Sometimes, good stuff happens.  And sometimes, you get to say thank you in person.  And sometimes, things come full circle, and you keep on going and quilting and enjoying.  All that happened on Show and Tell night at the Vermont Quilt Festival this year.  (And yes, that was –gulp, hanging my very red face– two months ago!)

One of the most exciting and nerve-inducing moments for me at Vermont Quilt Festival  came Saturday night, at Show and Tell.

With Mary K. Ryan at VQF 2012. I ordered her pattern in 1990, finished it about a decade later, and 22 years after starting it, got to have my picture taken with Mary and “our” quilt! I’ve never shown this quilt at a big show before, and still have goosebumps from getting to tell the story and the thunderous applause when I unfurled it on the show and tell stage. PS–if anyone got pictures of me up on stage holding the quilt, please write..I’d love a jpeg!

Back when I was newly-booked to teach there, I was chatting with Missy Lackney, the education chair, and shared that one of my favorite quilt stories involved a Vermont quilt designer, Mary K. Ryan, and a quilt I made from one of her patterns (link is to a wholesaler…sorry, I couldn’t find an online source!).  Missy told me that Mary rarely teaches now, but would be teaching this year and I should share my quilt on the Saturday night event…. so for over a year, I looked forward to sharing my second-ever quilt top (tho it took another ten years to finish quilting it!).

To begin at the beginning, I learned to quilt in Bolivia (while assigned to the US Embassy) and then in Libreville, Gabon (on leave without pay while hubby was deputy Ambassador, so I wasn’t allowed to work under him in the chain of command–what a shame, I got to sit home and quilt!).  While on transfer in 1989 from Bolivia to Gabon, I learned there were quilting MAGAZINES…what a concept!  I promptly subscribed to Quilters Newsletter Magazine.  I then discovered I could order back issues, so I got every one they had, back to 1984!  I pored over EVERY issue, reading everything I could to learn.  On the back of many issues was the Polyfil advertisement with a large bed quilt featured with this note:  To order this pattern, write to us at XXXXXX.  I was in love with the quilt, and had no idea a Mariner’s Compass pattern was supposed to be difficult–not something to make for your second quilt!

So I promptly wrote away to order it.  Now–our mail came and went via Diplomatic Pouch:  secure but sssssllllllooooowwwww.  It took about six weeks for a letter to reach the US Mail system, and usually another 2 months to get a reply if someone answered promptly.  So 3-4 months after I sent away for the pattern, I get a letter back from PolyFil saying:  you can order a wall hanging version of this quilt by writing directly to the pattern designer, Mary K. Ryan.  {insert banging head on wall!}  So I wrote away again, saying I hoped so much it was a full-sized pattern as I wanted to make the big quilt.

Oceans Alive, my version of Mary K. Ryan’s Mariner’s Compass pattern. The published pattern is for the center medallion. Mary had made the quilt bed-sized, and I wanted to also. It took quite a while, but I did it, and I still love this quilt as much today as I did when I made it.

When the reply came, it was for a 28×28 inch wallhanging only, but to my UTTER astonishment and delight, Mary included a hand-written note!  Alas, the note is downstairs and I’m still on a walker and not able to go downstairs to find and photo the note…but I have it and the pattern! Mary told me how many yards I’d need, how many running inches of the fabric for the inner borders, how to enlarge the pattern by 125 percent to make the center medallion (I would NEVER have figured that one out on my own!).  I had also discovered Mary’s quilt was featured on the COVER of QNM in the mid 1980s and had back-ordered that issue.  So with Mary’s instructions by my side, and a ruler that measured in millimeters, I measured the known width (of the compass border) with inches, then figured out how wide that was in millimeters (the size on the photo on the cover), and did the math to figure out how large things should be!

I made cardboard templates from cereal boxes.  I started outlining onto the cloth with pencil, but soon discovered the pencil dulled quickly and I could see my sizes would be wrong.  So,  because I didn’t know better, used my rotary cutter to cut alongside the cardboard templates!   I soon discovered that I was cutting into the cardboard, so I put my plastic ruler on top to get a nice edge.  …And proceeded to cut out several hundred compass points!

Paul’s cat Brandy (dearly departed lo these many years) supervised cutting on the dining room table.  My cat Cassy (dearly departed lo these many more years) supervised the piecing and eventual sleep-worthiness of the quilt.  I got the entire top stitched while we were in central Africa.  I was SUCH a newbie to quilting, I didn’t even know the points were supposed to come to the edges of the circle!  Miraculously, when I learned this fact years later I went to look and most of them did!

Serendipity happened when an oceanographic / environmental group sent a “donate to us” mailing with a coloring book with dolphin and orca whales in it.  How perfect for quilting motifs!    But it was central Africa.  Even with the air conditioning on at full blast, I had to sit under the quilt with a lap hoop, and my hands would get sweaty with just 20 minutes of hand quilting.  So the quilt got set aside for almost ten years.  By then we lived on San Juan Island, Washington, (where we could see the orcas from our deck!) and I set myself the goal of finishing the quilt in time to enter into the County Fair, where it won Grand Champion that year!  I was so I excited I wrote to Mary to tell her of “our” win!

Detail of my quilt, Oceans Alive. Begun in 1990 in Gabon (West Africa), finished about 2000 in Friday Harbor, Washington. Pattern by Mary K. Ryan.

Fast forward another decade-plus.  My heart was pounding and my palms were sweaty as I waited my turn to Show and Tell at VQF.  I’m OK with speaking to a large quilty crowd, but this was different:  I knew Mary would be in the audience!   Show founder Richard Cleveland was doing emcee duties, and I mentioned to him as I approached the microphone that I needed to tell the story first, then show the quilt.  I left out the details of which ad/company and what design—until I said “What a wonderful welcome to the wonderful world of quilting, that the designer should write  to me like that!  So with great thanks to Vermont’s own, Mary K. Ryan!”  and we unfurled my quilt to what sounded to me like thunderous applause and oohs and ahhhs and gasps….I was SHAKING!  But I made it through the story without crying or losing it….and I was thrilled!

At the end of the show and tell, I made a beeline for Mary moving against the tide of departing quilters (and I had never met or seen Mary….Richard C. pointed her out to me from the dais as we showed the quilt….turns out she is on the board of VQF!) and we got this picture of me with Mary and “our” quilt!  I’ve never shared this quilt before at a large regional or national show…just locally.  Since I’m now known for art quilting, I was so nervous and so happy at the reception and being able to surprise Mary with the story and the quilt.

I’ve got goosebumps all over again….thanks for reading this far and letting me tell all of this story.  I now know that such incredible generosity as hers happens in the quilt world quite regularly, but I didn’t then….and I’m so glad I had such a warm welcome to this world of ours that brings us all such joy.  Thank you, Mary K. Ryan!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 26th, 2012 at 11:52 am and is filed under Quilt Shows, Traditional quilting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.