The Surgery's Over

My husband, Smokey, had his heart surgery on Thursday and I'm very relieved that at least that part of it is over. We got to Roper Hospital at 5:30 a.m. and it was non-stop from there until they took him into the operating lab. It was a 9-hour procedure and, hopefully, the one procedure will take care of his problem (there's a 30% chance that he'll have to have a second "touch-up" surgery).
Other than the many prayers that were offered up for him on that day, I had two majors blessings during this time. Smokey's sister and her husband were here to see my mother-in-law--who has been in the hospital--and they decided to stay on until after the surgery so Smokey could stay home and rest up and recuperate from a bad cold so the surgery wouldn't be canceled. And they also were tremendous beyond the limits in helping resolve a major family upset that came up at the same time and would have been devastating for Smokey to deal with.
The other blessing occured when the team came into the room to take him to the surgery. The nurse on the team was a fellow quilter who has been in a couple of my classes--Jane (sorry I don't remember her last name). We looked at each other and said, "Oh, my goodness." She personally called me every hour and even took part of her lunch break to assure me that things were going as they should. I cannot even begin to tell you just how much that meant.
So, for me, the reminder is that even when you're in the midst of something that is overwhelming and scarey, there can be unexpected blessings. And I'm so thankful.
Note: Just saw Corky Ledbetter's Award-Winning Quilt on Quilt University:http://quiltuniversity.com/quilt_show_winners.htm. It's really a great celebration of Charleston.

She Did It AGAIN!

Last Tuesday, I worked with several of our Mt. Pleasant quilters at the Susan G. Komen annual luncheon at the Shriner's hall. Ellen Byrd, a former member of our Guild, is the person who coordinates all of the official merchandise and gets volunteers to sell it (c'est moi). It is a wonderful affair and is a great opportunity to celebrate the success achieved in breast cancer research and to look to the future in a cancer-free world. The survivors who come are such upbeat people and are shining lights to those around them.

Well, I made a quilt a while back, called Hidden Potential, that is about breast cancer. The message of this quilt is that even though things can look rosy on the outside, there can be little bits of cancer lurking around the inside and, thus, we should get checked regularly to make sure that our insides look as good as our outside. And I have to admit that I made this quilt after NOT being checked for more than five years ( a prime example of keeping one's head in the sand--I've since had the mammogram). You'll probably have to click on this quilt to enlarge it in order to really see the little bad black things hiding out. My husband kept referring to the red circles at the bottom as "PackMen." The purpose of them was to represent the good medicine gobbling up the bad cells. Well, he kept referring to them as PackMen and, finally, I just had to change it because I didn't want the quilt to be about PackMen. I spent several evenings taking out all of the stitches--and here you see the new version. The colored band has a lot of beading and then I added the little hidden cells. I'm fairly pleased with it and, at least, it's no longer about Packmen.

Flowers, flowers--Everywhere!

Yesterday, I drove up to Harleyville and taught my Los Flores del Sol quilt hanging to 10 people at Karen Kendo's quilt studio. What a wonderful space she has and what a great group. They were ALL workaholics (my kind of people!) and the work they turned out was beautiful. Here you can see them all hard at work. And it was exciting to see how each one of them interpreted the quilt pattern differently.
And the food and conversation was every bit as great--and entertaining. And afterwards, I took a tour of Karen's flowers and their vegetable gardens--it's a special piece of countryside that they inhabit and I look foward to my next trip there. The icing on the cake was that when I went to a Quilt Show meeting this afternoon, Karen had her completed quilt top there--and, also, her friend Jolene's! I was more than a little impressed --and also humbled that they were excited enough to want to complete something that I presented. What a personal joy for me. Thanks, girls.
P.S. I see that Karen has posted the class to her blog so you can see more pictures there--especially her version of the quilt--so nice . . . See it at:http://quiltingwithkaren.wordpress.com/
P.P.S. And more pictures can be seen on Corky's blog: http://fiber-thoughts.blogspot.com/

My Baby's Back Home!

After a year of being on the road, my Charleston Beckonings is back home with me. It was a finalist in the $100,00 Quilt Challenge--which was a great experience. However, at Guild a month or so ago, someone mentioned to me that the the magazine that sponsored the challenge had suspended its operation--and I began to worry since I didn't have my quilt back. I contacted a former editor and she gave me a couple of email addresses and I finally made some contact and was told it would come back after the show in New Hampshire. Well, that was about a month ago and, again, I began to worry. But, oh me of little faith, it was at my doorstep yesterday--and all is right with the world!

Recycling

A few years ago, I belonged to several Thimbleberries Clubs (and finished ALL of the quilts); however, I had a LOT of scraps and a lot of pieced bits leftover from chain piecing. They have resided in a plastic bag ever since because I really haven't wanted to do anything Thimbleberries since then. So, after making two rather feminine looking lap quilts for our guild Hope Lodge project (thanks, Karen, for the correct name), I decided to use those Thimbleberries scraps for a masculine lap quilt. And this is what I came up with. Some of the blocks came from patterns in a 9" square block book that I have (I especially like the one one the 3rd row down, 3rd from the left--the star) and some I just made up from the partially pieced bits. Well, when I finished, there were still a lot of strips and I really wanted to use them up, so I also pieced the back. That pretty well took care of them and the rest I put into my regular scrap bin (which has the makings of at least 10 quilts in it if I would just take the time and do it). I have also finished the 2nd feminine-looking quilt for the project but I won't post it because it's almost identical to the one in my last blog installment.
I was going to do all this yesterday, but the weather was so crisp and the windows were open throughout the house and something just got into me that said, "Shampoo the carpet in your studio." Now, I guess I could have ignored the inner voice that kept nicking my pysche, but I happened to actually look down at the carpet and that was all it took. Off to Lowe's I went and brought home the shampooer and cleanser. It wasn't too bad (just a backache today!) and the carpet looks about 1000% better. I thought about hiring a company to do it, but I just didn't want to have to worry about my fabric and all the "stuff" in my studio that could have been "in the way" while the cleaning was going on. Do you think I worry too much about what may or may not happen? Probably, but if something can go wrong in this house, it usually does. At any rate, it is finished and I still had time to just enjoy the beautiful weather and plant another tomato plant and some sunflower seeds.

Wow!

This morning, we rode up to Orangeburg, SC to visit the Edisto Gardens. We had heard that they had a big Rose Festival each year and had planned on going last Friday, but it just didn't work out. So, today was the day. As we pulled up, all we could say was "Wow!" Roses, roses, roses---everywhere. I'm sorry that I didn't get the full overview shot--which I was going to do on the way out--but all I can say is that they put the roses at the Biltmore House in Asheville to shame. As we started walking into the rose area, our senses were enveloped in the scent of roses. And the first row of roses that we saw were incredible. I don't remember the name of this rose--of course--but I call it Huge Bouquet Rose. Each one of the clusters was large enough for an entire bridal bouquet. And these shrub roses on the right were so brilliant that all I could think was "Hot, Hot, Hot." I won't bore you with tons more rose pictures but it truly was one of the more magnificent floral experiences of my gardening life. The Edisto Gardens is located along the Edisto River and, because of that, there are many cypress knees along the pond areas there and even bigger ones in the wet areas. The bronze statue on the left was of the lady who more or less spearheaded the creation of the gardens. And the picture on the right is of a small waterwheel down in the river itself. There were some smaller gardens that were interesting, also. The entire thing is so beautifully done and guess what? It's free! So if you have the time, go--but I would advise going before it gets too hot--the roses are in the full sun.

Another gardening note: Horney the Toad. I LOVE yard art. Or you might put it into a more refined context and call it hardscape in the garden. At any rate, I saw this incredible creature at K-Mart and HAD to have it. Now, Horney is not a small toad. He's actually quite manly in size--about 10 inches in height. And he has glass eyes that seem to follow you around. I just wish he would eat bothersome insects--then he would be absolutely perfect!

And on a quilting note: This is a lap quilt I just finished for out-of-town cancer patients who have to stay in town for their treatments--one of the projects our Guild is sponsoring this year. I THINK it's called Hope House but I could very likely be wrong as to the exact name. Anyway, I did finish this one and have enough blocks to make another one. I know that these quilts do bring comfort to people in various situations and I really believe that it's important to give back to the others when we ourselves have been so blessed.

Palmetto Hands

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Palmetto Hands is a fine craft show that is part of the North Charleston Arts Festival. This is the 3rd year that I've participated and each year I've really enjoyed seeing fine crafts from around the state of South Carolina displayed at the Convention Center. If you have the opportunity between now and next Friday, have a look. I was fortunate this year to win an Outstanding Merit Award for my quilt, Honey Locust Beans. Needless to say, I was very excited.

Another of our local quilters, Lucretia Pope had two pieces there and I have included her silk, appliqued vest. I believe she won a first place ribbon at the Cobblestone Quilt Show with this vest and it's quite nice.

I have included a few photos of some of the other crafts represented so you can get an idea of the scope of the show. There were several wooden pieces there. Some were straight forward furniture pieces with some very original ideas. This piece, I believe, was turned on a lathe after gluing together many smaller pieces of wood. (I may be wrong).
This one to the right is a hand-made paper book . I don't remember the name of the artist but she has things in the show each year and they are always interesting.

And this was a wonderful hand-painted dress with peacock feathers along the sleeves. The bowl to the right is hand-woven from some kind of metallic fibers. There were several pieces by the same artist and they were all beautifully wrought. (Please double-click on any of these photos for a more detailed viewing experience)

The wall hanging to the left had a lot of hand-painted and stamped details. That is something that I would like to try myself sometime but I'm just not there yet.

And the final piece is a wonderful glass plate with a beautiful, intricately detailed center. It seemed to shimmer as we looked at it. And these are just a few of the wonderful works of art there. For me, personally, it is interesting to compete with artists from other media. As a judge, I don't really know how you can compare the "apples and oranges" of fiber, clay, paper, metal, wood, etc.
After we looked at the Palmetto Hands exhibit, we looked at the painting exhibit out in the hallway. There are so many very talented artists in Charleston and though I didn't necessarily agree with all of the choices for awards (it is, after all, a subjective process) did think that the Best of Show was incredible and I'm sorry I don't have a photo here of it. It was a black and white modest nude drawing (I say modest because you couldn't see any of the essentials) of a young woman. It was very low-key compared to many of the other paintings but it drew you in.
So, this was my "cultural" experience for today. Tomorrow, it's Celtic music at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in North Charleston (again, part of the Arts Festival).