I’m thrilled to share that I will have all THREE of my photo entries on display at the Eye of the Quilter Exhibit in Houston this year!  Since I don’t want to spoil the surprise, I won’t share THOSE three photos until Quilt Festival opens, but I will share a couple of my entries from past years.  I just love seeing the photos, and this time I totally think that my Queen Anne’s Lace photo from this year needs to become a quilt!   Last year, I only got one photo in, but it’s a keeper:

I navigate the world by ice cream stores. When I taught at Vermont Quilt Festival, of COURSE I made the pilgrimage to the original Ben and Jerry’s (twice!). The theme this year was “Favorite Things.” Ahem!

To go back to the beginning…..

Circles Collage was one of my first entries accepted to Eye of the Quilter. Look at all that design potential!

In 2011, I had three accepted with the theme of Friendship:

Pigwidgeon on top of Yeti. ‘Widgeon was just a puppy, and he loved his big dumb dog!

And 2011 was the year Mama finally joined her Mama.  The bottom right photo is the last I took of her.

Say Hi to Gramma is a collage honoring my mom, who died that year. The photo in the bottom center is our last Mother’s Day together.

My Frayed Edges friends are another source of joy in life:

The Frayed Edges, Summer 2011

I’ve got a new camera, a Panasonic DMC-FZ200!   I bought mine at Hunt’s Camera in South Portland in the interest of buying local, but they are also available here, at B&H Photo in NYC.  I’ve bought many cameras and equipment from B&H over the years, and highly recommend them.

My new camera (well, this is an internet photo, but mine looks like this minus the photo of the Jefferson Memorial!)

And WHY did I buy a new camera:  Well…..

Up until this summer, 2 1/2 years after purchasing my Canon G12, I would have given this camera 4 to 4 1/2 stars out of 5. I missed my previous camera, a Panasonic Super-zoom FZ-30 that had a 12x lens; I fatally damaged that camera when I slipped on a hike and it banged into a rock and knocked the lens loose (oops). I wanted something lighter and more compact so bought the Canon G12. After 30 months, it started acting up, buttons not responding, zoom not responding.

After searching on the internet, I discovered that many others are having this problem. The short-term workaround, to eject and re-insert the memory card worked for a few weeks. Eventually, I did a total reset, removing the memory card, the battery and reformatting the memory card. Also tried a different memory card. The camera became more and more locked up, couldn’t delete photos, couldn’t zoom, couldn’t even access the set up menus to do a total re-boot.

I called Canon to see about repairs: $179 plus about $40 shipping both ways. As a “loyal customer” they would sell me a “refurbished G12” for $279 instead. So a 20 percent discount off their current price for a 4 year old refurbished camera that no one is selling that is now two generations old? They would NOT allow me buy a G15 or G1 X at discount, full price only. NO THANKS, Canon.

Instead, I’m ticked off that I paid $469 for a supposedly great camera that died in less than 3 years despite being treated with extreme care: no sand, no water, not bumped, not dropped. Took baby-tender care of the G12 and it just quit. NOT GOOD.  Sounds like Canon’s program is profit loyalty, not customer loyalty!

So yesterday I bought a Panasonic Superzoom, DMC-FZ200. It weighs about the same as the G12. The processor isn’t quite as large, but the display articulates (unlike the G15 and G16), has an optical viewfinder, and 24x zoom. For super fussy I can use my Nikon DSLR.  And so far, the shots on the Panasonic look great.

Panasonic has done a great job… I love DP reviews for an expert review on cameras, and the FZ200 is tops for the superzooms.  Here’s a link to their info, just in case anyone is interested .  Astonishingly, it weights significantly less than my old FZ30, about the same as the G12, but is a bit bulkier.  Won’t fit into a pocket but easily fits into my purse!  WOOT!  All the better for blogging!

At the Hemingway House, Key West, Florida

Back to some visual inspiration from our Florida trip!  After our first night on Duck Key, we drove down to Key West for two nights.  This allowed us one day to wander (sweating a lot…it was over 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity) in downtown Key West and one day for a snorkeling trip to the Dry Tortugas.  The one thing I absolutely wanted to do was visit the Hemingway house, where I promptly fell in love with the acid green shutters!  The house is on the second highest bit of land on Key West, a little over 20 feet above sea level!

Of course, one of the reasons I wanted to go is the cats.  We have a polydactyl, which means many-toed cat.  They are reasonably common here in Maine as well as on Key West.  Most cats have 18 toes (four per foot, plus dew-claws on two feet).  Thumper has 26 toes–basically a foot and a half per leg!

This regal calico allowed us to photograph her in the dining room of the Hemingway house. I think she has the normal number of toesies.

Here’s one of those lovely windows from the INside looking onto the verdant garden.  There are fans for the obvious reason…it was HOT!  Apparently Hemingway’s then-wife (they lived there in the late 20s and 30s) decided to remove the ceiling fans and install her collection of crystal chandeliers.  The tourguides regret her decision every summer!

I loved the paving in the verandah area around the house…looks like a Quilt Modern plan, eh?

I LOVED the pods and flowers… I believe this is a Royal Poincianna tree. Stunning against that blue sky!

Speaking of cats… clearly they go where they want, even if it is on top of wet cement so that their feeties are preserved for posterity! Can you say Surface Design?

More wondrous and bizarre berries on trees–this one near the dock area where we departed for the Dry Tortugas.

LOVE LOVE LOVE the Royal Poincianna petals among the stones and buttress roots! Can you say QUILT-to-be?

And here are Mr. and Mrs. Smith at Mile 0 of US Highway 1. Now we need to go, maybe next summer, to the OTHER end of US Highway 1 where it runs into Canada a couple of hours to the north of us!

Coming soon:  our trip to the Dry Tortugas… yes, it is possible to go beyond the end of the Key West…keep going west!

Usually I don’t take my digital SLR because it is heavy!  But I am so glad I did on this trip because I would never have been able to get this shot without the full 2 second shutter exposure…. definitely the best night shot I’ve ever taken!

Can you say breathtaking? Taken from our 2nd floor room on the beach in the Florida Keys

I propped the lens on part of the balcony railing and held my breath so as not to wobble while the shutter was open.   I later got an email invitation to enter a quilt show with a specific theme, and my idea is for a night quilt, so even though the exact subject matter will be different, I KNOW I will use this photo of the moon and reflections on the water as one of my source images!

I’ll also, over a series of posts this coming month, share many more of the photos I took on this trip.  Nothing like a change of venue to wake one from the doldrums and start snapping madly with the camera! Enjoy the pics, and back in a few days, perhaps even with actual QUILTING.  What a concept…

The banana “flower” after the fruit has formed. I totally LOVE the rich red colors and the dried, curled up petal/frond/leaf thingies (not sure what they actually are, biologically speaking)

Loved the way these unopened flower buds are silhouetted against the darkness of the background foliage.

More of the glorious silver-gray-silver-curly-haired palms that enchant me

Not sure as this was growing shrub-like, but I think this may be white (?!!!) bougainvillea. Lovely not matter what it is!

And this suitably exotic and colorful … ummm… flower? leaf? sepal? whatchamacallit????

I was interviewed and videographed (filmed?) by a student at nearby Maine Media Workshops (used to be Maine Photographic Workshops) in Rockport, Maine–also found on Facebook here.  This came up almost at the last moment back in October, and I am finally (hanging my head in shame) getting to sharing it with all of you! I quickly tidied the few messes in  my studio—I guess having been too busy to work there paid off!  I took out a bunch of my quilts to put on the design wall, and learned a lot from the filming process.  Thank you so much for picking me!  How lucky I am to live near the workshop, eh?

Anyway…here I am….  Hope you enjoy seeing the clip and learning a bit about my “life before quilting” and my journey in quilting. And special thanks to our son Joshua, whose quilt is featured at the end of the video along with his music (you can here more on YouTube here and here and here) and to the videographer who wanted to use his music to accompany his quilt!  WOOT!

First, I WANT her photo-flood lights, the kind with the silver rectangular umbrella and a white cover that diffuses the light so well.  Then, in filming, there is an “A Roll” and a “B Roll.”  The A roll is the main interview (took about 10-14 minutes), which you will hear in the soundtrack, and see parts of the interview (Gosh… I hate the way my mouth moves when I talk!  Usually I hate the sound of my own voice, but that was OK this time… but … erk!  Anyway, that is totally to do with me and nothing to do with student or how cool this experience was!).  The B Roll is the next 5 hours of filming, edited into a coherent 3-minute video.

PS:  The student (a woman about my age or a bit younger) is employed by a major US Corporation and is in charge of the film/photography.  Since they subsidized her attendance at the workshop, she asked that I not name her or the  company so there would be no appearance that this clip was related to the company.  So that’s why the anonymity–but THANK YOU sometime-quilter and awesome photographer and videographer for picking me!

To see this larger, visit the link you YouTube, here.  And one last PS…the clip of the ambulance is stock footage…nothing like that big city anywhere near where I live!