Where was I?

Well, well, well, where have I been? I have been deep in a stressful fog and the fog has finally cleared. It all started in mid May with a trip to CT to see my parents because my mother wasn’t feeling well and to celebrate my birthday. The end of May we started a complete kitchen and back hall remodel. For those of you that have done a complete remodel, I need to say no more. Wow, I knew it was going to be inconvenient, but it was awful. I will spare you all the details and tell you that it is all done and I love it.

My mother ended up in the hospital for a total of 4 weeks and 3 days in 2 separate stays for heart and lung problems, in and out of intensive care.  My husband and I were in CT for 10 days in July and then I was back in August for another 10 days. Again I will spare you most of the details, but the bottom line is that my mother is an amazing woman. The doctors told her that there was nothing else they could do for her and sent her home. Since she got home she is doing remarkable and getting stronger every day.

My daughter, Carol, has been keeping my orders going and has been a life saver. She allowed me to deal with my personal issues and kept my business going for me.  Carol is going to be doing some marketing for me and writing some newsletters and blogs in the future.

With all that business out of the way, I will leave you with some eye candy.
These pictures are from the last meeting of my quilting bee.

Karen made this wonderful recipe quilt. The white squares in the quilt have our favorite recipes written on them that we exchanged last year.

Nancy made this beautiful star quilt with striped and solid fabric.

Carol made this quilt for a relative out of her husbands shirts. The solid squares are the shirts and she bordered them with 2 1/2" squares and quilted a beautiful all over design.

These last four quilts were made by Mary Lou. Every single one was hand cut and hand pieced except for the borders. There are many more quilt tops of Mary Lou's to show you. She must have finished 40 to 50 quilt tops in the last year and every one is hand cut and hand pieced. Amazing!

See you soon!
Laura

Surprise quilt show

My DH and I took a weekend trip to Charlotte, NC. It is about a 2 1/2 hour driving trip for us and we just wanted to get away. There is a new IKEA store there and I wanted to look around. I had never been to one before and heard great things about it. We started off with breakfast at IKEA's cafeteria, what a bargin. They were having a special, buy one breakfast and get one free. We each had scrambled eggs, 3 pieces of bacon, hash brown potatoes and 3 French toast sticks, coffee, one orange juice and we spilt a 5" round cinnamon bun. The total for all of that was $5.97. Wow, we were impressed and it was delicious, especially the cinnamon bun! I love to organize things almost as much as I like to sew and they have so many things to help you do that. I managed to only spend $42.00, but came home with lots of ideas.

There just happens to be the biggest fabric store near Charlotte in Gastonia. Mary Jo's fabric store. If you live in the tri state area of South Carolina, Tenn and NC and haven't been there, you need to go. This store used to be a large grocery store and is now a fabric store. They have every kind of fabric that you can think of and laces and trims to match. If you watch Project Runway on television, it is NC's version of Mood Fabrics. Anyway, DH let me wander through the aisles of MaryJo's for almost an hour. It's hard looking at fabric when "he" is following you around like a puppy dog, but I did make a few small purchases.

We then went to Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens in Belmont, NC (just west of Charlotte) and happened upon a small quilt show. There is a beautiful Orchid Conservatory at the garden and the quilt show was inspired by the Orchids. "Fiber Art Options" is a group of 7 artists in the Charlotte area that work with fabric, paper and thread. These artists took pictures of the orchids and used them as inspiration for their quilts.

Purple Phalaenopsis by Susan Brubaker Knapp

Cymbidium by Linda Stegall

Orchid Pictures by Deborah M. Langsam

This purplish orchid quilt above is made up of 1/2" photo squares, hundreds of them. The picture just above is a close up view of the upper left corner of the quilt. Every picture is an orchid.  SPECTACULAR!!

The quilt below is the black and white version of the same orchid above, with all the same pictures in black and white.

Freckles by Susan Brubaker Knapp

The Daniel Stowe Gardens are beautiful. Last weekend there wasn't much blooming, but the gardens, fountains and walkways were still wonderful. Here are a few pictures that I took in the Orchid Observatory and the grounds. Maybe I will be inspired to make an orchid quilt, too!

It was fun to get away for the weekend, we hope to do it again soon.

Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival

My friend Carol R.(not to be confused with my daughter Carol who is also my friend) and I went to Hampton Roads, VA to see the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival last week.
We stayed 2 nights and were able to take our time and see all the beautiful quilts and visit all the great vendors. I bought a few goodies to play with and took lots of pictures of the quilts.
I will post a few of the ribbon winners and a few of my personal favorites.

BLUE RIBBON WINNER
"ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS NIGHT"  made by Sieglinde Schoen Smith in Carlisle, PA
An old fashioned advent calendar.

 

 

The detail on this hand appliqued quilt is amazing. It won in the innovative category.


BLUE RIBBON WINNER
"INCOMMUNICATO" made by Esterita Austin, Port Jefferson Station, NY

This quilt made me laugh because it reminded me of my husband and I at dinner. A husband and wife at dinner, she is putting on her lipstick while he is looking at his camera and his IPhone sits on the table right in front of him. Even though my husband and I swore that we would never be like those "young rude kids" texting and talking on the phone all the time, we have become them. Right now we are both addicted to the game "Boggle" on our IPhones and will sit and play while we wait for dinner. It's just not right!!


BEST OF SHOW
"CIRCLES OF LIFE" made by Linda French, Centerville, OH

This beautiful quilt was Machine Pieced, Hand Appliqued, Machine Quilted and an Original Design


"CHRISTMAS EVE ABC'S" made by Cathy Wiggins in Macon, NC

 I thought this quilt was so adorable. It looks like a cartoon here, but in person it is so cute. The building blocks on the lower left corner of the quilt read "Find things starting with each letter of the alphabet" If you look hard enough you will find all 26 letters there. Cathy has a list of them on the back of the quilt.

"HEY! DID I TELLYOU ABOUT THE FAMILY REUNION?" made by Pat Doyle Mikrot in Palos Park, IL

This one cracked me up too! I thought right away that is was my husband's family reunion (sorry Fennells), but Pat beat me to it and said that it was a quilt of her family reunion last summer, but of course it was her husband's side of the family! Too cute!

I'll post a few more later in the week.