Surprise Christmas Gift

This lap quilt was given to me this Christmas by one of my dearest friends and longest friends (I dare not say oldest should I?)  We became friends when I was 13 and a freshman in high school and continue to be good friends that both love quilting.  She has owned a quilt shop for many years.  We sat beside each other in that Home Economics class and decided to make matching outfits in the sewing unit.  I can still picture how beautiful our turquoise wrap around skirts were with the button up short sleeved tops that were made of white and turquoise flowered fabric.  Oh how I wish we had a photo of us in them now.

Back to the quilt….It is made with all batik fabrics and is just beautiful.  I use it most nights while I am sitting in my chair watching TV as it is the perfect size and weight to keep off the evening chill.The quilt is made with two basic units…a half square triangle unit that measures 4” finished and a rectangle that measures 2” x 4” finished.  The units are alternated across the quilt as well as vertically so it is a pretty simple quilt to make but is so stunning.  Notice that one of the triangles is always the same color in each unit.  That way you get the somewhat like hour glass motif marching across the quilt.  As you can see some fabrics on this quilt are high contrast to the brown triangles and others blend but the over all look is fabulous!

One thing I did with the photo I took of the quilt was change the background in my Photoshop Elements 11 program.  As you can see from my original photo the quilt is weighted down with books on the fireplace mantle.  The bricks are various shades of red and grey (not my favorite but that is the way it was when we acquired the house.)  The red bricks detract a bit as they are somewhat the same value as the quilt so I just got rid of them and added a cream colored background instead.  I did leave the mantle and books in the photo as it looked a little strange with no top edge of the quilt. Cropped the photo a bit and that was it.

   

Until Later,

Lynn

I Must Have A One Track Mind…Or Maybe Two

I seem to have trouble thinking and doing more than one or two things at any point in my life.  Right now I am concentrating on weight loss and learning about my camera (Canon EOS Rebel T2i)  and Photoshop Elements 11.  I have found a way to combine the two things I am focusing on and do them at the same time.

Update on weight loss – I am approaching a 25 lb. loss and am thrilled.  I spend time each day planning and cooking foods to keep on plan.  Before joining Weight Watchers I cooked higher fat/sweet/starch foods and have had to re-learn how to cook and find new favorite recipes to make lower point meals.  (Weight Watchers uses a point system that calculates using the fat content, carbohydrate content, fiber content and protein content to figure how many points foods contain and members are given a maximum number of points to eat each day.)   It is getting easier and quicker to make meals for us and am getting a few new recipes I can fall back on when I can’t think of what to fix for dinner. Since it is so cold outside I walk on the treadmill most days and walking everyday on the treadmill in our bedroom has gotten less boring too as I have been watching a DVD titled “Learn Photoshop Elements Today!” from the editors at Photoshop Elements Techniques magazine to help pass the time and to learn the program one tool at a  time.  It was one of the free gifts for subscribing to the magazine and this alone is worth the price of the subscription.   It is a great DVD with videos on all the tools, how to use them, what they do and showing examples of the tool being used.  It is very easy to understand and I find I am gradually learning about the program as I walk away the miles.  I even plan to watch it more than once to learn all the nuances of the program as this brain of mine doesn’t always remember everything the first time around. I found I can place my laptop computer on my treadmill and watch a few videos during each walking session.  There is a lip of plastic that overhangs the little shelf and this keeps my laptop from falling off as I walk.  I think it is just a design feature on the treadmill but it works great.  Actually walking on a treadmill can be boring….very boring and watching these videos has been a good distraction for me, plus I am learning something at the same time.

I want to sew but just manage to get to my sewing machine infrequently if at all.  One of these days I will be changing focus so stay tuned.

Lynn

Meadow Lark

Nebraska State bird is the Meadow Lark and we had a couple dozen of them in my flower beds and in front of the house one cold day last week.  They were rooting around in the flower beds close to the brick of our house where the snow had melted and must have been finding insects or seeds then they would hop out into the lawn…back and forth they went for quite sometime.  They were fascinating to watch and decided to snap photos of them from inside my house. 

I put my zoom lens (55 - 250 mm I believe) and started snapping photos in the sports auto setting.  They didn’t seem to mind me but I was real careful not to move much either.  I also took some in manual settings so don’t know which one this was and have not taken the time to look up the settings on the photo .  I am thinking manual as the grass in the snow is blurry behind the bird and I set the f-stop low so it would do that on some of my photos.  By the way I was shooting the photos through my dirty windows – that could be some of the “smudgness” too.  I didn’t do much to this photo in Photoshop Elements 11 but lighten the bird a bit as it was just a tad dark and give it a bit of sharpening.  I have to laugh as I probably took 40 photos of the birds and liked only 3 or 4 so it is good that it was not film like in the “old days”.
 
Enjoy,
Lynn

Playing with Photos

I have been having fun playing with the Photoshop Elements 11 program the last few days and this is one of the photos I played with.  Isn’t this just fun…the cattle escaping from the photograph.

I started with the photo below and as you can see the cattle were running the other way.  I don’t know if there are any rules that apply here but I just think that people and animals in photos look better walking/running from left to right so just flipped it since it makes no difference to this photo.
I am just beginning to explore the fun things in this program.  The frame and cattle walking out of the photo process was called Out of Bounds in the Guided area of PE 11.  I won’t go into how it is done because I don’t really understand it myself.

I am determined to learn more about Photoshop Elements 11 and to learn more about my Canon DSL Rebel 2Ti camera this year.  I have had the camera for a couple of years and am wanting to learn how to use more of it’s features.  I am reading articles, watching videos and experimenting to learn as much as I can.

Until later,
Lynn

Real Mums in the Flower Bed

Since I have not started anything new I am going to show you a photo I took of one of my mum plants in my flower bed with a small bee on one of the flowers.  Aren't you impressed with how many flowers it has on it? (Even though you can't see the whole plant it is impressive.)  Usually I pinch the buds back in early July so it fills in with more flowers.  I didn't even suggest that to John as he was taking care of the flower beds while I was incapacitated  with my broken ankle.  He did a good job at weeding and watering but that was as far as he had time or interest in doing.

My oldest daughter and two granddaughters came this weekend which was another reason I didn't get any sewing done.  The little girls are 9 and 10 and love to play outside plus we played a lot of games and put a jigsaw puzzle together too.

I used Photoshop Elements to add simple filters to the photo to get different effects.  Some are really interesting and some really add to the photo.  I didn't spend too much time with each one though.  I just wanted to see what they would look like.  I would really like to take a class on Elements to learn more about it but do use the program to diddle with my photos a little to get them the way I like them but don't even begin to use the program to it's fullest.

Enjoy!

Maybe I will sew something again soon.

Lynn