Wow….talk about symmetry….I LOVE the way this amaryllis bloomed in four directions. Perfect color, perfect symmetry.

There is also something incredibly voluptuous and sexual about these blossoms. Since this is ostensibly a G rated site, I’ll let you fill in the appropriate references, but talk about lush, enticing….there’s a quilt or three in here, I KNOW it!

Part of the crazy week just past was a road trip to Lowell, Massachusetts, to the New England Quilt Museum. I was really floored and honored when the state-wide Pine Tree Quilt Guild asked me to submit my quilt Bijagos Warrior to be the guild’s entry into the juried exhibit, The Best of New England Quilt Guilds. Well, he got juried in! Phew! After them asking me, such a newcomer to the state, I was really thrilled he made it into the show.

With the materials to send in the quilt, was an invitation….would anyone like to present a “Brown Bag Lunch” on either March 2 or February 2 in conjunction with the exhibit. Seeing a great opportunity to get my name out there and just have fun, I called immediately, they booked me, and I planned a road trip. Cheri Tamm Raymond, the former manager (last day was last Friday!) of the local quilt shop (a tiny place) and her grown daughter Meg and I planned a road trip, and prayed it didn’t snow. Well, it didn’t, and did we have fun. Cheri took this picture of me standing next to my quilt (taken with permission of the museum director…normally you can’t take pics!):

After that, we popped into Friends Fabric Art in Lowell…..Cheri is mostly a traditional quilter (was Professional Quilter’s Teacher of the Year in 1988, and boy was I nervous the first time I taught in the shop with her there, but she has been SOOOOO encouraging and helpful and supportive…it’s wonderful!), but I have high hopes of enticing her to the art side, at least sometimes, as she bought a wonderful assortment of Stef Francis hand-dyed silk cocoons and ribbons and trims.

Then we drove north to Portsmouth, to visit Portsmouth Fabrics. Oh WOW….I have never, ever seen so many batiks on one place other than the Bali Fabrics Warehouse (yeah…the company warehouse). AND they had velvets, and batik rayons, and silks…oh my! I was relatively restrained in my purchases, but happy to meet the owner, Gretchen, who bought some of my patterns for the shop. At her request I shared a few of my quilts, and left my teaching brochure….crossing my fingers!

So that was that….now, to crash for the night and do more posts soon!

Bittersweet……

this was our last meeting with Deborah, at least with her living here in Maine, who is moving to Dallas on Feb. 17th. Sigh. Sob. Oh dear. Well……..it is in the same state as Houston, so here’s to Houston in October!!!! We will miss having Deborah SO much!

As a farewell, we had a wonderful lunch and Deborah treated us to a prototype of a workshop, working in a series on postcard-sized art pieces. We started the day almost as usual. Hannah Beattie, whom Deborah met recently, was able to come and join us…yeah! Kathy Daniels, alas, had to work—her co-worker had the audacity to have a baby and have to have a c-section on our last day (ahem!). So we were up one and down one….but in spirit we are all together. Morning was coffee and yapping (of course) and sharing (ditto). Then we had a wonderful lunch–Deborah’s a whiz with that George Foreman grill, and actually has me mulling the idea of buying one, salad and fresh pineapple from Kate and Hannah.

And, drum roll, I went waaaaayyyyy off my diet and made my mom’s “Christmas Rum Cake”—the only reason for Christmas is that is what we always made for the holiday. Otherwise it is cake soaked in a coffee rum syrup, with a rum-laced custard between the three layers, frosted with whipped cream topped with apricot halves. DELECTABLE!

The afternoon, believe it or not, was even better. We made art cards! Here we all are:

Kate is contemplating her flowers,

while Deborah and Hannah are consulting about Hannah’s wonderful houses.

I love the roof lines, which for some reason (bizarre way that my brain works) remind me of gnome hats (this is a good, whimsical association by the way).

Deborah worked on these scenics, but since she was the teacher this time, she didn’t get as far along as we three did.

Then, in the middle of it, the phone rings–the floral delivery guy arrived with this vase of flowers:

From KATHY! Gulp….the one time I almost started to cry…we’re gonna miss Deborah so much! But Kathy was there with us in spirit, and we’ll just e-mail, blog, photos-on-the-web, and call when Deborah is in Texas.

And last of all, here are my turtles. Two are a size that will make it to Virginia Spiegel’s fundraiser to fight cancer (sold at the quilt show in Chicago), so I’d better finish them up soon!

Well, it has been insanely busy the past week and a half, but all good stuff:

Saturday, Damariscotta (45 min. south): eco’s 50th b-day dinner party….the first time I can remember in more than a decade where I got to go to a dinner party with only grown ups…what a concept!

Tuesday, Bangor (1 hr 20 min. northwest): taught a class at Pauline’s house

Thursday, Lowell, Mass. (3 1/2 hours south…about 400 miles round-trip): gave a trunk show / talk at the New England Quilt Museum and ladies’ road trip with Cheri and Meg…more on this in another post

Saturday, Augusta (1 hour west): Art Quilts Maine bi-monthly meeting

Monday, Brunswick (1 hr 15 min. south): Frayed Edges, although alas our last with Deborah here in Maine…the movers come next week to take her to Texas……wahhhhnnnn hahhhhnn (more on this in another post, too)
BUT…. on Friday January 27th, Eli’s tae kwon do / karate school had testing for moving up the ranks. Eli and two classmates, Erin and Eliza, had their yellow belts and were tested for their first of two stripes on the way up to green belt. Eli began tae kwon do in Sept. 2004, and took to it like a duck to water. Obedient, focused, coordinated (my son???? Must get that from his dad), enthused….he did exceptionally well to earn his yellow belt at the end of karate camp this past summer, after just one year. Other kids had taken two years and more to get that far. In this first photo, Eli is performing his forms, routines that are mock “fights” with imaginary opponents. Students are judged on the precision of their moves, including angle of hand, arm, foot and back positions.

The kids all lined up to get the results. The parents all Looooovvvvveeee the respect and obedience that is part and parcel of the responsibility taught with the tae kwon do. Every single one of the kids did a great job this time. Eli is third from the right (adult, shortest kid–wee Zach, then Eli).

Eli, Erin and Eliza were all called forward. We were all incredibly surprised, pleased and proud when Sensei Tammy (the blonde) said the kids were all testing for their yellow belt, but that all 9 black belts felt the children had shown they had earned BOTH stripes!!! In the last picture, Sensei Sue awards Eli his stripes.

The head of the school, the guy all in black in the center of the table in the photo above, said there was even talk of the three earning their green belts that night! Fortunately, the teachers who know them well spoke up and said the kids are good, but they aren’t there quite yet! Eli, as the youngest, especially needs to have a good perspective on just how much work is needed to advance to green belt. After green, you earn two stripes to red belt, then two stripes to black belt. And the kids can’t test for black until they are 18, since maturity is part of the requirement–not just the physical moves. He has ten years to that, so no rush. And we’re really proud of him!

Goodness gracious, what a road trip week! Tuesday I drove 120 miles round trip to Bangor to teach. Thursday (yesterday) I drove to Lowell, Massachusetts (about 3 1/2 – 4 hours south if you mind the speed limit, which it appears NO one on I-95 does…..ahem….) to give a lunchtime talk at The New England Quilt Museum (I’ll blog about that tomorrow if I get home soon enough). Tomorrow, I head to Augusta for an Art Quilts Maine meeting, then Monday to Deborah’s house for our last Frayed Edges meeting with her living in Maine…. we are all plugging along bravely (or not) on that one.

I finally had time to watch my taped Project Runway. OK, I was really sorry to see Andre go, especially since Kara hasn’t, to my mind, produced nearly as good a body of work. But, his dress did look rather like a doormat or a dry late summer lawn. I like the bodice on Kara’s, and the braided grasses, but the skirt …yuk.

Oddly enough, I LOVED Santino’s dress…I thought it was one of the nicest, and loved the skirt. I felt he used the materials well, got a great shape out of it, and really (to my surprise) thought it was one of the best things he has done on the show.

Chloe’s dress was lovely, and I know she didn’t have time to finish what she planned, but I thought it was fairly plain around the neck area. I’d like to see what she would have done with more time. The dress *did* look like fabric, and it moved like fabric, which was quite an accomplishment.

I was SO afraid they were going to axe Nick…I love his work, and I thought the use of materials and textures was clever. Glad he’s still in the running!

Daniel’s dress really was a winner….the purple flowers were stunning, and so was the basketweave bodice. I don’t know how many women (maybe seven in the world) could get away with wearing a frilly, fern-y skirt like that, but the contrast of three distinct textures was spot-on. Now, I’m finally gonna go blog-surfing and see what everyone else said! Grin!