Yippeee!  It’s time for the winners of the Double-Giveaway here and over at Susan Brubaker Knapp’s Blue Moon River blog and website.  Yesterday, Paul’s minor surgery  (the reason for the delay) went well, we got home last night, he’s doing great, and this morning I asked both him and our younger son to pick to a number between 1 and 64 (the number of comments by deadline time yesterday).  Eli was first, and he picked the number for Carolyn who therefore wins Applique Petal Party

Carolyn wrote:

“I have been crazy in love with her bohemain bouquet for a long time. I may just have to take the plunge and go for it! Love the new petal party as well. I would be thrilled to win any of the great give aways! Keep up the good work!”

Paul came downstairs next, and he picked the number for Jane who will win Susan’s Pinata Purse pattern , who wrote:

quiltsmiles.blogspot.com

“Love her Bohemian Bouquet pattern, and I thank both of you for your generousity. Love your blog and I do enjoy stopping by to see what you’re up to. Thanks for sharing.

Jane”

I agree with them both…Bohemian Bouquet is one of my favorites of Susan’s, along with Round Red Barn and Glasgow Rose… I love more traditional quilts that combine circular designs with geometric/squared.  I also LOVE LOVE LOVE that quilt she is wrapped up in for her photo on her home page…great photo, great quilt!

Susan has picked the winners over on her blog, and I truly hope the winners enjoy ThreadWork Unraveled and my Nourish the Body, Nourish the Soul pattern.  The prizes will be in the mail post haste!

To say that things have been hectic is an understatement… I think I had several books ready to review in early September!  So at long last here is the first:

Quilting in the Limelight: the Life, Art and Techniques of an Award-Winning Quilter by Philippa Naylor, published by Dragon Threads, 2008.

My favorite part of the book was the peek into Philippa’s life, both  in Saudi Arabia and then the move back to the UK while they renovated a lovely old home.  My second favorite part of the book is the photographs from which she draws inspiration, and which inspire me in their bold graphic layout, colors and careful cropping.

The book covers:

• 1-Beginning
• 2-Saudi Arabia
• 3-The journey home (they drove from Saudi to the UK!)
• 4-House Renovation
• 5-A change of Direction
• 6-Gallery (an extensive chronology and evolution of her quilts)
• 7-Workplace (as in, her studio, how she set it up, things to think about)
• 8-Equipment and Materials
• 9-Starting a New Quilt
• 10-The Quilt top and precision piecing
• 11–The quilting adn trapunto design
• 12-Free motion machine quilting
• 13-Piping
• 14-Mitered binding
• 15-finishing

Let me just say that I will NEVER be likely to do the precision piecing that she does!  I will, however, be tempted to wholecloth quilting….you can tell those of us who are so passionate about the quilting.  Eventually, we all give in to the urge and just skip the pieceing and/or applique and just quilt quilt quilt a piece, a wholecloth piece!

I very much enjoyed the detailed in-progress photos of her free-motion quilting, plus all the photos of the backs, where you can sometiems better see just what she has done.  The close-up photos are wonderful, too… just as good as being there in person to see JUST how she did that! In this example, how to bury a knot invisibly…well done (both the knot and the photos).

My only quibble with the colorful, inspiring book–which is a nearly-square format 11″ tall by 10″ wide–is that on the reverse side of the pages that have nine photos (laid out like a nine-patch block) is that the narrow grid of white between the photos shadows through to the other side of the page, and I find it very visually distracting.  I wish the paper (which is a lovely glossy white and showcases the photos well) were heavier, to prevent the show-through.

I also like how Philippa spends so much time on the finishing details.  As a garment-maker who learned under some wonderfully demanding teachers (and became even more picky myself about my own work), I really appreciate that she pays so much attention to the fine finishing, and shares how to do it well!  (Yes, I know…I try to beat my type A tendencies into submission, but they are indeed there!)  In sum:  I enjoyed it, I recommend it, and I’ll be likely to refer to it again, both for the eye candy and the fine instruction on finishing details.

At the end of our sleepover (see earlier posts), we all went to the Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens.  We had been there once before, and dream of someday getting enough work together that we can have a show, perhaps with the majority of the pieces done based on what there is to see in the gardens.  Warning:  TONS of photos!

The gardens opened maybe 2 years (?) ago, so are still settling in; there is a birch allee which we didn’t see this time but has about 25 different varieties of birch.  Maybe I’ll get there in early autumn next year and see all the golden leaves!  There are also beautiful outdoor sculptures throughout the garden.  This magnificent piece greets you as you arrive:

and a different view of the two:

There are some lovely kitchen gardens and ponds near the visitors’ center:

Aren’t the vertical walls of lettuce and herbs cool?

Here are another pond and a close-up of some lettuce of some sort…great visual texture for a quilting pattern, eh?

Then, the small bunny sculpture nestled amongst the kitchen garden, hoping there is no Farmer MacGregor nearby:

The pond was SO still you can scarcely see the glassy surface of the watery shallows; yes, the river rocks are under the water:

Then of course there is me taking a picture of Deborah taking (or checking?) a picture:

and another set-the-timer-and-dash-and-try-not-to-gasp-moment (L to R:  me, Kathy, Hannah, Kate and Deborah):

There was this cool sculpture where you stick your head inside a hole and make a sound and listen to the reverberations of the rock.  Deborah kindly demonstrates using the lower of the two holes:

and here is Hannah checking HER photos!

There were some cool dried leaves–Solomon’s Seal I think –that would also make a great quilting pattern or stencil / screen:

A porcupine sculpture:

and a view of the gardens:

Here are two views of the same plant—the yellow leaves in the shade, the read in the sun!

Then we have Kathy in the woods by the water:

and Deborah in the woods, not by the water, but by the glass ball sculpture–standing to be the bottom part of the “i” to the ball’s “dot” of the “i”:

I love the waving grasses…these too would make a lovely screen for printing:

And Deborah and Hannah in front of them:

We still look happy, I’ll note…tho a bit tired!  Kate…how the heck do I not have a photo of you?  You must have been climbing about!

Finally, it was time to lunch before we dispersed to various corners of the state and the States.  Kate had found a WONDERFUL spot (a small neighborhood “grocer”) with awesome lobster rolls (think tuna salad except with lobster instead, in a hotdog bun) and equally good (being thrifty I went for spending less) popcorn shrimp.

Ah, lunch, an outing with friends, tons of photos, art to be made!  Life is GOOD!

Wow…a week has evaporated.  At least I have the excuse that it was Thanksgiving!  Ours was small–just the four of us–but wonderful and tasty and there was lots of gravy!

Back to what now seems like a thousand years ago…the last Frayed Edges get together at Kathy’s house, when Deborah came from Texas to visit!  For some reason, I woke up even though I had the chance to sleep in.  Sunrise was about 7:00 am, so I woke to see this when I went downstairs:

and

WOW!

Kathy always decorates her home for the season, and this was no exception.  She changes the artwork (almost always hers!) over the fireplace.  Isn’t this just lovely–I adore bittersweet (the vine with the little red berries and orange husks)?

During breakfast we all looked happy, sorta sleepy, content, and busy.  From left to right:  Kate, Hannah and Deborah:

And here is Kathy:

Before we packed up, I took a picture of some of the ornaments we made:

Before we headed out to the Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens, Kathy wanted to walk down to China Lake, which is about a hundred yards or two through the woods you seen in that photo at the start of the post.

Talk about GLORIOUS!  Here are some more pics, some a bit tipsy thanks to using a rock as a tripod and the timer (and running like mad to get down the dock and seated before the shutter tripped!):

And here is a totally funky treetrunk–makes me think of the Ents in the Lord of the Rings:

Next:  I’ll share our visit to the Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens (talk about inspiration!), a bit about what I’ve been doing to keep busy (I’ve actually done some art quilting!), a postcard swap, and–drum roll–TWO giveaways to celebrate the holidays!

Towards the end of the editing process for ThreadWork Unraveled, my editor said “OK Sarah:  we have two empty pages and three things we could use:  the Index, Resources and the Annotated Bibliography.  Which would you like in the book?”  I chose the Index instantly, since any good reference book MUST have one.  The resources list was shorter, and I really wanted to keep the full bibliography intact.  So I suggested that we add a note at the start of the Resources page that if folks wanted, they could visit here (my blog) to download a FREE annotated bibliography:  From Sarah’s Bookshelf .

The categories include:

• Art Quilting
• Breaking Out and Stretching Yourself
• Color
• Decorative Stitch and Free-motion Embroidery
• Drawing, Design Inspiration and Creativity
• Hawaiian Applique
• Machine Applique
• Machine Quilting and Design
• Miscellaneous Cool Stuff
• Painting and Dyeing Fabric

You can click on the link to download the entire PDF, but when you print it (it is 14 pages long), you can select just one section to print if you only want, for example, Painting and Dyeing Fabric books.  Also, if I decide to update a section (I’ll probably be adding Melanie Testa’s Inspired to Quilt book soon to the latter category), you only need to check to see if a section has been updated and re-print that one, not the whole thing.

If you have any favorite books that aren’t on my list, DO share the information by leaving a comment.  I LOVE books (can’t you tell?).