Family

This is me with my Big Brother Chris about sixty years ago.

Not long after came little brother Tim.  We were all only three years apart.

Eventually there were seven of us.  No two were closer in age than Chris and I were (18 months apart.)

Here we are as teenagers, "posing" for a Hanes Sportswear catalog that my father was illustrating.

The reason for all this introspection is that Chris suffered a heart attack yesterday while at his lake house in Tennessee.  One of his coronary arteries was 100% blocked.  He has had a stent put in, and is recovering in ICU today.

Thank goodness for modern medicine.  I am kind of stunned at this development because Chris has approximately zero body fat, exercises at the gym before going to work, chops wood, jogs, and doesn't drink or smoke.  I would not have expected him to be at any risk for coronary trouble.

When I was sure he was okay today, I went for a long walk on the green-way with Kasey.  When I got home, I made an appointment for my yearly physical.  This was a big scare for my family.

Sending up prayers of thanks that Chris is still with us, and of hope for a full recovery.

Fun Family Weekend

From the wintry cold of Boone to a warm, summery weekend at home with our oldest son Bryson and his two children...and two frisky dogs to keep things interesting!  My husband's birthday was Saturday, and we had a grand time.  Mostly we sat in the yard and enjoyed the beautiful weather.  The Yoshino cherries along the driveway decided to blossom out just in time.

I have big red, pink, and white camellias in the back.  They still had a lot of blooms even after Lily picked armfuls of them.

We brought our Gator home from the mountains after Thanksgiving, so the kids were able to have fun with it in the yard.  We'll take it back up there next weekend.

Our living room quickly fills up with puzzles and toys when the kids are here.  I got Lily this flower barrette for her hair in Hawaii.  She looks like a little Hawaiian girl in her sundress.

There was barely room for the dogs to lie on the rug.  Kasey had never, ever wanted to chew a rawhide stick until I gave one to our grand-dog, Roo.

The dogs had a great time running around the yard, until they disgraced themselves this morning.  They both wallowed in the mud in the creek, and then ran off down the creek, getting all the dogs in the neighborhood barking. 

Here is Kasey before:

and After:

Roo was no better.  He is much easier to wash, however!

So, Bryson and the kids have gone back to South Carolina.  We should see them again in the mountains in two weeks for opening day of trout fishing season.

The dogs are washed and all that's left outside are a few Lily-tracks.

We did some artwork.  I painted Lily's portrait

and Lily painted mine.

Now Mack-Mack is asleep in the recliner and I think I may also sneak in a little nap!

Back From Boone

I got home yesterday afternoon after a nice visit with my family in Boone.  On Monday we went to Pepper's for lunch, and ate pizza at my brother John's that night.  On Tuesday we ate at Melanie's in downtown Boone, and then the visiting Floridian Turners cooked a chicken stew for supper. 




Jeff, Anna, Chris, and Dad

 My brothers Jeff and John love to play guitar and sing together.  We went through many pages of the Beatles Songbook.  John and Patti's house is like a cozy tree house atop a hill.



Dad, John, Jeff and Barney the Dog



Patti and Anna



Unfortunately, the weather was horrible the whole time.  It was foggy, rainy, cold, and even snowed a little.  It takes a little longer for spring to reach the High Country of the North Carolina mountains.

I brought my watercolor paintings to show my father.  He is a retired commercial and fine artist.  He was happy that I am exhibiting some interest in art.  We went to Cheap Joe's and viewed the art gallery there in the store.  Dad bought me a copy of Jeanne Dobie's book, Making Color Sing.  My father is doing better after his recent hospitalization, but not back to full strength yet.  I was glad he felt well enough to go out and do some visiting.

I hated to leave, but my husband left for a business trip to Washington, DC yesterday, and I had to get home to my Kasey.  While I was at John's, I enjoyed visiting with his 13-year old dog, Barney.  He has gotten very mellow in his senior years.

On the way home, I stopped in Lewisville at Sewingly Yours.  I had been there when the Carolina Longarm Association had its quilt show near there last fall. 

I have signed up for an online class through Quilt University on making a highly embellished quilted jacket.  I bought the Whisper Creek jacket pattern and some blue-green fabric printed with a gradient of light to dark. I am already behind in this class and still have not finished Lesson Three from the last one with Pamela Allen.

This weekend my son and grandkids are coming up from South Carolina.  My husband's birthday is Saturday.  I have a lot to do!  The weather should be very nice here, and I haven't seen my grandkids since Christmas.  We are also dogsitting for Roo this weekend, so there will be a full house.

Two Little Quilts

The weather was beautiful this weekend...it got up in the high seventies today!  I did manage to get two tops quilted.

The first is a charity quilt that I picked up to do for the Quilts on Wheels charity of the Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh.  It is a cheater cloth Crazy Quilt with one border added.  I decided to do another panto on it, "Feathers All Over."

The thread broke constantly and I did not like the look of the quilting as much as my own free-motion quilting.  This will probably be my last panto.

The next one is the first of five quilts that my customer Teresa brought to me.  It is a baby quilt with an adorable sea creatures theme fabric.   I just quilted ocean waves in a bright pear green thread.

I sketched some of these funny jellyfish and critters to possibly use in some future quilting.

The backing has the same blue fabric.

I will be leaving for Boone, NC in the morning to spend a few days with my dad.  He was recently in the hospital with congestive heart failure.  In fact, he went in the day before we left for Hawaii.  My brother and his wife from Florida have come up for a few days, so we are going to enjoy a nice visit together.  Two of my other brothers (I have five) also live in Boone, so I am really looking forward to my trip.

Working With Negative Space

When I was on vacation in Hawaii, I missed more than a week of my online class with Pamela Allen called "Pattern + Color."  Soon after I returned I skipped lesson three and started on lesson 4.  The object was to try to create a "negative shape" image.  Normally quilters have a background fabric and add positive shapes to it such as trees, houses, or people.  This time, we started with a background fabric from which the image was to emerge by adding shapes around it.  Clear as mud?

The first step was to try to create a "negative chair."   I found chairs surprisingly difficult to draw.  I sketched about twelve before getting the hang of it.  Here is my first attempt.  The background fabric is the multicolored floral.

It's a little wonky, but recognizable as a chair, right?  I think I may have mentioned that I have a directionality problem.  Working in reverse makes my brain hurt!

Having "passed" the chair study, the next step was to make a composition of a woman seated in a chair, using the same process.  I decided that since this process is kind of painful to my perceptions, I would have a little fun with it.  I made my lady "Wasting Away Again in Margaritaville!"

The background fabric is a piece that I painted with Setacolor paint in a pastel gradient.  I had to cheat a little by adding positive shapes on top to make the pitcher, limes, glass, and the lost shaker of salt.  Oh, yes, and one of the woman's legs!  LOL!

This is a pretty cool technique, but I fear it will not be my preferred method of operating.  It has definitely opened my eyes to visualizing negative space, so I guess the lesson was well-served.

Now I am working on the skipped Lesson 3- a cityscape of some sort, using patterned fabric to make buildings and landscaping.  This one should be more fun!

Virtual Quilt Bee, Part 2

As I am writing today's post, I am watching the news of the tsunami and earthquake that has struck Japan.  The Hawaiian islands are bracing for the waves to hit.  I am praying for those who are in peril, injured, or have suffered losses.

Last Saturday I spent the afternoon with the ladies of Cyberbee.  That group was formed back in the nineties during the early days of e-mail and Internet use by the general population.  A sub-group of Capital Quilters Guild was formed from people who had e-mail accounts!  We started out with about fifteen people and met in each other's living rooms.  Of course you know what happened with the Internet.  Our group kept expanding until we decided to limit the membership to fifty.  The meetings had to be held in neighborhood clubhouses, public library meeting rooms, or other spaces that could accommodate us.  Besides being an "e-mail" group, we decided to meet in person quarterly.  Through the years this group has completed numerous swaps and exchanges.  All of them have been incredible!

The meeting schedule has now been amended so that some are held on Thursday nights, and the rest are all-day "Sew-In Days."  Ladies bring their machines, handwork, fabric and rotary cutters, or whatever they want to work on.  There is a pot luck lunch.  After lunch there is a short business meeting, if there are any new projects to discuss.  We pay dues of ten dollars per year, which covers rental fees for clubhouses, and sometimes is used for cakes or food for special celebration meetings.

We do not have any by-laws and we don't have a President.  The only "official office" is that of treasurer.  We don't even have a checking account!  The treasurer collects the dues and keeps up with how many members we have.  We use a Yahoo group for our e-mail, files and photographs.  Someone volunteers to take the minutes and post them to the Yahoo group.  For the past few years, I have been alternating with my friend Janice to take notes.  Since I am in the mountains during many of the Saturday meetings, it is good to have a partner!

For awhile we have been trying to decide how to celebrate birthdays.   Some bees exchange fat quarters, make blocks for members during their birthday month, etc.  Finally we decided to keep it simple.  We would have a birthday cake quilt to hang at the meetings.  Each member would make a candle with their name and birthday on it.  During the meeting closest to their birthday, the birthday girls will have their candle on the cake.  They will be kept in a pocket on the back of the quilt.

So, the big excitement on Saturday was the unveiling of the birthday cake quilt!  Kathy Hefner volunteered to make the quilt.  Members donated lace, trims, buttons, and other embellishments.  And, voila!

That's Holly and Alice holding up the quilt. 

Now we each have to make our candle and let the celebrations roll!

On to Show-and-Tell.

One of the group's recent swap opportunities was to make big blocks, either of applique or piecing.  The results were so amazing that Alice formed another Big Block exchange.  Here is her first block.  I think it is a Piece of Cake design that has been enlarged.

Barbara showed some purses that she made out of place mats.

 She also made a small rug by weaving fabric strips and applying rubber rug grip fabric to the back.

 

This is one of Carolyn's quilt tops.  Look at all that detailed piecing! It is a Bonnie Hunter pattern called "Roll Roll Cotton Boll."

 She also showed this great-looking Christmas quilt.

These baskets are the center medallion for a large quilt that Darlene is making.

Recognize this face?  Dorothy took Bonnie McCaffery's workshop on Painted Faces.  Look at this beautiful portrait!

This is Holly's Civil War quilt. 

Holly does exquisite work in both applique and piecing.  She is so good that Ellie Sienkiewich

sometimes hires her to piece tops from her Baltimore album applique quilts.

Holly is also doing the next Big Block swap along with Alice.  Here are her appliqued poppies.

One of our most prolific quilters is Jenny.  She sews every night.  Jenny set a goal to finish one UFO every month.  She quilts by hand, generally using the big stitch technique.  Here is her finished Double Wedding Ring quilt.  She began it in a class with John Flynn.

And look at this beauty!  I think this is from a book called Simply Vintage.

One of our most "senior" members, Jo Ann, has created this gorgeous quilt.  It is based on her photo of a sunset during a Caribbean cruise. This top is now in my quilting room waiting to be quilted!  I am so excited to be working on such a fabulous work of art. You will be seeing this one again in a future post!

Another beautiful quilt in progress is this beach scene crazy quilt by one of our newest members, Julie.  I cannot get it to display in the correct orientation here.  I LOVE this piece!

That was not all, but I hope you get an idea of the talent in this group.  It is always inspirational to go go to a Cyberbee meeting and ogle the wonderful projects.

Virtual Quilt Bee

Today I will share some pretty quilt projects that the Whacky Ladies exhibited at Show-and-Tell last week.  I love Show-and-Tell, don't you?  Please pardon the photos---it's hard to take good ones as they are being passed around a living room and briefly held up. 

The Whackies met Thursday night at Irene's house in Rolesville.  By the way, a tornado passed through Rolesville on Sunday...I live only three miles from there.  We had no damage, but a house was pretty torn up on North Main Street.

Janice started out with her projects.  The first is actually a Cyberbee "Big Blocks' swap project.  She and three others made the large daisy applique baskets.  She has used wool felt for the applique.  This is going to be a stunning quilt!

Janice also worked on a UFO Double Wedding Ring project.  I love this pattern, but have never attempted it, with all those curvy little shapes to piece.

Jean made a quilt for her cousin's fiftieth birthday.  The theme is beer!  She has used a commercial print, some patches, logos, photo transfers, and quotations like "Save Water!  Drink Beer!."  She got some flattened beer caps with holes drilled from mixed-media artist Michelle Bonds. I think he will like this gift!

I like the mug of beer she made for the label.  She used Angelina fiber to make the foam.

Marilyn belongs to a church that makes quilts to give to each baby when it is baptized.  Her very own first grandbaby is being baptized soon, so she volunteered to make his quilt. (In addition to the other ones Grandma has already made for him!) It features a print with cute little monkeys.

Jean now has a rival as Applique Queen in our bee. Our new member, Lori, is working on a beaded Baltimore Album quilt with a Halloween theme.  I believe it is a Block of the Month.  We are all dazzled by her work.

I mentioned last month that our guild, The Capital Quilters Guild of Raleigh, had Martie Michell as our guest speaker and workshop teacher last month.  Sharon took her log cabin class, and has finished the top she began in class.

When we came back from Hawaii, I was surprised to see that spring had arrived!  In my yard, the camellias and forsythia are in bloom.  Many of my neighbors have lined their driveways with Bradford pears.  Some of these plantings are now twenty years old, and they look spectacular!

I also had to snap of this huge forsythia at our neighbors' the Hutchinsons.  Charlie's grandmother used to call this shrub "Yellow Bells," a perfect name!