Mountains in July

Last weekend it was back to our mountain place, this time with son Bryson and our two grands. The weather was beautiful and sunny all weekend after a rainy trip up on Thursday night.

On Friday morning, we went to visit an acquaintance who has a summer home on a bend of the New River. There is an old mill on the property that has not been a working mill since 1977. I love the weathered planks that are set at a 45 degree angle.

We ate lunch with my father and two brothers Chris and John in Boone after that. They have a great Applebee's, and we all enjoyed our lunch and visit. The kids arrived that night, and we had a world of fun fishing, riding the Gator to the top of the mountain, floating in the creek, and playing on the Slip and Slide.

Old Dog Maggy made the trip to the top of the mountain again several times.

We had a lovely mountain sunset and a great time. Life is good!

Catching up on everything since Thursday is going to take more than one blog post. I'll start with the Whacky Ladies Bee sew-in at Quilts Like Crazy. We had a pretty good turnout for a summer meeting when several were away on vacation. We decided to make quilts for the charities sponsored by Capital Quilters Guild in Raleigh. We make quilts for senior citizens at rest homes, babies in neo-natal intensive care units, children of parents in child abuse education programs, and several other programs.

Our member Donna is a longarm quilter at the shop. She arranged for us to use the workshop area for sewing and cutting. It was very inspiring to see the beautiful quilts at the shop and all the gorgeous fabric to fondle.

That's Mary working at the end of the table.

Here are Joanne and Jean working at their machines.

Joanne, Carolyn, and Marilyn having fun at work on their quilt projects.In the foreground, you can see the instructions I wrote on pieces of poster board, along with samples of each step. I guess you can tell who was the old elementary school teacher.The shop not only provided us with space and a 15% discount on purchases---they made us lunch! Fabulous!

I was the first to arrive at the shop after Donna, but when I set up my machine, I noticed that I did not pack the power cord to my machine. So, a short trip back home to get it, and then I found out that my foot pedal had died. Bummer! I spent my day cutting up fabric to make kits for Quilts on Wheels. Then, to finish my day on a similar disorganized note, I left my Rowenta travel iron behind when I left.

We left for our mountain place on Thursday afternoon...more to come. I am having trouble manipulating my photographs on Blogger lately. They don't drag and drop easily any more. But we had a fabulous time and I am really tired this morning!

Wednesday Work-in-Progress: Zen Garden

Remember the oriental fabric that I had fun quilting on my long-arm on Monday? Here it is after quilting with light blue Signature cotton thread. I outlined some of the gold shapes in the fabric, and just had fun making feathers, flowers and vines in other areas.


Today we are having more of the gorgeous sunny, breezy, low-humidity weather that is so rare in the South in July. I decided to embellish the piece with Shiva paint sticks to bring out the gold of the fabric and some of the quilted motifs.

I am very happy with the way this piece is coming along. When the paint dries, which is not taking long in this weather, I will probably add some Tsukineko inks to some of the smaller detailed areas, and possibly even some gold pen. Then, some beads for more highlighting and shine.

Tomorrow my quilt bee is having a sew-in day at our local quilt shop, Quilts Like Crazy in Wake Forest. One of our bee members works there as their long-arm quilter. The store is going to provide lunch and drinks for us. We are going to be working on more charity quilts for the guild.

After that, Charlie and I are heading to the mountains again, where this time we will have our oldest son and two grandkids to keep us company.

Charity Quilt Kit Assembly

We got at least fifteen quilt kits assembled yesterday at The Flower Cottage on the Dorothea Dix Hospital campus in Raleigh. These will be for small, 40-inch or less "Quilts on Wheels," for senior citizens in rest homes. Our guild basically has a room in the cottage available to store fabric, and we had eleven huge boxes of color-sorted fabric to work with, plus some bolts. Some of this was donated by families of deceased quilters, and there were some bolts and large pieces donated by the owner of Archangel Quilt Shop when they closed.

Jean and I were met by another CyberBee member, Roberta, who works nearby at N.C. State. I was disappointed in The Flower Cottage, as the little house is not well-cared for, had no charm, and had a musty smell. It is surrounded by other small homes that probably once were provided for staff members at Dix Hospital. One of the nearby homes had beautiful windows with leaded arch designs. Sadly, all the buildings have peeling paint and a shabby appearance. The hospital is scheduled to close, and the local developers are salivating over the chance to add condos, office buildings, and shopping to this beautiful green campus with huge oak and pecan trees. My camera's battery died after just one pitiful picture.

Since it is at least a 45-minute drive from Wake Forest, I decided to go ahead and bring home fabric for the kits I am to provide in January. We signed up for different months to sit at a designated table at Guild meetings, take in finished quilts and give out new kits. There was a large stash of homespun plaids as well as some outdoor-themed novelty fabric with cabins, moose, etc., so I took home a bunch of those. They were destined to go straight to the washing machine to get rid of any musty smell.,

Will try to finish two other small quilts on the longarm today, but don't have the backs ready yet.

Baby Quilt and Artsy quilt

Yesterday I fired up my Gammill Longarm machine for the first time since January. Yikes! The first project was the long-abandoned baby quilt for my niece Rachel's baby. He was born in March. It is all flannel, Minkee, and combed cotton. Super soft! I decided to just use some of the cloud, sun, kite, and other motifs from the cute border fabric, and freehand the whole thing.

Pleased that everything worked great after the months of inactivity, I decided to do some freehand quilting on an interesting piece of oriental fabric, about the size of a fat quarter. I am thinking of adding fabric paint, beading, and/or other embellishment.

Heading out today with my friend Jean to prepare some quilt kids for one of our guild charities, Quilts on Wheels. The fabric is stored in a place called The Flower Cottage. It is on the campus of the state mental institution in Raleigh, which is actually one of the most lovely, tree-lined, grassy real estate in our capital city. Not sure how the guild got hooked up with them, but I have heard it is very nice. I'll take my camera!

It was wonderful to be in the North Carolina mountains for the long Fourth of July weekend. Good weather, good friends, good food, good drinks, good mountain river float. It was a much smaller group than normal, since one of my nephews and his wife are expecting a baby any day. My sister's whole family stayed home to wait for the baby, who is still not here. But one of their good friends gave birth on Thursday, so congratulations go out to Amy and Mike. Mike gave us the gift of his electrician expertise on wiring the cabin two years ago. I think little Shelby may be getting a home-made gift from me!

When we arrived at the cabin, I was thrilled that some nasturtium seeds that I planted among the plastic flowers in our window boxes had bloomed and were trailing. I watered them ASAP. Little did I know, there was a nest of baby wrens in one of the boxes, hiding under the foliage.

I did not drown them, but Mama Wren was mighty glad when we left and she could feed her babies without so many people close at hand. We had our son Dave, his wife Emily, and four of their college friends all staying at our place.

I put some more perennials out where our driveway forms a switchback coming up the hill. the ferns and rhododendron are gratis from Mother Nature.

Inside, I hung up one of my Collage Mania pieces that were recently framed. I decided to leave it in the horizontal orientation. It is next to my little kitchen sink area.

We had not one, but two days of floating down the New River on tubes. It is so much fun, and what a bonus to see some of the most beautiful picture-perfect postcard scenery as we drifted. One of our college friends and his son joined us on the float on Saturday.

The past few years, we have experienced thunderstorms and even hail last year by the time we reached our pick-up point. This year, no rain at all until all the fun was over and it was time to leave on Sunday. It makes it easier to leave when it is raining. Even in the rain, I hate to see it go.

Wednesday Works-in-Progress: Kid's Quilts and more Painted Fabric

Wednesday already...this will be my last blog until next week, since we are heading to the mountains for our annual Fourth of July river float with family and friends. Can't wait!

Here is a finished quilt top for a little girl. Very easy, just squares and four-patches, plus two rectangles with machine-appliqued hearts.

I like for appliques on bed quilts to have turned edges, not just fused, but I did not want to hand-applique. I turned and ironed the edges, pinned on, and machine-stitched. On one of them, I used some of my machine stitches to add decorative elements.

This one is for a little boy- frogs, fish, and construction equipment. Just blocks on the design wall. I mark the left side of the rows with numbered post-it notes to help when piecing the top.

And here is the first of the Yellow Brick Road tops to be pieced together. Soft and pretty!

Yesterday I continued to paint fabric on the porch since I had all my "stuff" downstairs.

Red and yellow Setacolors mixes

Shiva paint sticks on maroon dyed fabric. The patterned ones have the paint applied over rubbing plates.

Turquoise and green Shiva Paint stick on purple fabric.

Blue and green paints on upholstery fabric, with blue stamps.

Remember my neighbor's cat that thinks it lives at my house? Now they have a kitten that thinks he lives here. He was definitely checking out all the activity on the porch. Those are Tsukineko inks and Fantastix applicators.

I experimented with some glue resist designs. I used Elmer's gel glue, but it is the kind with glitters. It looked pretty drying in the sun!

When the glue was dry, I covered the fabric with Stewart Gill paints. The Byzantium paints have lovely bits of mica or something shiny in them. When this piece has dried for 24 hours, I will wash out the glue and see what I get.

I am continuing to experiment to find the best materials for my "Grand Canyon tree" art quilt. I painted some Nutmeg Stewart Gill paint, and also mixed a brown with red and green Setacolor paints. I tried drying a couple pieces with cheesecloth to add a textural design.

That's it! Have a wonderful rest of the week. And Happy Birthday, America!