Sunset Clouds

Clouds...beautiful to look at, harbingers of rain, symbols of happiness when puffy and white, depression when dark and gray.

I spent some time painting clouds using different techniques yesterday.  Here is one that I liked well enough to finish as a gift for my husband for Fathers' Day on Sunday.

Marsh Sunset, Jeanne Turner McBrayer, 2015

A highlight of our Sunset Beach vacations is always watching the sun set over Madd Inlet from the cottage on 40th Street at the end of the island.  

Here are some of the other cloud studies.

Wet paint blotted with tissue.

Watercolor wash dried, then re-wet with cloth towel, and color lifted with towel.

Wash of colors for sunset clouds.  This one led to the colors used in the Marsh Sunset painting at the top.

It has been extremely hot here in Raleigh, NC, this week.  We are heading for the hills for the weekend.  We have not been to our cabin for almost a month, and we are needing a fix, as well as a respite of cooler temperatures!

Quilts and Clouds

Here are some more pictures of the auction quilts on display at the Capital Quilters Guild Thursday night.  (See my previous post for my bee's winning quilt entry!)

 All of these beautiful quilts have been made and donated for the Heritage Days Quilt Auction on October 1.  Here is a big shout-out to all the generous quilt makers who have created these gorgeous quilts for charity.  I am so sorry that I cannot attribute them to their makers, since the "Viewer's Choice" was anonymous.

The one below has a stunning color combination, and I loved the swirly quilting.

I love scrappy quilts, and this one covers a wide range of the color spectrum.

Here is another scrappy beauty.

Here is a bargello quilt in hot colors suitable for this July weather!

This advent tree was one of my favorites.  There are 25 ornaments.

This is a very large, stunning quilt in muted tones.  Lots of piecing here!

Here is yet another beautiful scrappy quilt, in what appear to be Civil War reproduction fabrics.

I like the secondary patterns of circles made from this pattern.

This was one of my favorite quilts in the exhibit.  I like the play of light and the contrast between colors.

Now look at this stunner...all I can say is "Wow!"

This quilt was quite remarkable, and I think it was made by an individual, not a group. Sure would like to have this on the bed in our cabin!

This smaller quilt has a lot of energy.

This next quilt was very popular.  The block is a traditional one known as churn dash or monkey wrench.  But, inside the center of each block are folded triangles, which open to reveal a surprise.

The folded triangles remind me of those fortune tellers or "cootie catchers" we made as school kids.

This one opened to reveal a raccoon.  Isn't this a great idea for a kid's quilt?

The next four pictures show some of the above quilts that won awards in the Viewer's Choice voting.

Things have been very busy since my Thursday night post about the guild meeting. On Friday morning, I had to go back to Rex Hospital in Raleigh for my first blood test since starting anti-coagulant therapy. (I sprained my ankle July 10, and developed a Deep Vein Thrombosis ten days later.) The goal is a PT/INR level of between 2 and 3.  I passed with flying colors with a 2.3. The best part was that I only had to take two more of the hated Lovonox injections after that! Yippee! I took ten total, and have ten bruises to show for it, making my abdomen look very much like a Dalmatian! I'm still on Coumadin.  I went back to Rex again this morning and it was 2.2, so I am doing well on the blood clot treatment.

The ankle is doing much better, as well. We went up to our mountain place and I was VERY careful not to fall again. I just had to dodge the seven children and five dogs, and stay out of the creek. We got a lot done, which is good, since we have a huge crowd coming in next weekend.

When we left Wake Forest Friday afternoon, it was 102 degrees.  We arrived at our mountain place just following a thunderstorm, and it was 72 degrees!  What a relief!  The hot ground air meeting the cooler air from the storm created a blanket of fog that crept across the mountains.

It started in the west...

crept down the valley and obscured the hills...

finally covering everything!

It finally rolled off to the east.  I love these weather phenomena that make for exciting photos!

As always, our Kasey was a happy camper!

Mountains and Crafts

Charlie and I went back to our mountain place this weekend.  We had a much smaller crowd- just the two of us, our neighbors Ricky and Mary, and their two grandsons.  Very quiet!  Saturday was rainy, so we went to the Northwest Trading Post on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Glendale Springs.  They had some nice quilts, like the dramatic red and white stars above, and the red and blue floral quilt below.

This hydrangea fabric quilt is being sold as a fundraiser by the Ashe County Piecemakers Guild.  They are asking $750.00.  I am so sorry that I will miss their annual show in Jefferson Station next weekend.

In addition to the quilts, there were split oak baskets

some floral brooches that had an actual stem from nature

some colorful aprons

and lots more.  I bought my first Christmas gifts, as well as some banana-walnut bread that we enjoyed for breakfast this morning.

On the way back to Laurel Springs, we had some spectacular views of Mt. Jefferson shrouded in clouds (this shot is just above Ashe County High School...wouldn't you love to go to school with such magnificent beauty right out your window?)

The clouds were right over the fields

and continued all the way home to our turn-off at the Upper Mountain Research farm.

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, with a crisp autumn feel to the air and a nice breeze.

We were dismayed to find that a giant oak tree near the bridge over our creek had come down during the night.  This tree had a bent trunk that formed almost a bench that you could sit several kids atop.  There was a hollow place in the trunk that I always peered in to see if there was a small animal inside.  When we used to camp down by the creek, the tree was kind of scary because it looked like a man with giant arms.  When I gave my husband one of those tree faces for Christmas, he climbed on a tall ladder and mounted the face on this tree.  Then it really looked like a man!

This is what was left of the tree this morning.

You could see right through the hollow in the stump.

Fortunately, it fell into the creek, and not across our driveway.

I have taken pictures of the dam from our bridge countless times, but this was all you could see from the bridge this morning.

Before we left, Ricky had pulled the tree out of the creek with his backhoe, and onto the grassy field for the neighbors to cut up for firewood.  We are sad to see it go.

Mountain Beauty

Peak Creek, 5" x 7", 2009

We start today with a picture of a little art quilt that I made on my Babylock Embellisher needle-felting machine. Then, I free-motion quilted it on my Bernina. It is supposed to represent the bridge that crosses Peak Creek and leads to our family mountain home. The emerald green foliage is Dupioni silk. The tree trunks used to be the fingers from a cashmere knit glove that sadly lost its mate. The sparkle is Angelina fibers.

We went up on Friday morning and had another fabulous weekend enjoying the beauty of nature.