New Work Progress

Just thought I'd post my progress on my newest project. This is the center section and I've really been enjoying working on it. I've already changed somewhat from my original drawing and also have changed the colors that I had planned. The biggest change so far is in the flying geese. I had decided to applique the flying geese sections--rather than paper piecing-- and had put a beautiful aqua batik row of flying geese on top of a black background. I just felt a big "Ugh" when I looked at it--it felt heavy and off-color. So--I decided to lighten up the feel of the black by cutting away the insides and then changed the color of the geese. And I came away a happy camper. And then I chose the colors for the flowers in tones that, hopefully, work to pull together the already existing colors. The very center is still in the thought process. I have the next section outside of the red frame drawn and will work on that next. After that? Euw . . .I'm not sure.

Studio Tour

Most of you know that we have moved from Charleston, SC to Hendersonville, NC. I am VERY glad to be here but, amongst other things, I left behind a WONDERFUL studio. My husband had it configured especially for me and my quilting when we remodelled the house we bought from his mother.

The house we are currently living in is less than ideal for many reasons (and this may not be our final stop) and I would put my studio into that category also. However, it works and, truthfully, is better than many I've seen. So I'm not complaining--I'm just trying to make it work as well as possible and I thought I'd share a few pictures so those of you who have seen my old studio can kind of have an image of where I am now (and those of you who've never seen my studio can also have a look!).

In my Charleston studio, I had a wonderful work table comprised of 10 cabinets and a custom top. The first thing we came to terms with when we were trying to move was that we were just going to have to throw away the top as it wasn't going to hold up to the move. And the other thing we realized was that not all of the cabinets were going to fit into the new space. Only six will work--but I'm really enjoying them and being able to put away things. Smokey made a "temporary" plywood top (we all know how "temporary" often becomes "permanent"!) and it is working great. And you can see some of my fabric in the background.

And here is some more of my fabric and shelving. We got these shelves at Lowe's several years ago and would liked to have gotten more but they seemed to have discontinued the white version. They have been really sturdy and have held up to a couple of moves.

And here on the right is my computer station. I am sort of "camping out" for now and will bring my "real" desk up after our house sells. It's kind of a thrill to use the printer as the little table it's sitting on shakes, rattles and rolls when it starts to print!

And, finally, here are two shots of my sewing area. I have another sewing cabinet that will be brought up in one of our many trailor load trips. I'm in the middle of quilting the quilt that I pieced at out TTT retreat this year and the shot on the right shows my "puddling" method. I like to quilt with a lot of flat space around the machine so that it doesn't pull on the stitching as I'm quilting.

And for those of you who may have sharp eyes and have noticed the machine I'm using, yes, I DO have the new Bernina--and am loving it. I was able to get it because we just settled my mother-in-law's estate and I think of it as my present from her. She gave me my very first sewing machine the first year Smokey and I were married and I know that she would be glad that I used some of her bequest to get this. She was always so proud of my quilting and made quite a point of letting the ladies at the retirement home see pictures of my work. I'm naming the machine "Miss Susie" because that's what her husband called her.

One final picture: This is my working drawing of my next project. I'm beginning to pick out the fabric and am just about ready to get going on it. I know you can't tell a lot from this picture but, hopefully, you'll see something a little more "colorful" in the near future.

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.

What A Great Weekend!

This past weekend I went to Quiltfest in Johnson City, Tn. This is an event that is held each year with classes from national and regional teachers. I'll have to admit that I have been disppointed with most of the classes that I've taken in recent years, but I absolutely was not diasppointed at Quiltfest. I took two classes--Quilting Feathers with Sue Nickels and Hot Piping with Susan Cleveland. I had never heard of Susan Cleveland before but she is a real hoot! And you come out of that class with many new tips about using piping in your quilts and doing it properly. (Unfortunately, my pictures of that class were not good). This picture on the left is of the Feathers Class. Sue Nickels is in the center. We had a wonderful classroom space and there weren't many of us in the class so we all received plenty of feedback on our progress. And she had a camera that she kept aimed at her quilting demos and the picture would be projected on the screen so we could easily see what she was doing without crowding around the desk. This small quilt on the right is the class project that I finished yesterday. It's not the clearest picture in the the world, but I think you can see that I got a pretty good relief effect with the feathers. She gave us all kinds of tips about this kind of quilting--position of hands, type of thread, etc-- and it was just what I needed to hear. You might be able to also see the piping that I put in along the borders--thanks to the techniques that I learned in Susan Cleveland's class. I got the label on it this morning and turned it in for the Small Quilt Auction at the Asheville Quilt Show in a couple of weeks.
So, put Quiltfest on your calendars for next year if you can. You won't be disappointed. (And come to the Asheville Quilt Show this year! It's August 7th-9th at the North Carolina Arboretum. I was there today and the flowers were incredible.

Country Come To Town

This past week, we took our 14 year-old grandson on a vacation trip to Washington, D.C. and other points of interest that related to WWII. He is interested in that time frame at the moment. We started off with a stop at Wilmington, NC at the battleship North Carolina. If you're ever there and have the time, it really is a great opportunity to see that type of ship--in great detail. I thought the Tour Arrows would NEVER stop and I really did enjoy most of it except when we were in the lower reaches of the ship and were walking on open grates looking DOWN into the further depths--that was definitely not for me.

The remainder of our trip centered around the D.C. area--the Air & Space Museum at Dulles, Mount Vernon, The National Archives, the Smithsonian and the WWII Memorial--all of it greatly interesting and well worth the visit.

One other thing I wanted to show my grandson was the town where I grew up--Herndon, VA--and the house(s) that I lived in. Thomas Wolfe was oh-so-right when he said you can't go home again. I, of course, knew that having gone back before both to Herndon and then to Mt. Pleasant, SC, after a twelve year absence. But I REALLY wanted to give my grandson something to hold on to as far as the roots of a part of his family. Those of you who have been in Northern Virginia know that it was mostly a fruitless task but I WAS able to show him both houses that I grew up in and where things USED to be. I had to decide that it was better than no mental picture at all, I guess.

After Herndon, I decided to try to rescue another memory and in this one I was not disappointed. As a child, we would go to Great Falls Park where we would picnic, ride the merry-go-round and watch the Potomac River rush (and sometimes rage) over the rocks on its way to the Chesapeake Bay. Of course, the merry-go-round is gone and it is now a National Park, but it was beautiful and mostly an improvement. There are now well-built overlooks that discourage adventurers from climbing on the rocks and, thereby, falling into the waters (as happened one time when I was there as a child). And, for me, this was the highlight of the trip--with the WWII Memorial coming in at a close second.

And lest you think that I have completely forgotten about quilting, here is a quilt top that I finished just before we left. It is paper-pieced (HIGHLY unusual for me to do) and is from the February 2004 issue of American Patchwork & Quilting. I had had it cut out for quite a while and decided to go ahead and work on it while I'm waiting for inspiration to strike (and I think it's getting close!) I finished quilting it last night and will get the binding on soon. I think it's bright and cheery and it it will definitely be going on to a teenager that I know.

Over The River and Into The Woods

This afternoon was one of the best that I can remember in quite a long time. The Sustainable Agriculture group for this area of Western North Carolina sponsored a Family Farm Tour with over 25 farms that you could visit. Of course, that would have been virtually impossible--even though you can also go tomorrow afternoon (which we will). We (I) chose 3 farms to visit today--2 in Barnardsville and 1 in Mars Hill. I didn't choose these farms with anything in particular in mind--other than the descriptions sounded good. And they were more than good.

The first place we went to was owned by a couple in their 60's (which me feel good being as I'm there, too!). This is the wife and she was certainly a very interesting person. They run a bed and breakfast, also but I think she has done most of the gardening. What they have done with their place is like stepping into the Garden of Eden--flowers everywhere--at their peak, as you can see with the white hydrangeas here.

This farm and the 3rd one we went to had bee hives. And you will notice that there are electric fences around them. Papa Bear came to visit the farm one night and the next day the fence went up. This particular one is solar powered which is nice when you're not too close to an electricity source. I'm not sure how well these two hives were actually doing (as you may know our entire bee population is in trouble and they are VERY important for all of our food crops). At the 3rd farm, the bees were zooming all over the place and bringing pollen into the hives. These here were far more quiet--so I don't know.

And through all this walking around and oohing and aweing, my faithful companion Smokey followed patiently along. He is not quite as enthusiastic as I am but, as always, a good sport. (He didn't know I was taking his picture).

To me, one of the wonderful things about the farms in Western North Carolina is that so many of them are owned by families and not by mega businesses. Today's family farmers are, by and large, nothing like the farmers of old. They are educated and use modern methods to achieve their farming goals. BUT, they are still centered around individual ownership and live a life based on connectedness with the earth. They know where their food comes from because THEY grow it. And the biodynamic farms we visited today preserve the goodness of the soil as they bring forth its bounty.

It was a great, great afternoon.

And for those of you who may think that I haven't been doing any quilting up here in the mountains . . .you're just about right. However, a friend did come over last week and we each made this table runner called A Touch of Summer from the June 2009 issue of McCalls Quilting Magazine. It was fun to make and provided a lot of practice for accuracy in piecing.

Blessed by a Chinaberry

I had big plans this week as I was getting settled into the mountains. Let's see . . .I was going to go to the Asheville Quilt Guild on Tuesday and listen to a speaker talk about her strip quilts and then I was going to get my hair colored on Wednesday and on Thursday I was going to go to the Hendersonville Guild and hear Linda Cantrell talk (it doesn't matter talk about WHAT because she's funny no matter what her topic). And then I got a call telling me that my brother's mother-in-law had died in Charleston.

Now I didn't struggle about whether or not I would go back to Charleston--I knew I would--but I did struggle about all of the things I was going to miss. I have been working so hard on just living in the moment--and wouldn't you know? I'm getting plenty of opportunities to put it to the test. So, we got in the car and got back there in time to take supper to my brother and his family (and ,coincidentally, eat that food with them and have a really nice time).

The next day at the funeral, my niece went around to each woman and handed her a chinaberry necklace. These necklaces had been made by her grandmother (the deceased), Georgie. This had been her hobby for many years and she would take them to the Market on Saturdays and sell them until she was physically no longer able to do it. These necklaces we were given were her expression of art. During his homily, the pastor mentioned Georgie's love of doing this and without exception, every woman's hand went to her neck and touched her gift of a chinaberry necklace. It was a powerful moment and it was at that precise point that I knew that the trip to Charleston had a value beyond measure.