The weather in New England was near perfect this year.  For our 20th anniversary we purchased a pair of kayaks and we had so much fun exploring the lakes around us here in NH and the on bays and beaches of Mashpee, Ma while on vacation.  We have seen Osprey, Great Blue Herons, Green Herons and Egrets…such a peaceful way to spend a day on the water.

Many days before I headed out to the studio to work, I spent an hour floating in my little ghetto pool reading.  Before the internet, I always had my nose in a book, it's what got me through so many summers when I was young and my friends all went to camp.  I got lost in the stories that I read and this summer it was so nice to do that again.  I read 5 books floating in that pool and enjoyed every single page!

 

I spent quality time with my grandchildren, all 5 of them, which was the best treat of the summer.  They grow up so quickly, so each visit is a cherished visit!

I spent time knitting and gardening without too much distraction, which was a blessing and we spent a week at our favorite place on Cape Cod with dear friends. 
It has been such a wonderful summer and has renewed my spirit for the seasons to come. 
Today's post was going to be a much different one, but I think I will leave that for another day later this week.  I felt moved to share a bit of my summer with you all and I hope that you enjoyed yours as well!

I will leave you with my most favorite Vivaldi piece on Summer….I just love hearing the buzz of the late Summer circadia bugs that are now being replaced by the hushed sounds of the crickets welcoming in Autumn.

A moving door hinge never corrodes.
Flowing water never grows stagnant.
Deng Ming~Dao

Well, it has been a little while hasn't it?  I have had so many things I have wanted to share with you but at the end of the day I have been so blessed tired. Any one who knows me knows that I am really not much of a morning person, so my writing brain is not very cooperative until I have had a few cups of coffee and then it is time for work. (darn work!) I used to be such a night person, but that productivity period in my day is slowly shrinking…ha!

I actually have knit a few things, but the one thing I have enjoyed more than any of the other knits has been the Mystery Shawl designed by Kirsten of Through The Loops. 

As you now know, it was ten years ago that I started blogging and many of my closest and dearest friends are those who I came to know as a new blogger all those years ago.  When Kirsten announced her Mystery Shawl, one of those friends, Margene of the Zeneedle blog, mentioned that she was going to knit this shaw. One by one, those of us who have been knitbloggers for what feels like a very long time decided to join along. We create a facebook group to chat and support each other as we knit this beautiful shawl….and what fun we have had!  Such a gift that has reminded me of  those very first days of bogging all those years ago!

Knitting along with my friends made me realize how much I love these blog friends whose friendhip I cherish.  We have had a lot of fun knitting through the struggles and the victories of this challenging pattern…so much so that we are going to contnue knitting along with each other on another project.

The little quote above really says it all.  Flowing water never grows stagnent and the friendships I have made though blogging for me is flowing water. 
I am always thankful for the friendships and the knowlege I have gained on this journey.

Deb!  Congratulations!!  I will send you an email for your address.

I just want to thank each and every one of you who commented.  It meant SO much to me to read your kind words.  I have THE very best readers here!!

On to the next ten years. 🙂

It's so crazy to think I have been blogging for 10 years now.  TEN whole years!
You can read my very first post here.

You have been with me through my ups and downs.  With me through some of the losses I have suffered with my dear dogs and the joys of bringing new members into our family.

I have also met the most wonderful people while blogging and many of you have become my dearest friends even though some of us are separated by many miles. 
I am so thankful every single day for these friendships.

I am going to do a fun giveaway as a way of thanking my readers for taking the time out of their day to see what is going on in my little corner of the world.

The giveaway includes one of my big bunny bucket bags, 2 skeins of Airy in the
Water Study Colorway and a bar or Snowflake soap.  All you need to do is to leave one comment between now and 6 pm (EST) Monday.  I will use a random generator to pick the winner.

I am also doing a different giveaway on The Woolen Rabbit Facebook page, so go take a peek and enter there as well.

This is a quick post as I am elbow deep in dyeing and skeining yarn, but remember last week when I told you I was going to get another quilt right on the frame so I wouldn't forget again how to do it?  Well here she is. :) 

The fabric line is one of my most favorite lines, "The French General" by Moda.  It was my first experience with using pre cut fabrics and I made a few mistakes…those darn pinked edges really threw me off, so this is a practice quilt for me and one that I will either cut into pillows or bind and give it to one of my kids who I know will love it, imperfections and all.

I am quilting using a methoed that I watched on the video, Line Dancing by Martha Milne

The video is set to the music, La Mer and really takes some concentration.  It looks very simple but takes a lot of hand control, so I am happy to have this quilt to practice on.  As you can see, I'm a bit sloppy still, but with each crank of the frame, I feel a little more confident.  Very enjoyable! 

Next week I will share some tools that have really helped me with becoming more accurate in my machine piecing along with a few other little tidbits.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Normally I am not a person who does join alongs.  Mostly because I know how easily I get distracted and don't want to set myself up to fail.  This month however I have joined 2 "join alongs".  The yarn above is going to be used for Kirsten Kapur's 2014 Mystery Shawl.  Kirsten is using a set of gradients for her shawl.  I was going to give dyeing gradients a try, but I had these 5 colors right in front of me that I thought would look nice together, so I went with these.  The pattern so far has been fun and easy and having the clues come in spurts makes me think I will get this done..yay!
When I come back from the Squam show this weekend, I think I may give dyeing gradients a try, it seems like a fun challenge.  If you are in the Squam area on Saturday, stop by and say hi!  The art fair is open to the public.

I also joined this AB challenge.  Now this one will be a bit more challenging for me.  I have modified the sit ups to crunches on the ball to protect my back, which so far has remained comfortable.  I think I may have to find a way to modify the leg raises though so they don't pull on that weak area in my back.  I'm sure I will be able to find something on you-tube.

So there you have it…I am officially a "joiner" .

Last year when we found out that my son and his wife were expecting a baby, I embarked on a quilt once we knew that it was a little boy that I would be sewing for.

I started quilting many years ago and back then I did all of my quilts completely by hand.  I always thought machine quilting was cheating, but I have since found out that it is so much more challenging getting everything square on a sewing machine as the machine is not quite as forgiving as hand stitching, but I love the challenge.  This quilt is the first one I have worked on in almost a year, so it was a whole new learning curve again for me.  No, the points are not perfect and my long arm stitching could be a bit better, but it was made with love and is finished.  All good things, right?

The backing for the quilt is this scrumptiously soft fabric called Minky.  It's not the easiest fabric to work with, but I love how soft it is.  If there are going to be problems on a machine stitched quilt, it will be on the back, so to be safe I used a soft gray thread. Surprisingly the thread behaved with the backing, which was a very nice surprise indeed.  The quilt stitch I used was a very open stipple stitch, which kept the quilt soft and not too dense.

Wanting to tuck a little something extra to make it special for a special little boy I quilted his name in the bottom corner.  I really do enjoy working on the long arm machine because it's so easy to be creative, but I know I need to use it a lot more to get more proficient on it.  I made sure to load another quilt right on it while I still have the memory of what to do fresh in my mind. 

Little baby Finley had his first haircut last week when he turned 6 months old.  His dad wouldn't let it be clipped until the Bruin's hockey season came to an end.  He loved his little guy's messy hockey hair…haha!
It makes me chuckle as my children never had this much hair until they were at least a year old, let alone need a hair cut.

We had Finley here Sunday and Monday while his parents went to wedding, so I had a chance to snap off some pictures.  This one is my favorite….babies are just so dear.  We really enjoyed having this little guy stay with us!

There’s a time a for joy
A time for tears
A time we’ll treasure through the years
We’ll remember always
Graduation day.

What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been.  Lot's of family time with birthdays, college kids coming home and graduation for Courtney.

It was just this time of year 4 years ago when we visited The University of New Hampshire with Courtney to see if it was the school for her.  To be completely honest, we were really concerned that it was just too big of a school and that she might get swallowed up in the congestion of students.  Coming from a small town with a close knit group of friends, we feared that it might be overwhelming for her ADD brain.
(she is her mother's daughter)

Once there she quickly realized that a major in Chemistry was not for her and changed that major to Psychology/Elementary Education and started moving in a forward direction.  I was amazed at how well she kept herself on track.  Even though a number of her high school friends went to UNH with her making the transition a bit easier, she made new friends, who have become her best friends, while still maintaining her old friendships.

Looking at those graduation gowns and caps, I can't help but cry a little.  So much emotion tied up in those caps.  Our little girl has grown up and I will miss that happy little girl who always gave me a great big smile every morning as she came down the stairs to start her day, but I am so very happy for the new adventures that await this beautiful young woman!  We are so proud of her accomplishments!

Congratulations Courtney Rose!