I’m home and trying to watch the Super Bowl. It’s not easy. Unpacking has been distracting me.

The sun did finally shine on the last day (the REALLY last day) of the 29th Jinny Beyer Seminar. It was a lovely end to a lovely week. I wish it wasn’t all over, but I’m very grateful to have been a part of this last seminar.

Did you know that Jinny has 150 different fabrics in her current collection of fabric? I didn’t know this. They blend together – from color to color and value to value – in such a beautiful way. I want to use them – ALL! I’m going to have to buy them all – soon.

I wanted to share a beach find with you. There were lots of sand dollars in the sand. I resisted picking one up to bring home because they looked like they were still alive. The only sand dollars I’ve seen are gray (not green), without little hairs. It was pretty cool to spot some “in the wild”!

There is a “traveling” version of Jinny’s quilt shop here at the seminar. I finally had time to go on a fabric hunt! I could be wrong about this, but I think that Jinny has 150 luscious colors currently in print. The colors sparkled!

Some of these fabrics are like old and dear friends to me. I used Jinny’s fabric in my quilts since I was a new quilter. I was happy to find new fabric “friends” to go home with me.

Here’s Karen Stone, who stopped shopping just for a minute so that I could take her picture.

This is my classroom at the Jinny Beyer Seminar at Hilton Head Island. We’re at the Marriott Resort and my space is part of the bigger ballroom. The partition walls are floor to ceiling which is nice. This is yesterday’s Lorna’s Vine class hard at work.

This afternoon I went with Karen Stone and Alex Anderson to the Needlepoint Junction – a local yarn and needlework shop. I love yarn shops – it’s like being bombarded with color. The textures are so luxurious!

I almost bought some of this wool sock yarn – until I remembered that I have a lot of sock yarn at home that I really should knit up first – someday, when I’m not appliqueing.

But then Karen spotted some very fine lace wool. I don’t have any of that! I bought a skein of muted greens and golds that will be fun to knit into a shawl.

It’s still gray outside and as I’ve been typing a light rain started to fall. The color of the yarn in these pictures is a lovely contrast to the scene outside my window.

There are record numbers of quilters here for the final Jinny Beyer Seminar – and, happily, I’m one of them. Everyone is smiling!

Early classes started yesterday. I taught an all-day Lorna’s Vine class and will repeat it today. Not too many were out walking on the beach yesterday because it is chilly and windy. There is, however, a lovely soft gray view of the beach, ocean, and sky.

I hope to have time today to take pictures of quit-related sitings for you!

Enjoy the day,

Becky

I’ve been playing with the new camera. Boy, is it a nice piece of equipment! These are a few of my outdoor bird houses. Steve made the ones on this post several years ago. He didn’t paint them blue, I did. Color is good!

Birds have never lived in them but the wasps like them a lot. Our driveway is at the back of our house on an alley. This bird-house-post is at one corner of the driveway, across the way from the new raised beds.

Steve’s brother, Charles, is a dentist in Oklahoma City. He made this marvelous bird “hotel” birthday present for Steve and me.

We mounted it on what is a ladder to nowhere. (It is actually all that remains of what used to be a climbing structure for kids.) I hope the birds love it. Charles – you did great!

Here’s an update on the raised vegetable beds we’re building. We filled the beds with a mixture of soil, compost, expanded shale, and other organic additives that I can’t remember. You might notice that my hair in the photo is even shorter these days. I’m loving it!

I hope that we have time tomorrow to install the soaker hoses. I’m getting ready to leave for the Jinny Beyer Seminar on Sunday and I’m running out of time to get it all done.

I have high hopes that we can grow a lot of vegetables in these beds. I’m certainly having fun going through the seed catalogs!