Tuesday, May 28, 2013

I'M BACK!

 

 
 
Happy Days!!!

I'm blogging again after a year's absence. My former blog was LongarmDiva (www.longarmdiva.blogspot.com).  If you go to that location, you will find hundreds of pictures of my longarm quilting work.  If I can figure out how to get those pictures into this blog, I will do so, but I lost many pictures in an outdated photo storage system and can no longer access them.  Now that I have moved into my new digs and have set up my new studio, I'll be producing new works for you to peruse on this new blog.  My!  A lot has changed during this past year!

During that time I changed status (now divorced), state (Maryland now instead of Virginia), and scenery (city life instead of remote country). One of the results of the first change was losing 65 pounds.  Actually, 265 pounds, if you count the ex-husband, but we won't go into that.  May I just say that I don't miss a single one of those 265 pounds.... 

A happy result of the second change is establishing membership in a new quilt guild, the Village Quilters in Catonsville, MD.  I miss my old gang at the Lake Gaston Quilt Guild.  They have been the most kind and generous friends imaginable these past five years, and they will always be welcome should any of them find themselves in my area.

Which means that they would have to brave the result of the third change:  TRAFFIC!  OMG!!! I had forgotten the mayhem and lunacy of driving the beltway! Down south, if there were more than four cars on the same road with you, it was a traffic jam.  Up here there are thousands of cars all going under 20mph for what seems like forever -- and they all think that's the normal state of affairs.  Hmmmm.  So far, that's the only drawback to being back in my home state.  And to my way of thinking, the good parts far outweigh the bad stuff.


Here are two BIG reasons why I'm extra happy to be back in Maryland.  My two sons, Chris and Jon.  I'm 5'9", but these guys are well over 6'.  My Guy calls them Sequoias!  These huge offspring and their families (five grandchildren, thank you) are now so much more accessible.  Being over four hours away in the southernmost boonies of Virginia made short visits almost impossible.  Now I can see them just for dinner or other normal occasions.  Hurray!

So now I have opened my new studio, LADYCAT QUILTING, otherwise known as my lurkim (see Dr. Seuss' The Lorax), happily quilting away on my wonderful Nolting 24 Pro with the unbeatable IntelliQuilter computerized robotic system on it for gorgeous and limitless quilting designs. Over the next weeks, I'll share this journey of reestablishment, reconstitution and revitalization. 

And I'll introduce you to a very special person -- My Guy -- who appeared out of nowhere as nothing short of a miracle.  But that's for another day.

Till then, there's no place like home.