Yes, it is a gem

I had a really fun afternoon Sunday with my friend Donna. We went to Mainely Sewing in Nobleboro, Maine. What a fantastic quilt shop! I have been there a couple of times and am always impressed with their fabrics. Many really interesting fabrics I have never seen anywhere else. Lots of cool contemporary fabrics and a big line of Kaffe Fasset, too. Lots of kits and quilts made up that are so inspiring. Highly recommended!

I bought a Janome Little Gem at Mainely Sewing! It weighs eleven pounds and will be perfect for taking to classes. I've always taken my Pfaff with me, but it is heavy and I have been concerned that something will get damaged in transit. This Little Gem stitches very nicely. I bought the quarter inch foot so I am good to go.

I think I will set up this machine downstairs this winter so I can get some sewing time in during the evening. My other really big news is that I have a new job. I will be leaving the library where I have worked for almost ten years. My new job is assistant town clerk in Lisbon. I will be working full time instead of part time. I am sad to be leaving the library where I have met so many wonderful and interesting people over the years. But, I am also excited to begin this new career, this new chapter in my life.

One big change will be that I won't be able to be part of my Tacoma Lakes quilt group. We meet Wednesday mornings, so that is not an option. Do you think I should discuss that with my new boss? Well, a closes and a new one opens. I will join another chapter, either Back Road or Kaleidoscope. Both meet a fair distance from me and I feel a tug to join each group. Many of my Tacoma Lakes friends are also in Back Road, but I know people in Kaleidoscope, too and it is a bit closer.

I am really looking forward to having Saturdays free to take quilting classes, go on retreats, or go to guild meetings. I've worked Saturdays for years and now I will get to see what I have been missing.

I will leave you with a quote from John Muir and a photo from Baxter State Park......
Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waving. . . . Wonderful how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and; tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.
Note: "Mountain Thoughts", written by Muir during the 1870s, were collected by Linnie Marsh Wolfe and published in John of the Mountains (1938).

So busy, busy

Pine Tree Quilt Guild has a blog! Take a look at what Tina started and leave her a comment. http://ptqg.blogspot.com/

I will leave you with this photo taken two weekends ago at Baxter State Park. We sure have had our fill of rain, haven't we?I will post more quilty news tomorrow.

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?

My style of beauty

My mother once told me that her mother, Ethel King from Orrington, Maine, used to say "that's not very becoming to your style of beauty." That always made me laugh. On the one hand, it is gently telling you that some dress or hat does not look good on you, on the other hand "your style of beauty" may be saying you are no beauty yourself. And believe me Ethel and her sisters were no beauties, at least not in their cloche hats and Mother Hubbard dresses in the photo I have of them!

As a quilter I am finding out what "my style of beauty" really is. One of the ways to find that voice is to try out different styles of quilting. I've done traditional quilts, miniature traditional quilts, traditional applique, free-form machine applique, paper-piecing, etc. I've dyed my own fabrics and made fabrics with rubber stamps and acrylic paints.

Kyra gently and rightly pointed out in the comments from my last post, that there is no "African-American" style of quilting, as the name of the quilting class I have signed up for suggests. I agree with her. I think this style of quilting might better be called a folk-style or primitive style, which can come from any culture. That said, I am feeling ambivalent about "copying" folk-art and just wanting to stretch myself by letting go of some of the so-called restrictions of my usual precise style of quilting. You see this contrast between Alex Anderson, a real traditionalist, and Ricky Tims and his "caveman" style of quilting. I like both, but while I have lots of experience with the traditional, I don't have much with the other.

Something to think about on a Monday morning. Any thoughts?

I made peach jam this morning while pondering all the above. I was telling my husband about it while preparing the jam and reading the recipe. Ooops. I added five cups of sugar instead of three. Recipe makes five cups of jam and uses three cups of sugar. Does this dunce cap fit my style of beauty?