Carolina Musings: April 2010

Welcome

Friday, April 2, 2010

Quilters of South Carolina

Last weekend was the annual Spring meeting for the Quilters of South Carolina. It was held this year in Newberry, SC at the Newberry Opera House. What a great venue (although a little crowded at times). The quilters from that area went out of their way to make it a pleasant time for all and I was glad to actually see the Opera House. It is small enough that you could go to a concert or show and actually see the people performing and it is close enough to our home in Hendersonville, NC that we could easily attend (2 hours). These days, it seems that it is so difficult to see a show that is in a space small enough that you can really enjoy it and I think I'll be trying out this locale in the near future.

Our guest speaker this year was Laura Wasilowski from Elgin, Illinois. For those of you who don't know, she is one of the founders of the Chicago School of Fusing and her talk centered around the activities on that campus. (And if you don't already know, this talk was definitely tongue-in-cheek!)

Laura was absolutely hilarious and had

everyone in stitches (no pun intended). And the added bonus was that she sprinkled her lecture with original lyrics set to familiar tunes. And not only that, her singing voice was wonderful and I suspect that she may have had some vocal training along the wa

y (or at least it sounded THAT good).

Another bonus of Laura's visit was that she brought patterns and hand-dyed fabric. I, of course, succumbed to the fabric. (If you'd like to see all of her fabric and threads, you can visit her website a http://www.artfabrik.com/ . And here to the right, she is autographing one of her books. I'll have to say that I enjoyed her lecture more than just about any I've heard in a long time. And she was just so pleasant. I'm sure that the people who took her classes had a blast.

So, it was a very good day in Newberry. And one of the best parts of the day was visiting with quilters from all over the state--some of them students who took one of my classes, some of them friends from Charleston whom I don't get to see very often now that I've moved and others that I've met through the years at other meetings. What a joy!

Books I've REALLY Enjoyed Lately

The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

I like everything I've read by Wally Lamb. This book concerns the aftermath of the shooting at Columbine High School. The characters come alive as you read and you get a pretty good picture of what it must have be like to experience such a catastrophe.

City of Women by David Gillham

This story takes place in WWII Nazi Germany. The main character is a young woman whose husband serves in the German Army while she lives in a small apartment with her mother-in-law. Through a series of events, she becomes involved with helping Jews escape from being sent to concentration camps. It is a story of her journey from ignoring the heinous crimes of the Nazis towards the Jewish population to committing her life to something she knows is worth the cost of her own personal safety. The question for each of us is whether we would be as brave in the same circumstances.

The Racketeer by John Grisham

I haven't particularly card about John Grisham's book lately but this one stands out for me. It is about a lawyer who, through no fault of his own, gets charged with racketeering and is sent to Federal Prison for several years. You cheer for him as he devises a way to be released legally and the aftermath. It will keep up up at night waiting to see what will happen next.

Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

A VERY good read.

Home Front by Kristan Hannah

I think that Kristan Hannah is more or less a romance author and I suppose this book would come under that category. But it is much more. It explores what happens with our service men and women when they are sent to the mid-East and are daily exposed to horrors and danger beyond their ability to endure without mental damage and, thus, come home a far different person than when they went. The main character in this book in a wife and mother who is a helicopter pilot in the Reserves. It is indeed a tear jerker but a necessary read.

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

I like anything by Barbara Kingsolver (particularly her autobiographical book about her family's year of only eating food in season and within her region). This novel centers around a massive immigration of monarch butterflies to a mountain community and how it affects the people of the region. There is much talk about ecology, what we are doing to the environment and the effect of our actions BUT there is a great storyline to keep you engaged.