I Know, I Know--It's Been A While . . .

You know what keeps happening when you're not paying attention? Life! Well, life has been going on pretty fast and furious this past month or so. Between going to 2 quilts shows, one quilt conference, back and forth to Charleston several times and having company . . .well, time has sailed past with hardly a notice. And I can tell you that I don't really like to live that way. Our time on this earth is so short and so precious that I really like to notice it as it's happening.

So, anyway, here are a few pictures to comment upon.

While my sister-in-law and her husband were here, we did a lot of different things and enjoyed all of them. Two days we went hiking and each day we saw beautiful waterfalls. The first trip was to Dupont State Forest. The hike was a moderate one (but enough to make us stop to rest a couple of times along the way) and the river had numerous rapids along the way such as this one. There has been plenty of rain this year so the rivers are full and running.

This second picture is of the falls at Chimney Rock. The walk to get there was a steady climb but well worth it. The water fall isn't especially wide but the height of the drop is impressive. While we were at Chimney Rock, we also took the elevator to the top of the lookout. The vista was incredible. Everyone up there was having a great time that day and offering and asking to have pictures taken. Someone offered to take ours and here it is:

Smokey and I are the ones on the left. You can tell our visitors are out in the sun a lot more than we are!

Next on my schedule was the Asheville Quilt Show and since my sister-in-law was still in town on the night of the Awards Ceremony, she got to go along with me. I kind of felt sorry for her because she really isn't into sewing (she's really into tennis) and had to sit and listen to "quilty" talk for quite a while. But once the ribbons were disbursed and we got to go look at the quilts, she was as interested as anyone there.

I was fortunate to have won ribbons for both of the quilts I had entered--Swamp Hibiscus and Say It With Flowers (can be seen on my website: judithheyward.com). And here are a few pictures of the quilts I liked:

This first one--Birch Trees for Benjamin--by Veronica Von Zwehl was really interesting because the detail of the birch trunks is ALL thread painting. I think she had fantastic control as she laid out the detail of the quilting.
This next quilt is an applique quilt by Gail Sexton. Her applique work was wonderful and her quilting was great also. Both of her quilts in the show were noteworthy.

And here is a prize-winning quilt by Betty Dalton--QEXI A Taste of the Lowcountry. Betty was supposed to take my class last fall in which I taught A Taste of the Lowcountry, but she ended up sick and couldn't come. But she was not held back by that. She not only did the work on her own, she also figured out how to do it in a way that could take advantage of her own strengths. She didn't feel that she could make all of the small jasmine leaves that were on my design SO she digitized her own interpretation and machine embroidered them around the entire outer border. I was impressed. And she earned two ribbons for her efforts. Good work, Betty!

This small pieced wallhanging on the left is called Bamboo and is by Diana Ramsay. She said that it was inspired by a photo of a section of bamboo fence. If you look closely there are a LOT of tiny strips sewn together. I'm always impressed by the way quilt artists can look at a piece or section of something and then interpret it in a new and different way and I think Diana was quite successful in her effort on this quilt.

And, finally, here is a quilt by Norene Goard called Ahinahina--a fine example of Hawaiian applique technique. Both the applique and the quilting were done by hand. Although this wasn't an award-winner for Norene, she won ribbons with her other quilt (I didn't get that photo). I have always been fascinated with this style of quilt because I think you have to be so precise with your placement since its elements are supposed to be balanced in relation to each other. Sometimes I'm a LITTLE too casual in my approach to be very good at this style--so I really admire it.

In my own work lately, I've been sort of at loose ends--moving my studio from Charleston to Hendersonville, trying to find a place for everything, and just so much going on. BUT, I finally have gotten an idea for a quilt and have spent the last couple of days drawing it out. It feels good to be going forward once again. Hopefully, I'll be ready for some "show and tell" in the near future.