More Quilt Barns

We are having a wonderful time up here in the chilly, windy, but beautiful North Carolina mountains.  We have been on several excursions and enjoyed the beautiful colors of the changing leaves.  Yesterday we went to the New River General Store.

On the way I saw lots of new quilt squares added to barns and storage buildings.  This is one of the prettiest yet, a log cabin block that literally glowed.

Here is a Lemoyne Star.

Both Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Ollie were on this hay barn, looking like signs on rest room doors.

The Blue Ridge Parkway is closed for repairs to the stone guardrails on the way from Sparta to Laurel Springs, but we were able to travel as far as the Stone Mountain overlook.  Beautiful!

The clouds were lined up in formation like they were marching above the mountain ridges.

The day before, we went for a visit to our friends Tom and Vicky's farm in West Jefferson.  We all enjoyed seeing their beautiful garden and orchards. She still had some towering sunflowers.

This is the hillside behind Tom and Vicky's house.

Tom let us load up with apples for the deer.

Not to mention some pumpkins.  The trailer was loaded for Tom's son to take to the Farmers Market the next day.

When we got back, we went up the mountain and put out some of the apples for the deer.  We had a couple buckets outside of our garage last night, and the deer came right to the house and munched on some of them!

Kasey looked like a dog angel with a halo around her as she ran ahead through the meadow.

Tomorrow is the first Monday of the month, which means my art quilt bee meets.  We are going to do some faux screen printing and play with Inktense color blocks.  Can't wait!

All Things Quilty in the Mountains

It did not take long to find something quilty to show you from our trip to the mountains this weekend!

The Upper Mountain Agriculture Research Station has added another quilt barn to the two existing ones on the  farm.  This one is a very striking star pattern on the barn on our side of Hwy 88.

It was so nice to get to the mountains where the temps always are about fifteen degrees cooler.  We went up to the top of the mountain and sat in the Christmas tree farm, where there is always a nice breeze.  We watched the sunset.

When we got back to the cabin, we were greeted by the cheery Christmas lights we left on the garage doors, and a giant orange full moon rising.

Next morning, we went into West Jefferson for groceries and supplies.  Our first stop is usually Welch's Produce.  They have added some carts with green and yellow wheels, and red umbrellas to protect from the sun. 

We bought tomatoes, corn on the cob, cantaloupe, fresh peaches, sourdough bread, seedless blackberry jam, and some mountain honey.  Unfortunately, Charlie dropped the jar of honey when we got home, and it broke.  WAAH!

Our friend and neighbor Ricky had a birthday while we were at the beach.  We got him a bottle of a potent potable.  I couldn't find a gift bag to recycle, so I painted a brown bag from Yankee Candle and added a mountain picture that I cut from a real estate brochure.  The white paint pen that I bought for my artistic journaling class came in handy!

Catching Up

This week has been flying by! Going back to work makes the days rather short. So far, all I have done at work is get my teaching space ready. To make room for three extra teachers, they moved the custodians out of their trailer, and we inherited a room that is not in very good condition. Yesterday I brought in some quilts, tablecloths, and artwork to make my third a little softer and prettier. The lead custodian at this school remembers me from when I was the computer teacher at the middle school. I taught the custodians how to use e-mail, Internet, and Word over a period of time when I was there. I guess that kindness is being repaid, because Mr. Watkins has been going out of his way to move things around, find me tables and chairs, adjust furniture heights, and has promised to shampoo the carpet before the kids arrive.

Anyway, here is a wrap-up of our trip to the mountains last weekend. Last Friday, Charlie and I spent the whole day in West Jefferson and Boone. One of the first things we noticed on our drive was a new Quilt Barn at the N.C.Mountain Research farm near our home.

Charlie paid some client visits, we ate lunch with my brother John in Boone, and then we spent a couple of hours with my father at his apartment in a retirement community. He needed help with a few things on his computer. Before I left, he had a shortcut to my blog on his desktop, and we got him into Facebook! It looks like he is having fun with that already.

And here is my Valentine, which is a watercolor painting of our house here in Wake Forest. He did it during a craft night at the retirement center. I can just see all of those elderly ladies cutting out doilies and pink foil hearts, and my father producing this beautiful painting! (He is a retired commercial artist.)

It is actually 3-D. The house sticks out from the background because of a bit of foam core behind it. You know I love this picture!

Once again we had beautiful weather to begin the weekend, which started out rather mild, and ended up with snow on Sunday night. On Saturday and Sunday, we spent almost all our time outdoors. I love it when hunting season is over and we can roam the woods without fear of being mistaken for a deer or wild turkey. Usually, we ride the same route on the Gator as we go to the top of the mountain on my brother-in-law and sister's land, then ride down through the Christmas tree farms and neighbor's property with permission. This time, no one was up there, and we did a little more exploring.

I may have mentioned before that there used to be a mine at the top of the mountain, called "Ore Knob." It produced mostly copper, but also silver and gold. The two shafts have been filled in now, but the damage to the environment from the mine lives on. Apparently sulphur was a by-product of the mining process. On the "other side of the mountain" there is a vast wasteland called the "Sulphur Flats." This has typically been a place to ride 4-wheelers and hunt. One of my fondest memories was of riding horses with Charlie, Katy, and Kenny across the mountain and the sulphur flats when we were in our twenties. But, below the flats, the run-off stream is full of sulphur.

It has poisoned Big Peak Creek at the point (well below our place) where the run-off stream flows in. No fish there. Finally, the federal government has provided a grant to clean up this toxic waste area. They are digging down, piling clean soil and mulch on top, and changing the terrain. It was interesting to watch this going on after decades of no activity in this area.

Then we followed the logging trails around and spent a long time hiking along the creek. It was absolutely gorgeous.

Here are Charlie and Ricky (and Maggy) on one of the big rocks near the creek, probably picturing themselves bow-hunting there next fall. Mary and I were wowed by the scenic locations and were picturing picnics with the grandkids.

And here is one more picture of a strange sight. You never know what you are going to see going down our road. On our way back from breakfast at the cafe, we ran across this big fella who had escaped from his pasture. He was about twice as big as my Subaru and enjoying a leisurely stroll down the street!

The Quilt Wagon Rolled On...

At the Capital Quilters' Guild on Thursday night, I picked up more of the quilts for the wounded soldiers at Camp Lejeune. A set of five beautiful quilts was donated by the Honeycomb Bee, quilted by Cathy Kirk. I really loved the "fireworks" quilting on one of the quilts.
We left Wake Forest, NC for the mountains on Friday morning, stopping in Durham to pick up two more soldier quilts from Jan Struble, and then meeting Theresa DeWalt and her husband in Kernersville to deliver 13 quilts. Then, on to the mountains!

That day last week when all we got was rain...well, the northern mountains got several inches of lovely white snow. Our new pond was frozen solid. Wasn't this a pretty sight?The men were hunting wild turkeys on Friday and Saturday. I set up a tiny sewing studio in our one-room cabin. Look at this tiny sewing machine...a Janome that looks like a child's toy. It does a fine straight stitch, though it is noisy and slow. Every time you get to a seam it goes, "Thwunk!" But I got about all the rows of the Yellow Brick Road pieced together, and sewed four of them together.
I have lots more pictures to post and adventures to relate. But here are two of the barns from the Ashe County Quilt Barn project, looking pretty in the snow!