Sigh, Maine Quilts is over

Sigh, Maine Quilts is over for another year. Clap hands for Nancy Z. and all the people who put the show together. I know they work very hard all year to make the show a success. I volunteered Thursday afternoon and the main part of the show was completely done by then. I helped hang the Roy Pilgrim exhibit and the "Meet the Quilter" exhibit. The featured quilter this year was Lorraine Sweet, (and also her husband who was not a PTQG member so could not be officially mentioned). So rewarding to be a part of the set-up. After a sandwich in my car for supper I called my husband to say hi. He said there was a tornado warning for the area until 7 p.m. Gulp! I could see dark clouds racing across the sky! Nothing happened except some rain for us, thank goodness.

The above quilt is by Wendy Caton Reed and was my favorite at the show. You can see she won some ribbons for it! Check out Margo's blog (see my blogroll) for more photos from the show. Margo did such a nice job on her blog that I won't try to duplicate it here.



When I got to the champagne preview on Thursday night I was looking for some of my quilting friends. I found Andrea at "Studio 55" where we bought a number of items last year, including Laurel Burch handbags. I saw this Laurel Burch horse panel made up into a hanging and just had to buy it. There is something intoxicating about all those quilts and all those vendors, isn't there? The vendor had added a couple of borders in matching hand dyed fabric, which she graciously showed me and I graciously purchased. Later I bought some gold thread at another booth and machine embroidery needles at another. How convenient. I want to get going on this one right away for my living room.


These two fabrics were part of the collection featured in the vendor booth hop. Blue and yellow? Check. Birds? Check. Flowers? Check. No idea what I will do with these. A little stash enhancement. Needs to mellow.

On Sunday I took Roberta Horton's African American Quilts class. The quilt on the right is her first attempt at this style. The one on the left she considers a more successful attempt. Roberta started the class with a slide show and right away admitted that the term African American quilts is controversial, but said she would leave that to the academics. During her slide show she specifically searched out her notes to give us the names of the African American women in the photos. They have been anonymous too long not to have their names mentioned now, she said.



Imagine cutting fabric with scissors not a rotary cutter. Imagine cutting fabric by eye, not with a ruler. Imagine cutting pieces without a template because you can not afford cardboard. Imagine using even the selvedge edge because you need to make use of every available piece of fabric you have. Imagine working quickly because you do not have the time to work more slowly and carefully to make a warm covering for your loved ones. This is how we worked on Sunday and it was hard to put aside all my previous notions of quilting.




Am I going to make a quilt in this style? Probably not. Do I appreciate the work these women did? Yes, certainly more so now. I saw a Gees Bend quilt show in Halifax last summer and wish I could see it again. I may explore some more "liberated" quilting, such as done by Gwen Marsten and Ricky Tims, but then again, maybe not!

It is always interesting to be in a class and learn new things. There is always something to store away for future use. I'm so grateful to PTQG for the opportunity to take these classes.

Oh, and last of all.....I won the door prize for our class at the end of the day!

Five one yard pieces of coordinating fabrics from Mardens! And those of you who know Marden's know how generous their yards are! Any suggestions on how to use these would be appreciated. They are all baby blue with some pink and green. Aren't I lucky?