An Art-Filled Journey

 This past Friday, three friends and I set off for North Carolina--and beyond--in order to visit several of my favorite quilt shops and to see some other things along the way.  Our first stop was in Forest City, the home base of Schoolhouse Quilts.  Many of you have visited their booth at various quilts shows (they're the ones with all the books and notions).  BUT, at their shop (which is located in the lower lever of their home) they also have bolts and bolts of beautiful fabric.  It's well worth the effort to go there.  While we were in there, our friend Diana Pickens arrived and clued us in to a wonderful bead shop just down the road.  Of course, we HAD to go.

 Here is the exterior.  Isn't it wonderful?

 And these interior shots just capture part of the entire space.  There were so many beautiful beads and I'll have to admit that some went home with me.

 After we left the bead shop, we headed on to Spindale where the Rutherfordton Quilt Guild was holding its very first quilt show.  The quilts were nice and there were over 20 vendors.

 This very unusual butterfly quilt was made by Robin Parton.

 And this fabric floral arrangement was made by Amy Moye.  Both of these talented women were in a quilting class that I taught in Rutherfordton last year so I was delighted to see more of their work.

 This next floral quilt was made by Martha McGinnis.

 And this one was by Carol Griffin.  I really liked the
"mountain feeling" that it captured.

 Dorothy Baird-McKinney made this quilt and it was entered in the catagory that was for people who had been quilting for less than two years.  She quilted it herself and I think should be very pleased with the result.

This last quilt has a little story to it.  It was pieced and quilted by my friend Jeanette Auld who lives most of the year at Lake Lure and the rest of the time in Mt. Pleasant.  I gave her the leftover pieces from a quilt I had made and she used them to make the same quilt I did--only bigger.  That's a real "two-fer"!
Well, we covered so much ground on this first day of our trip that we were ready to kick back after we finally got our groceries and arrived at my house in Hendersonville.  We knew we better get some rest because the next day we were heading to Tennessee.  More on that later . . .