Flowers: large and really small

I like working in a large format but from time to time I do work small.  Yesterday I spent the entire day working really small after spending two days of being in duh-land waiting for inspiration. A state I find myself in from time to time after I have finished a larger piece. 
I've had this piece on the wall all quilted, block and cropped to the size I think it will finish to for several days.
It still needs facing and you know the other stuff, sleeves and a label.  Those will happen some day when I have nothing more pressing and don't want to sit on the couch being content in duh land.

The color in this image are not true.  Not sure why the yellow background does not show as being a soft mottled yellow.  I haven't put it away yet.  I will live with it on the design wall for a few more days to see if it needs  more shading and highlights in the flowers.  As of now it measures 50" wide by 41".  I also haven't free motioned my name on it because I can not decide if it will have a horizontal or a vertical orientation.   I painted it as vertical but as I as quilting it the horizontal orientation keep poking into my consciousness.

Getting back to the really small.  I was asked to do a tutorial as follow-up to the class I taught in Cincinnati the first of this month.  I ask them to give me a couple of weeks to get it done... well 2 weeks was stretching to 3 so yesterday keeping my word I got down to it and spend the entire day from breakfast to bedtime creating this small piece photographing each step as my way of making sure I was telling and showing them the techniques they asked for.

Small, really small.... 9-1/4" x 9-3/4".  Small but fun and it gave me some insight into two things.  One;why some of us have more than one sewing machine.  Two; how much work writing a book or doing a DVD will be. 

As I created this piece, I used one machine to piece, do machine applique and apply the facing.  I used the other machine to do the free motion quilting.  Have I told you how much I love FM quilting on the 7700.   I really  had thought  I would sell my Janome 6600 after I had it serviced, but as of yesterday I have changed my mind.  I'm keeping it.  The whole of it is, it was so convenient to have both machines set up and ready for the task at hand.  

After all there is only me who lives here in apt # 434. One less machine set up for use all the time won't make where I live look less like a studio. It just affirms my desire to create.

Florida is known as the sunshine state but

of late periods of sunshine has been hard to find.  Rain, rain, rain, cloudy and grey skies  is what we have had for more than a week now and I was getting a little tired of it.  But this morning with the dawn came the clear sky and sunshine, yeah. 
While sunshine is way up there on my list of favorite things so are flowers and this week I got to indulge myself in them.  First by buying a pot of begonia at the market this week to place on a table in front of the window to add some more cheer and color to my living space.

Secondly, by working on my latest quilt and teaching an abridged version of my painting on silk with watercolor class yesterday.

Sorry, I forgot to take my camera along, so no pictures.  But the ladies in the class have asked if I could arrange a class on how I free motion quilt my quilts. If that comes to be , what they painted yesterday  will be the project they will work on in the machine quilting class. I promise  I will take pictures then. 
Best venture of all... this past week I was pleased to have my middle grandson Justin come for a visit before he is ships out for nine months of sea duty.
He arrived last Sunday in time to be my ride home from the airport.  Now getting myself up and into his truck was not easy or a pretty site.   While he was here he drove  me to 2 Lowe's stores to shop in their nursery for these plants that I planted in my balcony railing boxes.  To solve the issue of how to get into the truck I took along a foldable step stool.  Yes it did look funny but it worked and it was a far far better looking picture then me trying to get into the truck otherwise. 

I had to remove the flower boxes from the railing  for the building painting project.  With them back and filled with flowers I feel so much more like I am living in "My Place". 
I began quilting this piece before I went to Ohio to teach last weekend and it was good to get back to it when I
returned.

 

Sunshine outside, flowers inside (the begonias), outside (the flower boxes) and being worked on,(the quilt) how good is that for a SUNday.

Teaching: the good and the just plain trying

I am back from Ohio and two days of teaching my Flowers on a Grand Scale to a group of 12 lovely ladies.  Some who were in the class I taught there last year so it was really nice to see some familiar faces.  Again I was hosted by Carole S. and enjoyed my stay in her home and left wanting to take the  mattress on the bed home with me.  It was so comfortable.
The trying part of my travels was the "flying to and from".  I did not realize just how much I dislike doing so.  There once was a time when I did not enjoy being on a plane while it was in flight.  But back then, I did not find the getting through the terminal to the plane a pain.  Now it is.  So bear with me because I am going to b---h and moan.
Getting out of Orlando is not really that bad especially if your are organized.  (easy on and off shoes, all stuff that needs to be removed from you purse, carryons in zip lock bags and you go through the experienced traveler line).  There  isn't that much a walk from the entry door to the TSA clearing area and from there to where you get  on the tram to your gate.  Everything considered,  how busy the air port is and the number of flights in and out and size of the overall footprint of the airport it is not bad.  And neither is the airport in St Louis. The airport in Louisville is not bad for two reasons, the walking side walks and the little golf cart type passenger carriers.
Now you would think that a smaller airport servicing smaller planes would be a cinch.  But I have found the two smallest  airports to which I have traveled have been the most trying to get through.  The distance from where you deplane to where you pick up your rental car is like setting out on a mile long expedition. And no there were no four to six passenger go carts tooling along the concourse picking up someone like me who is saying to themselves, "How much further...how much further". I thought Providence was bad, but let me tell you Dayton is far worse.  In booking my flight and evaluating all the options, I knew the airport in Atlanta was going to be a pain, but the flight out of Dayton was delayed due in part to being put on hold by Atlanta, so with 45 minutes between my connecting flight and the second leg of the trip departing from a different concourse from where I arrived wasn't enought time.  So of course, I missed the flight.  I did get a seat upgrade for my troubles, but I got home later than I planned as well.  But I am home....
Now back to the good.
Here are some images of what the ladies in the class and what they did.

 

Everyone did a background on the first day. Most were what I expected and one was a complete surprise and I loved it.

Here are some of the pieces once the construction of the flower had begun. Sorry I don't have pictures of everyones piece.  

 

 

 

 

Love, love the red flower on yellow, but you all knew I would.