Beautiful sights

While we were in the mountains last weekend, we visited friends from Raleigh who were staying in a borrowed cabin. Below is their awesome view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The cabin itself was so tucked away that we could not find it, so we met at an intersection and followed our host. Not only was the cabin and view a delightful hidden surprise, but the furniture and decor of the cabin was a lovely cache of art treasures from all over the world. This guest room has two twin beds with pillows and bedspreads made from molas from Panama. Aren't they scrumptious! I actually own three mola squares which I purchased at a Latin American festival in Chapel Hill one year. They are made by using reverse applique, cutting away layers of different colored fabrics.


One of my favorite things to do at our mountain place is to walk along the creek and take pictures. This is the dam that used to power a mine at the top of the mountain. The structure for the turbine is still in place. We used to camp next to the dam, just behind that big tree on the left. It was wonderful to hear the sound of the waterfall. Along the creek and all up the mountain are huge laurel thickets. Actually, rhododendron, but known as laurel up there in Laurel Springs. They should know! The laurel leaves are a weather indicator. Flat when it is warm, they curl up to the size of pencils when it is freezing! The first afternoon it was quite warm and sunny.
After that, it got down to the single digits every day. It was only 2 degrees F when we woke Monday morning.

Friday night a group of us rode to the top of the mountain on Gators and four-wheelers. What a memorable night! the moon was almost full, the sky was clear, and the snow crystals sparkled like diamonds in our headlights.

Christmas tree farms in the snow.
We had no trouble with power outage or frozen pipes up there in the frigid cold. However, when we got home, our water pipes had frozen at the connection at the street. Poor DSH dragged a generator up our long driveway to the curb and used it to place a light in the connection box until they thawed. It was not nearly as cold here. Made me glad for our snug little home in the hills.

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!

Yellow Brick Road on a Rainy Day

Yesterday, all the news was about the "wintry mix" of weather we were supposed to receive today, starting early in the morning. The schools all scheduled a "Two-Hour Delay" to allow for the roads to be cleared and the rush hour traffic to subside. Well, all we have gotten is a cold, dreary, rainy day. Not to complain since our lakes are still so dry from the months of drought.

I worked on Yellow Brick Road blocks in deer, leaf, and and other grassy and woodland fabrics fabrics for the young man I wrote about yesterday. We have fondly called him "Jimmy-James" since he was a baby. I also want to make a quilt for the one nephew who has never gotten a quilt from me. He is the oldest, and came along before I started making quilts. I have made three for his children, however! I also want to make one for my sister and her husband. And I have never finished the one for my daughter-in-law's sister, using Lilly Pulitzer fabric. All it needs is borders and to be quilted. Maybe if we have a few more rainy days!

Blogger is not performing well this afternoon, and won't allow me to upload any pictures right now. Tonight is quilt guild, and tomorrow morning we are leaving for our first trip to the mountains in several months. BRRR- I have packed my long-johns and my "Hot-Fingers Mittens." Maybe I will be able to bring one of my small sewing machines finish piecing the quilt top up there. (Pictures posted Jan. 21)

Seeing Stars

Yesterday was the day to quilt the donation projects for Camp Lejeune soldiers. I actually missed the explanation of the project when they handed out the quilt tops back in September. Well, if you know Theresa DeWalt, aka "Quilt Room Granny," it would not matter what they were for. She is such an energetic, cheerful, loving person, that I would have taken the tops to do for whatever reason. So, I unwrapped my packages yesterday, and found one pieced in all different fabrics with MANY seams, and lots of red, white, and blue prints. The other turned out to be a whole cloth or "cheater cloth" print, circa 1987, with stars and hearts.


With all the busy fabrics and colors on the patchwork top, I chose to just meander and add free-style stars.














I thought the "cheater" top needed some emphasis on the block designs to make it look like it was pieced. One of the Line Dancing patterns by Diana Phillips fit the bill. That kind of quilting goes quickly: go down, turn right, go up, go down, and then at the end make a left turn and work your way back! Actually, I did not look it up to see if this was one of her designs, I just added a loop in the line dance curve.

Next problem: what to do about the young man's quilt I offered to "see about." DSH brought it back from the mountains after the November hunt camp. This was a high school graduation gift from his mom, who does not sew. She picked out some very appropriate deer fabric for this member of the hunt club, and a plain red for the back. She got her mother-in-law to close it all in with a zig-zagged hem over the turned-in sides. I had thought I could add some nice leafy quilting to it, but it has very high-loft batting and LOTS of pucker factor. So, I think I may leave this one for him to use in his camper, and make him a quick patchwork one that is easier to work with. HMM, I may have promised him to make one a long time ago. His dad is one of my sister's brothers-in-law. He also owns his own plumbing company and did all our plumbing for free in the mountain cabin. Need I say more?

A Little Quilting and a Little Plumbing

Yesterday, I worked on a cute little baby quilt for my friend and customer, Karen. There are little cowboy boots in the black fabric, some brands, stars, and other cute fabrics. This one went quickly! Today I will try to finish both of the patriotic-themed quilts made for soldiers at Camp Lejeune, NC. I have had them since the Carolina Long-arm Quilt Show back in late September, and need to turn them in on Friday! Both are small and should be do-able in one day.

On a non-quilt-related topic, I am so happy with my new kitchen faucet! Our old one has leaked out the base at times since we built this house. Finally, DSH recently decided to fix it with a new O-ring, and it developed a non-stop drip. He is a wonderful fix-it man, working on everything from brakes to Gammills, but is Not a Plumber. I kept a pitcher underneath the tap, and used that water for my plants, dog water dish, etc. Fortunately for us, we have a connection in the high-end plumbing fixture market. My sons often joke that I can brag, "One of my boys sells toilets, and the other sells tampons!" (Manager of a chain drugstore.) Well, the toilet-selling one helped us select a nice new kitchen faucet kit. It has a little dish soap dispenser on the left, and a sprayer on the right. Our old sprayer had not worked in about ten years.

Anyway, Stacy the Plumber came over to once again rescue us from DSH's plumbing mishaps, and got the new fixtures installed.

Much better, yes?

New Look for ATQ

Did you notice the new top header for All Things Quilty? My son Dave made my previous banner, but he enlisted the help of his college buddy, also named Dave, to create a new improved version. This one is a slice of a very colorful quilt that I made for my husband at the turn of the millennium. The quilt is called Omega Centauri, the name of our galaxy's biggest and brightest star cluster. Notice the little stitches in the header? A huge thank you to talented graphic designer Dave Pitman of 485, inc. Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, Dave's company produces powerful and artistic business logos, cards, brochures, web pages, and other corporate artwork. I highly recommend his work! Check out his project samples, and prepare to be impressed.

Today, I spent the entire day at a delightful sew-in and quarterly meeting of the CyberBee. We are an offshoot of the Capital Quilters' Guild in Raleigh. Our group formed back in the nineties, shortly after Al Gore invented the Internet.(!) Those of us cyber-geeks with Internet access started a group that mostly communicated by e-mail. Remember those days when few had home computers? How times have changed! We do meet face-to-face quarterly. We started out meeting in each others' living rooms, until our numbers grew too large. Now fifty strong, we rent community centers or apartment clubhouses for our quarterly meetings. Usually, the mornings are spent on individual sewing projects or just visiting. We have a pot-luck diet-wrecking lunch, and then a short business meeting, followed by show-and-tell projects to drool and slobber over. This is the group that produced the fantastic Round Robin quilts, prize-winning State Fair quilters, and SEW MANY fabulous creative quilting swaps, exchanges, and projects. Last year, I did not attend any meetings due to our frequent travels to Ashe County during our cabin-building phase. What fun to spend the whole day today with my quilting buddies. When I got home, my DSH had prepared a seafood festival of scallops wrapped in bacon, boiled shrimp, Alaskan king crab legs, and crab cakes. Wow- a day spent quilting, a gift of graphic artwork, two scrumptious meals---Life is Good!

They Liked Me...They Really Liked Me!

I'm back home again after a wonderful visit with my sister, Katy, and the members of the Piedmont Quilters' Guild in Greensboro, NC. When I arrived we unloaded my quilts and things, and then tried out the borrowed projector. Of course, it had worked fine at the house, but could not detect a signal when we set it up! Finally I realized that their video cord was not making a tight connection with the laptop, and re-inserting it solved the problem. Glad I tried this out early! Then our guild hostess, Mary Jo, took both Katy and me to supper at a nearby Greek restaurant.

After a short business meeting, I presented for about an hour, using a PowerPoint with pictures of quilts I no longer own, and told a lot of stories about my progression from "Beige Woman" who arrived at a bargello workshop not knowing how to use a rotary cutter and ruler, to my current colorful quilting self. I enjoyed telling stories of the quilts I had made and given away. In the photo above, I was showing a picture of my granddaughter, Lily, with her Lilybug quilt.Between the slide show and looking at the quilts that I brought for show-and-tell, an hour passed very quickly. I invited people to see the product samples I had brought along, and take a closer look at the quilts. Then, I was swarmed!

Yes, I am in the above picture somewhere. I think I see a shoulder...

If any of my new friends at the Piedmont Guild are viewing my blog for the first time, thanks so much for having me! Please drop me an e-mail if you have any questions for me.

Thank you, Katy, for coming with me, taking pictures, and staying up way past your bedtime with me when we got home and my adrenaline was pumping! You are the best!