Mountain Weekend

Here are a few more pictures of what we did in the mountains last weekend in addition to attending the Doc Watson bluegrass festival in Todd. When Charlie and I drove up Thursday evening, we were greeted by this colorful sunset. The weather was turning cooler, and there were deer everywhere. We saw one buck with antlers, and many does and fawns.These little fawns were grazing under an apple tree on our road when we came back from breakfast at the cafe on Friday morning. Their mama was not in sight.
Our son and grand-kids came up on Friday night. Of course we took rides across the mountain on the Gator...

I recognized that jean jacket as one of big brother Avery's, and brought it home with me to "girly" it up a bit.
We enjoyed some more fishing in the new pond along our driveway.

All in all, a wonderful weekend!

National Treasure

No, not the movie...the musician! Charlie and I were fortunate to attend an outdoor music festival in the North Carolina mountains last weekend, which was capped by a performance by Doc Watson, a singer and guitar picker who is an icon in the field of bluegrass mountain music. Doc is from Ashe County, North Carolina, which is where our little mountain cabin in Laurel Springs is located. We actually saw him perform once before right in Laurel Springs, at a Saturday night dance at the old "school house." He played square-dance type music with no accompaniment. We were the only ones there not wearing taps on our shoes for "flat-footin" or clogging! I still wish I had saved the sign at the admission table. Usually the price to get in is two dollars. There was a hand-printed sign by the money box that read "Four dollar tonite cuz Doc are hear."

At this weekend's festival, Doc performed with his grandson Richard Watson, a fine keyboard artist named Jeff Little from Boone, NC (home of my father and two of my brothers) and two other guitar players. The music was diverse: not all bluegrass. There was a little bit of blues, a little bit of swing, and some old favorites. Doc is charming, telling stories and talking to the other musicians between numbers. He is most famous for picking the guitar like a fiddle, and singing with his beautiful sweet voice. He has won a number of Grammies for his recordings. Oh yes, and performed in Carnegie Hall and all over the world. And in the little school house in Laurel Springs.

Did I mention that Doc Watson is in his eighties? Oh, yes, and he has been blind since childhood?

Doc said that he had been sick for several months: "too sick to pick." If you are Doc Watson, that must have been a deathly illness. We are so happy that his health has improved and he could perform last weekend.

They did not perform one of my favorite Doc Watson songs on Saturday. Here is Doc, many years ago, performing with his son Merle (second from left) who tragically was killed in a tractor accident on his farm. Doc, thank you for the music! May you still be pickin' for many more years.

More about our mountain weekend in our next post.

Sunlight Serendipity

This morning I was in my kitchen when I suddenly noticed little circles of light EVERYWHERE! All colors! Ceiling, floor, walls, living room... what was this?

I have little sun-catchers, glass bottles, and even a prism machine in the kitchen windows, which face three directions and really get the light. I tried moving each item to see what was causing the neat prisms...it was none of the above!

The cause turned out to be this little lampshade from Yankee Candle that has little bits of mirrors in the shade. Now, I have had this all summer, but never once saw the delightful orbs of light it created until today! How magical!

This afternoon I thought I would get all caught up on customer quilts...and was doing great on this pretty stars quilt until I ran out of thread with only about nine inches to go from the bottom. Bummer! I just ordered a new cone from Superior, but between the king-size log cabin and this much smaller quilt, it is gone. Since we leave tomorrow for our mountain place, this one will have to wait until next week.



Beautiful fabrics and colors, yes?? This one is a wedding present for a couple moving to California. What a nice gift! The quilt top was made in a mystery class.

Under the Sea

Here is yesterday's quilting project! My friend Carolyn brought me this very colorful top in blues and yellow-greens. It is for a baby boy in Hawaii. I quilted in lots of waves, seaweed, and some little hidden sea creature images. I often use the book 250 Continuous Line Quilt Designs by Laura Lee Fritz to quilt some little surprises. In fact, I need to go ahead and order the sequel to this book since I like it so much. They don't have to look perfect, but they add to the theme of the design.

The fabric Carolyn chose for the back is perfect for an ocean-themed quilt! It was so much fun to do this quick little project after finishing the king-sized log cabin customer quilt for Eileen.

Brought to you today by the Color Pink and the Number 10

Anyone else have Sesame Street episodes memorized from their childhood? It was not around when I was little, but my kids watched it a couple times a day.

Today I am using their opening line to provide information about the Pink Artist Drawing.

From August 1 to October 15, a donation of ten dollars to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for Breast Cancer Research will win you two chances to win "Love Squared", the beautiful hand-made doll dressed in a skirt made of two-inch quilts by many talented artists. See Monica's blog for all the details. There are also some other beautiful prizes donated by artists. The donation must be made via Paypal or money order to Monica to be eligible for this drawing. I have sent mine in...won't you join in this fabulous project?

While on the subject of breast health, here is a link to a nicely-done breast health Website by friend and graphic/Web designer Dave Pitman of 485, inc. Some great information here!

And in the spirit of support for the Pink Artist Project, here is a sampling of Pink Things from Chez McBrayer. Mind you, I am a boy-mom, the outnumbered 3-to-1 female of the household until I started acquiring daughters-in-law and a granddaughter. I would not have thought there would be much pink to show off, except in my wardrobe. But look at what I found when I was going room-to-room with my camera!

A Churn Dash quilt with rosy pink cherries from a mystery workshop

a small, predominantly pink floral mini-log cabin wall hanging from a class at NC Quilt Symposium

some pink posies in a small rug

Lots of pink in this nine-patch wall hanging. All the nine-patch squares were made from small dec fabric samples

a Stangl Pottery stoneware platter

another rug with pink flowers

some pink tulips among the crewel-embroidery flowers I did back in the seventies

And moving to the sewing areas, how about a couple of pink ribbons?

Pink ephemera?

Threads, hand-dyed silk ribbon, and check out the specs!

ribbons and fibers, including sparkly Angelina

Pink hat pincushion and painted dryer sheets

Nine-Patch flower blocks won in a raffle a couple decades ago

Lily, whose favorite color is pink (picture taken a couple weeks ago)

Pink Tussah silk tops (used to make fiber shawl shown in my sidebar pic)

I hope you enjoyed this Pink edition of All Things Quilty. Remember, get checked!

Batman Movie...and Technical Difficulties

We went to see the new Batman movie at the IMAX in Raleigh yesterday. The Dark Knight is fast-moving, lots of action, very violent! And quite an experience watching it on the huge screen. Heath Ledger was phenomenal as the Joker. This is not a cute Superhero movie for the kids- but very engrossing for adults. And confusing! Lots of plot twists.

The rest of this weekend my focus will be on the sewing studio move... maybe this is the weekend I'll "get'er done!"

I also experienced my first technical difficulties with my blog, which would not open on Internet Explorer from last night until just now. Viewers received a message that "Internet Explorer could not open the site, Operation Aborted. " By going to the Google Help site, I found that someone else had solved their problem by removing Site Meter, the counter that keeps track of visitors and page views. As soon as I removed the Site Meter code from the page, it came back. So sorry for the inconvenience!

"Taking A Peek" at my Gammill

Yesterday, I almost finished quilting the king-sized log cabin quilt for Eileen. I would say I have about one more pass to go. I worked on it until 6:30 PM, but was just too tired to keep at it. Whether sewing on my Bernina or on the Gammill, I often get back and shoulder fatigue. Better to stop when tired!

Anyway, this is such a large quilt that I have been taking extra precautions to make sure that there are no pleats on the back. The first thing I did was repair my side straps and clamps. I have these long black Velcro strips with clamps on the end. They wrap around the side frame of the table, which has the other half of the Velcro on the top. The clamps attach to the lining and/or batting on the quilt. They help keep it taut. As Linda Taylor taught us in her classes, the clamps are not meant to torture the quilt like the medieval racks- just keep the backing from easing up.

I have managed to break my Velcro straps and even one or two clamps when jerking the straps off to roll up the quilt. So, before this quilt, I stitched the broken sections of Velcro together. For the clamp that was broken in half, I found this fun replacement at the Target store. It is supposed to clamp your towel or beach shirt to the back of your beach chair. I like the fun look it gives to my set-up!

Something else I use to prevent unwanted pleats on the back is this cheap door mirror. Placed on the table, it gives you a view of the underside of the quilt. Look at these wrinkles which could have caused pleats on the back if I didn't check the mirror.

But the best feature of my Gammill for checking the batting and backing is the pivot access.

One of the bars on the front of the machine can be released to pivot up. As my favorite OB/GYN doctor would say before disappearing behind the drape, "Let's just take a peek."

That's what I think of when I lift the top and push the canvas leaders out of the way to see what's underneath the layers. Then you can see the batting layer and smooth it out, and remove any stray threads on the top or batting. This quilt was my first experience with Hobbs Tuscany cotton. It is a very soft, clean white batt. However, I found it to be a little stretchy, and apt to retain puckers. I was able to straighten and smooth the batting before quilting.

Then you can lift the batting to see the lining, or backing layer.

When I took this picture, I had reached a seam in the backing. I do like my backing seams to be wide and pressed open. I prefer the selvage to be removed . I think it adds stretch and can cause puckering. Anyway, here are a couple more pictures of the free-motion quilting on this log cabin.


This afternoon will be a treat. My hubby and I are going to downtown Raleigh to see the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" at the IMAX theatre. I have never seen a film on one of these huge, sense-boggling screens. Should be fun!