Super Quilt Seminar in Delaware

The photo is of me with Ricky Tims at the Ricky Tims Super Quilt Seminar I attended this last week end. The beautiful quilts in the background are his quilts. He is extremely talented and a great teacher! He is also a terrific musician and performed on Friday evening for all the attendees and guests. My spouse loved the concert! 

Ricky's co-presenter was Alex Anderson! Her book on starting to quilt was my first quilting book. I look at it when I need to review how to do things correctly. The photo below is one I managed to get with her. 

Mike took me to the seminar and then went off on his own to visit a car museum. On the first evening I met him in the bar after class. He and Al, a man sitting at the bar, were having a great old time. Diane, Al's wife, came over right after I got there. She is a terrific quilter with her own quilting book coming out soon. She and I sat together the next couple of days. She was not the only quilter I met. I kept telling her she looked like Alex Anderson. Here is a photo of them. Judge for yourself. 

I learned all kinds of techniques and was able to see both Ricky's and Alex's quilts up close. What a treat! The photo immediately below is Alex's quilt and the other is one of Ricky's photo quilts. Just wow! 

Here is a close up of the center of his award winning Rhapsody quilt. I think it will be a long time before I reach this level. Ricky says we can all do this. Right?!!! 

Easter Walk on the Patuxent Branch Trail

As we travel we try to find nice hikes or paths to take in the areas we visit. We forgot that we have so many nice paths in our own area of the country. Today we decided to take an Easter afternoon walk, so I looked for a place nearby. We drove over to the Patuxent Branch Trail, only a few miles from home. We took the 4 mile round trip from Guilford Road to Lake Elkhorn. 

I was admiring the ground cover that seemed to be everywhere in the floodplain forest the path generally follows. It was mostly just green, but in a few areas the blooms were starting to appear.  

When we got home I looked at the Maryland wildflower guide, but did not find the flower. I expanded my search and discovered that this plant's common name is Lesser Celandine and is considered invasive in this area, as it displaces the native wildflowers. 

It was still a nice walk on a warm day - finally! This has been a cold winter.