Shindig 2013

We didn't make many Shindigs this year - and with the record-breaking rains of this year, they had to cancel a few of them. But Norris' family came to visit this weekend and we took his mother back for the final Shindig of 2013 -

The last Shindig of the year is when they draw the winners of the raffle guitar, and the quilt I worked on with friends Alice and Ann. Since we were all there, we asked the Folk Heritage Committee if we could go up on stage with the quilt for the pitch to the audience to support this free, outdoor family event by buying raffle tickets. Norris brought the camera closer to the stage and took some photos, but with the low light, and us moving around to show both sides of the quilt, he didn't manage to get all three of us in focus in one photo.  But we can share a couple of the better ones.

Master of Ceremonies tonight was extraordinary local musician Laura Boosinger, shown at the microphone when she was reading our names.  Ann is barely visible behind the quilt on the left side and Alice is holding it up on the right.

You would not guess by how Alice is supporting her end of the quilt in that photo, but she's been dealing with a tendon issue, so I relieved her on that side.  I really like this photo of Ann's gorgeous smile! She's the one that suggested the design we used this year.

Here's one last photo I like because I feel so privileged to think I was sharing the stage with Laura, while she sang a verse of Banks of the Ohio. You can see that Ann's design choice and the colors of the quilt would be visible even to people on the other side of the park. 

The great part of going up on stage was the thanks we got from many of the Folk Heritage Committee members for making the quilts to support this local music and dance tradition.

Labor Day trip for Cheryl

Cheryl is off on a trip to our old stomping grounds in the Washington DC area and has a few photos to share with family and friends.

Last night, Cheryl, Carl and Beth went to the Bacchus of Lebanon in Bethesda for a treat for Cheryl - Middle Eastern is not one of the cuisines Asheville has built its reputation for fabulous restaurants on -

Here's a shot of Brother Carl at dinner - dinner was on the outdoor patio on a rare pleasant evening in late summer in this part of the world. Unfortunately, Carl and Beth did not wind up in focus with their eyes open in the same shots - but we like this one of Brother Carl -


Today was Labor Day in the U.S. and so at Dorry's house, the plan was for a holiday grilled dinner. Dinner was moved indoors due to the rain we've had off and on all afternoon. The role of Executive Chef sometimes shifted between Mother and Son (Dorry and Geoff) but we enjoyed a fine meal and laughter -


Dorry's remark at this next photo was how interesting it is that for some photographs, the perspective is from a much higher vantage point than usual -

Pastry Chef Rhonda took over for the dessert course. Note the pleased expression on Dorry's face - she already has her serving of Trifle, but she had not yet tasted that layer of ladyfingers.


But don't worry - there is serious work being done on the main project of the week - here's Dorry working on a central feature of a quilt Cheryl will be working on after returning home in a few days.



Cheryl is in Virginia until this final element is complete - more photos will be forthcoming.

Finally, there are two photos just for Norris the Fire Fighter - This the Manassas Town Hall building - note the interesting partial ring lower right:

Click on the photo to read the story of this unique object:

Sesquicentennial

Premier quilt historian Barbara Brackman has just launched a Block of the Week blog to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. She's accompanying the blocks with photos and facts from the era. Cheryl was thinking about making the blocks when Dorry launched the idea to the International Round Robin group, and that pushed Cheryl to the commitment.

Here's Cheryl's first block, Catch Me If You Can -

Cheryl didn't want to buy any new fabrics and has only a few in the Civil War Reproduction-category (and those only for use making blocks for other quilters who love them.) This project will use other lovely fabrics collected over years of quilting that have not necessarily made it into a quilt.

Sew Many Villages

A few weeks ago, Cheryl was honored to do the quilting on a project Dorry made for her sister Kerry in New Zealand, on the occasion of Kerry's wedding anniversary. It couldn't be posted until Kerry received her gift.


The quilt started with fabrics Kerry had purchased on a trip to Africa and a pattern by Kitambaa Designs called "It Takes a Village."

The pattern had a dark, night sky studded with golden stars, but some of the African fabrics that were to make up the houses and their roofs were dark. For contrast Dorry changed it to a daylit scene, but that left us with what to quilt into the upper right part of the quilt. We settled on a giraffe nibbling on acacia trees. Hard to make out in the photo, the giraffe and trees are one of those surprises you get when you inspect a quilt up close.


Then a few other animals native to the plains of Africa found places among the houses at the bottom edge of the village -





The border was the area that was treated with dimensional quilting in a design Cheryl borrowed from African textiles

name that quilt....

Cheryl has almost finished this quilt -

The quilting motif in the setting squares and triangles is one Cheryl came up with -- adopted from a jewelry ad.

Wool batting makes the design pouf nicely.



We don't really know why quilts need names, but we do know why they need labels. We've just ordered the hanging device for it, so Cheryl has a few days to make and attach a label. But the label should include the quilt's name. Any suggestions? There are some fancifully colored birds in the fabric of six of the twelve pieced blocks, a subdued floral in the other six.

Placemat anyone?

Sorry we haven't been posting much - Cheryl has been down with a cold. We had our (unseasonal) first snowfalls this week, but none of it stayed around for photography.

But Cheryl has just completed final touches on a project she made in a class on collage and monoprinting about 6 weeks ago. The instructor was Bernie Rowell, the artist who did the Bluebird collage quilt we have a print of (see a photo of her quilt here). We used Sherwin Williams interior latex paints to apply paints to commercially printed fabric, then cut that up to make a small "art piece".


The instructor provided all the raw materials - not too much and not a wide variety of fabric and paint - so students could concentrate on the techniques. Class members had to use their imaginations to come up with shapes to work with. Cheryl's quilt is pretty tame, with none of the metallics that Bernie uses in her quilts to add life. (They were available but students were all running out of steam by the time they came out.) The two white and two orange fabrics that make the background were left in their original state, but all the other fabrics have paint. Even the binding (the striped outer edge) is made entirely of little squares cut from the few remnants of the painted fabrics. The piece was already bound when it came home, so it took a little ingenuity to figure out how to get it onto the quilting machine so that Cheryl could finally do what she's comfortable with - a lot of additional quilting! It always looks funny to put such a tiny quilt on the 12 foot table of the longarm.

The piece was made as a learning experience and has no other purpose. It's exactly the size of a placemat. Bernie mounts her pieces and has them framed. This one is more likely going to serve as a cat-mat.

new art

Cheryl's mother's favorite bird was the blue bird, so Cheryl picked out this limited edition print by local artist Bernie Rowell, at the Southern Highlands Craft Fair today in downtown Asheville. The artist makes painted quilts, using leather, fiber and found objects. Her Giclee prints are also three dimensional, as after they are printed, she sews in new metallic threads and adds bits of metallic fabrics. (click on the embedded link to go to the artist's photo of the piece.)

Summer Leaves - quilt finished -

A couple of pictures of the quilt Cheryl showed last week - ready to hang inside the house.

Pink and Yellow Roses

Norris' mother liked the idea of new quilted placemats when Cheryl made the penguins for Marla, and she saw some of ours. She asked for pink and yellow roses.

They arrived at her house yesterday. Her kitchen has blue accents so she got blue roses for the napkins -


but the fabric for the back is just pink roses -

Cheryl's Studio this morning

One of Cheryl's local customers lives in Arizona half the year. She dropped off nine quilts for quilting last summer, and is just getting back to North Carolina. She's coming this morning to pick up these final six.


Most got overall quilting - like this one with a pantograph design (still hand guided, I don't have a computer to run my machine)



This one is interesting, with the way the design overlaps the border a couple of times -



With that, we're saying goodbye to the current iteration of Reems Creek Creative Quilting!

Positive/Negative

Cheryl has finally finished piecing these leaves. They were made with an original pattern by one of the quilters she has met through on-line discussion groups on longarm quilting.



Cheryl still has to quilt this but it has come a long way in a couple of weeks. It's been a quilt in her mind since she saw her friend's version in 2006.

Penguin Placemats, Leaves in Progress

Cheryl has just completed a set of placemats for Norris' sister Marla. Isn't that nice? Well, she's had the fabric for about ten years now, so it's about time!


And here are two blocks that will make an artsy quilt for the bedroom wall. The photo is taken from too close, but there were objects next to them that need to remain a secret from some blog readers.

A quilt for a dollar

Cheryl has just finished her part of the Quilters Unlimited of NVA's 2011 raffle quilt. It still needs to be bound and have a label and hanging sleeve attached to ready it for the next 11 months.

The whole quilt, front and back - wafting in a very slight breeze - (all of these pictures were loaded a bit larger than usual so you may be able to see the quilting if you click on them)





The quilt was designed and made by a committee of members of the Reston Chapter of the guild. Cheryl's friend Dorry headed the effort to come up with a design and get the top constructed. The quilt was designed by Ann Weber, who has her own pattern company. We've shown pictures of her beautiful quilts here in the past.

Some closeups -


The center of the quilt is appliqued on top of pieced Churn Dash blocks, the same as those that are more visible in the tan and brown fabrics. From a distance the two pale green fabrics blend to the point that you could not notice the piecing. Quilting behind applique normally is done so that the applique stands out in relief. Cheryl densely quilted the blocks so that they live in the background, but the piecing of the blocks is still noticeable.



The quilting shows up better on the plain backing -

When no one is paying for the quilting, the quilter goes all out. Cheryl's part took two weeks and we don't know how many hours were spent by the guild members who did all the piecing and applique work - let alone the time the committee spent just coming up with the guidelines for Ann and choosing all the fabrics. And there's still a bit to go to ready this quilt for the next phase. But, starting in July, the quilt will tour the chapter meetings and show up at events where the guild will sell tickets for a dollar a chance, 6 for $5.00. The drawing is held at the QU show, usually the first weekend in June. Let's hope they sell out of tickets!

Thread Palette

Cheryl is quilting the Raffle Quilt for Quilters Unlimited, the Northern Virginia guild she's still a member of. Her friend Dorry was in charge of this year's quilt's construction. We'll post pictures of the full quilt when Cheryl's part is done - but for now, here are the thread colors. The quilt can be seen in the background on the quilting machine.

Welcome quilt

Cheryl fixed the problem with the wrong-way hanging sleeve, then waited for a good day to take some photos outside. Finally here are some pictures of the finished quilt, Welcome to Chestnut Ridge, designed and pieced by Dorry, quilted by Cheryl

The full quilt, shaded so the colors come out more true to life.


This shot with shadows to show the border quilting.



The next picture shows the bear among the trees. She's walking along a stone path. The bear paw blocks (the brown and white blocks that surround the trees) are quilted with a fanciful version of the tulip poplar leaf on each "paw." These are the most plentiful trees on this slope right now. (Hardwoods will be replacing them slowly as the slope goes back to something more like its pre-logging state.)



There are various animal tracks in the white borders with the stone colored "flying geese" triangles: turkey, bear, squirrel, raccoon, bobcat, and deer. All the critters have been seen - or left tracks in case of the bear - on our property, and like the bear, they've been given a stony path to walk on. The animals here all make use of the logging road and the stairway we put in that leads to it from the house. This shows the bobcat tracks.



Similarly, the turkey tracks show up in this shot on the left.


In case you were wondering, the only real turkeys to be seen around here lately are males - Toms and Jakes. The hens are probably all laying and incubating. The laying takes 11-15 days, and incubating about 28 days.

great day for quilt photography

Cheryl was up early and noted the lack of wind and favorable morning light and prepared to photograph the quilt she's been working on. (here's the back of it)





Well, yes, conditions were right but it was only after getting the quilt on the display rack it was obvious that Cheryl had sewn the hanging sleeve on the wrong side of the quilt - it's hanging upside down!

The odder thing is, today, the Blogger software today is also getting directions mixed up. There was another photo Cheryl wanted to use here that showed the trees behind the quilt, taken with the camera rotated. The rotation was changed in software before uploading, but for reasons of its own, Blogger keeps rotating the photos back to the original sideways view.

Until the sleeve comes off and is reapplied, here's a closeup of the raccoon tracks quilted in one of the borders -


And next is one of those sideways photos (it's been corrected and reloaded twice!). This one shows the quilt Cheryl is currently putting together, as pieces arranged on the design wall. (Some parts are over at the sewing machine.)

It is good to see a quilt layout through the camera like this - and it doesn't hurt that it's sideways. The camera allows more distance than the room allows, and now it's clear that a couple of these squares of Asian style prints need to change position to better balance the color distribution.

small token

Cheryl just finished the last of the projects for hr mother's minister. He had purchased some vintage host cases covered with decorated fabric. He thought he would like pillows made from the fabric. There was a green one with an applied band and an off-white one with a turquoise embroidered cross.

Cheryl found a tapestry fabric to go with the three-dimensional surface of the cross. The off-white band on the green one was decorated with gold thread, and made a vertical stripe on the cover of the case. After removing all the stitching and cardboard, there was enough of the green fabric to cover a little more than half of a 16-inch pillow form on one side. The lining fabric built it up to a 16 inch square. There was only a small strip of the green fabric left. Cheryl stitched it with gold metallic thread to resemble that on the original off-white band.

finishing unfinished business

My mother didn't leave a lot of unfinished business, but next to her sewing desk were some fabrics her minister had asked her to make into "something" for him. This was natural as Mom made a lot of pillows, placemats, table runners, and napkins that were sold at fundraisers. He asked about them when he came to discuss the memorial service with us and I agreed to take on her projects. I know Mom was very fond of this minister, dating back to her service on the selection committee that hired him. So home they came with me and I am doing my best to do "something" with them. There are two projects remaining, but I've finished these in time to bring them on my next trip to Chicago.

The first was a small piece already cut into two small rectangles, so that was easy: clearly Mom was going to make and stuff a pillow, and she usually piped pillows. I made a quick stop in a local fabric store to get the materials for the trim. It looks like the fabric matches our worn out teal chair, but it's acually a blue in the floral band.


Mom probably liked that fabric a lot - florals with blue and dusty rose were her choice for decorating her own house in recent years.

Then there was a much larger piece of a pretty green brocade. The fabric was directional but I decided it could be a lined table runner if I seamed it in the center short-wise matching and mirroring the motifs. To make that look right, I also split it lengthwise . The same gold fabric that piped the pillow served me here - and I had some shiny yarns left from a decorating project of my own to make the tassels.


It's a little short for our table, but should work someplace for him. After doing that, there was enough fabric for three placemats - yes, an odd number, but the minister lives alone. I quilted the fabric for these and used the same gold accent fabric for binding:

The camera flash really accents the shiny part of the fabric background. The quilting follows the basic outline of the motifs in a matching thread.