"Little Daisy" Makes Her Debut (and a Give-Away)

Last night, I attended the Capital Quilters' Guild meeting in Raleigh...where we all got to meet "Little Daisy!"  Our next Heritage Day quilt auction (on Oct. 6, 2012) will help to raise money not just for the guild, but for the local Girl Scout council.  There will be two raffle quilts.  This one is "Little Daisy,"  a smaller version of "Daisy of Savannah."  Both quilts will feature the same fabrics and quilting, but the larger one will have five rows of five blocks each.  That one will probably be ready by the February meeting.

Here is a close-up of the beautiful quilting by The Quilting Cowgirl, Cathy Kirk.  Look at those splendid feathers!

If you look at the back side, you see that this could serve as a wholecloth quilt.

This is the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts.  The founder, Juliette Gordon Lowe, was nicknamed Daisy.  Everyone knows that the Girl Scouts are expert at sales- we have already had several knocking on our door for the fabulous annual cookie sale!  They will be helping to sell tickets for the raffle, so we should have record-breaking sales!

Also at last night's meeting, there was the annual Silent Auction.  Quilters bring in books, fabric, patterns, and other miscellaneous items that they no longer need.  Bids start at only twenty-five cents!  You would not believe the stuff that was available.  Since I need to start purging my personal "stuff" prior to putting our house on the market, I brought twenty books to donate to the auction.  Fortunately for me, they all sold except one.

The orphan from the auction is Lap Quilting With Georgia Bonesteel.   Georgia is an icon of the quilting world, at least in North Carolina, where her TV show on PBS has been airing every year since 1979.  I took a sun-printing class with Georgia at the North Carolina Quilt Symposium a few years ago.  What a generous, classy lady!  I was so impressed.  She told us that this first book was, ironically, also her best-selling EVER.

So, if you would like to have this book, leave a comment or drop me an e-mail by Sunday night.  If more than one person is interested, I will have a drawing to see who will be the winner.  Make sure I have your e-mail address.

Swirly Girls, Show-and-Tell, Paintings and Projects

On my last blog post, I did not mention the great Guild meeting on Thursday night.  After the art museum Rembrandt exhibit, my friend Donna and I went to dinner and then to the Capital Quilters Guild meeting.  The evening's lecture was by The Swirly Girls, who were two lovely, funny, and talented ladies from Midlothian, Virginia.  Susan and Christine told the story of their partnership in fabric and pattern design, and had an awesome trunk show of many of their quilts.  I highly recommend them if your Guild needs speakers! This picture is from their website.

Enjoy the trunk show, peering around people's heads like I did!

We also had a great guild show-and-tell.

I bought some more watercolor painting kits from my mentor, Karlyn Holman, at Art of the Carolinas last weekend.  I started one of them this weekend.  I found out that this one does not have a corresponding lesson in the DVD or book Watercolor Without Boundaries, so I just plunged in.  Later I found it in her other book, Watercolor Fun and Free.  I was not following procedure very well.  Oh, well.  I like it!

The weather was so warm and gorgeous today that after our walk, Kasey and I sat outside on our deck, gazing at the woods. 

I continued stitching the Mary Cassatt color study that I put together for my latest Pamela Allen class.  This photo is before any of the hand embroidery, because right now it is stuck full of pins.



I also attempted Lesson 4, which was to compose an abstract version of our selected subject.  I have been working on landscapes for this class.  I put together this piece by just layering fabrics and cutting a few shapes that might be part of a mountain landscape.  Hmm, apparently it is too realistic.

I like it, and might keep it despite the fact that it was not approved as an abstract.  I will try again!

Guild Eye Candy

Last night was a wonderful night at the Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh.  It was the first time I had attended guild since we moved to our new location at Temple Beth Or in Raleigh.  We have tripled our space, and the room was much more light and airy.  Two raffle quilts were on display. 

The first is the Carolina Longarm Association raffle quilt, which will be raffled at our show in September.  The amazing machine quilting was done by Rosemary Cushman.  It features gorgeous feathers, duplication of the applique motifs, pebbling, McTavishing, piano keys...just amazing. 

Our guild's Heritage Day raffle quilt was also shown.  It is a vintage Grandmother's Flower Garden top that has an applique border added on and is in the process of being hand-quilted.  This one will be raffled off in October.

There were many beautiful quilts to be ogled at Show-and-Tell.  I am so sorry that I could not keep up with all the names of the quilters.  We have a huge guild, and I do not know all the members, and Show-and-Tell goes very fast. 

There were two similar quilts made from a mystery quilt retreat.  The first was made and quilted by my friend Ann Hull in glorious reds.  The second one is done in browns.

One member visited a quilt shop in Tennessee, and convinced the owner to sell her all the components of a block-of-the-month quilt at one time since she was from out of town.  She made this amazing quilt.

We have several quilt book authors and pattern designers among our members.  One of them, Sandy Fitzpatrick, designed both of the patterns for these baby quilts made by another guild member.

But the highlight of the evening was the presentation by Katie Pasquini-Masopust of New Mexico.

There are many people who call themselves art quilters, but Katie is an artist first and quiltmaker second.  She presented a slide show with a retrospective of her jaw-dropping quilts and paintings.  Now she is combining her paintings and quilts with breath-taking results.  What I did not know is how amusing and down-to-earth she is.  My friend Carolyn is taking both of her workshops this weekend and was scrambling to find all the materials needed.  I would love to spend the weekend soaking up some of Katie's expertise.  Perhaps another time.

Our plans for the weekend are to celebrate the wedding of our beautiful niece, Lindsay McBrayer, to Matt Cooper.  Lindsay has been a dancer all her life.  Whenever we would go out to eat at a restaurant with background music, little Lindsay would get up on the floor and dance right in front of everyone.  She grew up collecting trophies with her dance teams, and even got her father, Richard, to participate with her in Daddy-Daughter dance team events.  Here she is in pajamas, wrapping herself in garlands that her mom was taking off the Christmas tree and performing a number for us.

She has grown into a beautiful young woman, and we wish her every happiness.

Birthday Celebration

This was my husband, Charlie, sixty-one years ago. No, he is not old enough to be in a museum.

I am fortunate to have loved and been loved by him for two-thirds of his life.

Here is a collage that I made him for his birthday tomorrow. Lots of things that represent the mountains that we love.

I am still pretty new at mixed media, but this was really fun to put together. I used a 9" x 12" canvas panel. There was exactly one frame in that size at Michael's, sort of a narrow shadowbox deal. I had to shave off some of the sides to get it to fit in the frame.

Tonight, Quilt Royalty is coming to the Capital Quilters' Guild. Sharon Schamber will be our guest speaker. I took a class from Sharon at MQX in 2007. She was very generous in allowing us to touch and photograph her quilts up close. Even the one that later won the $100,000 quilt contest.

I should be staying home tonight to pack, but I'm going to guild. Tomorrow morning, we leave for the beach for several days with friends and family. It is supposed to be in the seventies. Can't wait!

Capital Quilters Guild Meeting

Last night was the monthly meeting of the Capital Quilters Guild in Raleigh. Several of my bee members and I drove downtown to Peace College, our temporary meeting place. It is not ideal for a large group. We have so many charity committees, special projects, library, etc. that need special tables, so we are pretty crowded in the auditorium setting. But we are grateful to have a place after losing the space we have rented for ten years from Wake County.

Anyway, it was very difficult to take good photographs in this auditorium, but I have tried to brighten them a bit in PhotoShop Elements.

First, here is a sneak peek at the raffle quilt for the North Carolina Quilt Symposium 2011. We will be hosting the Symposium quilt show and conference at Peace College again. The raffle quilt is already finished! Actually, it was made by quilt book author and judge Jane Hall and friends from her bee, in conjunction with the North Carolina Museum of History. Jane drafted the blocks from quilts owned by the museum. The quilt was donated to the museum in 2003, but they have given it back to us to raffle for Symposium. It is so pretty!

Although the blocks are from antique quilts, the fabrics are bright batiks.

This star block will be the Symposium logo.

There was another raffle quilt on display...the not-quite-finished one for the guild's Heritage Day next October. This time the Grandmother's Flower Garden top was donated, but the guild is adding a border and hand-quilting it. The border was designed by our own Karen Comstock, who is a pattern designer.

Our guest speaker was quilt book author and pattern designer Sally Schneider from Albuquerque, New Mexico. She spoke to us about Built-In Borders. Instead of adding a long border strip, Sally pieces blocks that form a border design.

Sally generously displayed her quilts on tables at the back of the stage so we could take a closer look. My favorite was this Christmas quilt in traditional red, green, and white. That ribbon border looks great.

This one that she calls Super Bowl Stars does not have prairie points...those are pieced blocks for the border.

I did not get the borders in this picture, but my friend Mary loved the colors and fabrics in this quilt.

Finally we had the Charity Quilt parade. We make Quilts on Wheels for rest home residents, Quilts for Kids for neo-natal intensive care nurseries, and SafeChild quilts for a child abuse prevention program. The ones turned in each month are paraded by for us to see. I think all our recent snow days produced a lot of quilting in Raleigh!

I brought home nine more quilt tops to quilt. They will probably not all get done by the next meeting! I still have two quilt tops from my bee's sew-in to finish first.

All our children and grandchildren are coming here to visit this weekend, and it looks like the weather is finally going to be sunny and a little warmer. I am so happy that my family will be here!