Jacksonville Quilt Show

We had a great trip to Jacksonville to the Quiltfest Quilt Show held annually at the Convention Center. It was, as usual, a large show with many beautiful quilts and lots of vendors to tempt you. I took some pictures there and will share a few of them. This quilt was Best of Show and was very well done. The one on the right was one of the stars of the show, however. It didn't win any awards but it certainly drew a lot of attention. The entire surface of the front was covered with beads --as was the BACK of the quilt. The quilt actually shimmered and drew you in to see just what was causing it. It certainly had that wow factor!

The next quilt was Best Machine Quilting. You can't really tell it from my photo, but the quilting was quite interesting with a lot of different motifs throughout the surface of the quilt. And the design of the flowers was nice, too. I'm sorry about the angle of the shot--I guess I kaddy-whomped the camera!

The quilt with the chair was kind of interesting as it was a play on words (which it took me a second pass to really GET it--a big "Duh" for me!) Instead of "Life is just a bowl of cherries" it says, "Life is just a chair of bowlies."

And then there was the quilt that seemed to have "Florida" written all over it. It had a lot of three-dimensional things attached to the surface.

This medallion quilt was very pleasing to the eye. The colors were nice and the work was excellent.

The vendors had just about anaything you could want and there was a booth that had the brand-new Bernina so one could drool over all the wonderful features. I'll have to admit that it presented a very tempting opportunity to buy-buy-buy.

During our second day in Florida, we went to a quilt shop in Ormond Beach--over 6,000 bolts of fabric. I don't really like to buy yardage at a quilt show because there are always so many people either waiting to get fabric cut or it's too cramped in the booth to really look. So I was glad to go to this shop and I did manage to make a few purchases.

What an effort.

The last thing we saw in Jacksonville was an exhibit at the Contemporary Museum of Art. There was a series of statues made from some kind of polymer--or something synthetic--that were so lifelike that you had a hard time not believing they were real. Please take a look at this link to see one of them for yourself. It's incredible! http://www.mocajacksonville.org/current/m-sijan08

Jacksonville is a nice city to visit and I can hardly wait for next year.

I'm Dyeing To Show You!

For the last few years, I have drooled over hand-dyed fabrics. That was one of the major highlights of my trips to Houston and Paducah--especially the Ricky Tims hand-dyes. To be able to see stacks and stacks of those beautiful fabrics and take home ones that were too beautiful to resist.

Well, as much as I love hand-dyes, I have mightily resisted the urge to do my own. I viewed it as just one more thing to interfere with my quilting. However, the desire to have a piece of red hand-dyed fabric just when I want it has overcome my better judgment and, so, I signed up for a class on Quilt University. I have had all of the supplies for several weeks but have been unable to start because all of the things that have occured in my family of late.

BUT, yesterday was the day. I began with the first lesson(I'm having to remember that thing about baby steps first!) . This was about using primary colors and just doing solid dyeing. Those are the 3 on the left. And then, after that was done, the colors on the right resulted from mixing the primary colors into secondary colors. These are more on the pastel side because the first pieces took up most of the dye. I really like both results.

The next lesson was on scrunching the fabric and producing a mottled effect. I REALLY liked this lesson. The paler piece resulted from mixing all three secondary colors together.

I realized after yesterday that it was very reminiscent of my days as a potter. I would mix the chemicals together to make the glazes for my pots; I would then apply them to the pots and put them into the kiln. After many hours in a VERY hot kiln, I would wait for it to cool down and then the hour came when I could open the door and see what magic had been wrought when the glazes turned from powder into flowing color. Most of the time I was very happy and other times there were some surprises. The process of dyeing is very much like that and I am so happy that there have been only good surprises so far.

Chomper

Smokey and I road up to McClellanville, SC this afternoon to see this work of art created by our friend, Ed Byrd. Ed, a retired surgeon from the D.C. area, went back to school at the College of Charleston to get an art degree. One of his projects while he was there was to create this larger-than-life sharp made from paper-mache and fiberglass. It was on exhibition for a while and then he sort of lost track of it. Recently, he and his wife Ellen saw it outside of a seafood store near McClellanville, talked to the owner of the shop and then spent weeks restoring it to its former beauty--only greatly enhanced. They even talked with a metal fabricator and were able to add mean-looking sharp teeth and added an additional jaws-like touch by having a leg sticking out of its mouth (you can see Ellen holding on to it!) Another feature of this creation is the eyes. When I asked Ed where he got them, he said he ordered the largest fake eyes available from a taxidermist. They're really kind of incredible. After Ed and Ellen completed the refurbishing of the Shark (which is now named Chomper), the owner of the seafood store invited them to have a reception there to celebrate Chomper's new life. And what a wonderfully cool, bug-free afternoon it was. I'm sure that many of the cars buzzing past us on Hwy. 17 wondered just what all the fuss was about. Well, it was about celebrating art and friendship. Pretty good, huh?

Surrounded By Love

I haven't been able to work in my studio for well over a week now because of the death of my mother-in-law. She was in the hospital for several days and then returned to her room in Franke Home to die in her own bed. It had been a long, long road she traveled and she was a fighter who never said, "I quit." She approached her life with enthusiasm and was always ready to jump on the bus and go--even up until the last two weeks of her life. But, above all, she was a fine woman who saw the good in everyone and loved her family beyond measure. We will all miss her but are so glad that she no longer suffers.

What was overwhelming for me and my husband was the response to her passing by those we knew and those who knew her. We were inundated with food brought by my quilting friends and neighbors. My daughter-in-law's tennis friends provided a huge luncheon for everyone after the funeral. And so many people came to the Funeral Home on the evening before the service that I wasn't even able to speak to everyone that was there. The service itself was all that my mother-in-law could have wished for. We sang her favorite hymns, the priest gave a homily that really captured the essence of whom she was and her son carried her ashes from the church to the grave site with a quiet dignity that would have made her proud.

One of the greatest blessings that can come from a sadness such as this is the reconnecting with family. And we did that. We spent time with our nieces and nephew, great niece and nephews, aunts and uncles, their children and other relatives. And it was wonderful. We have a pretty nice family if I don't say so myself and I don't know why we get so busy with our individual lives that we don't do this without a special occasion to bring us together. Maybe we'll work harder at making that happen. I know it would be a great tribute to a fine woman who treasured her family and taught me so much through the years through her example. Fly high, Clara, and may your journey be glorious.

Back On Track

I have been really frustrated lately because I just wasn't in a state to be inspired. My situation hasn't changed any, but there has been a little break-through in ideas. A couple of years ago, I bought a packet of Japanese taupe-colored fat quarters. So many of the Japanese quilts that I've seen at shows are so exquisite and I became fascinated by some of their color choices (not to mention their perfect sewing and quilting techniques). So, I've had these fat quarters and looked at them and looked at them. I finally decided that I wanted them for some kind of background in a quilt. I pieced four blocks and then drew an applique design that will be the same on all of them. I will later design a center and borders. I'm happy with it so far and am glad to be "in a groove" again.

I also have signed up for a dyeing class on quilt university and will be sharing some of my dyed pieces after I actually get some done! Right now I'm waiting for UPS to bring the dye powers to my door step.

I found this site in a letter on the Quilt Art List:http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77 It's a quiz that tests your ability to differenciate between hues of colors--the lower the score you score, the better your sense of hue is. I scored a 7 which is pretty good (Whew!) and the test was fun and quick. Try it out.

Appreciate The Good Things That Are Yours

I know that I am not alone in worrying about hurricanes these days. And although it appears that we won't get much damage from Hannah, Ike is roaring up from the vast ocean with a terrible force that threatens to destroy all that we hold dear. I know that I will be very difficult to live with in the coming days until either we evacuate and wait to see what we have left afterwards OR we are spared once again. I think that once you have lived through a hurricane such as Hugo you just don't view storms quite so cavalierly as you might once have.
So between worrying about what I can't change and just the general personal hassle of dealing with two elderly parents, I've probably had a little pity party going on.
And then my husband read the obituaries this morning and we learned that our computer guru had died at the age of 49, leaving 5 children and a wife to mourn his loss. And then Smokey and I went to the hospital and sat with a friend while his wife was in surgery--rather, I should say her FIRST surgery because she will be having another one after she recovers from this one. And her husband, himself, is dealing with the devastating side-effects of lifesaving drugs for the treatment of his leukemia. After we returned home from the hospital, I had a call from another friend who is waiting for September 15th to arrive so she can go to Charlotte and have extensive surgery on her knee so that, hopefully, she will once again she will be able to live without constant, debilitating pain. And the list goes on. And if I can let go of my ego just long enough to really think about how greatly blessed I am in spite of my lack of free time and possible need to evacuate, then, perhaps, my life will be more joy-filled and I will be far less crabby. I'm working on it. . .