What FUN!   Michelle G.  from the QuiltArt list and program co-person for the Northern Lights Quilt Guild (Enfield, New Hampshire and environs…near Dartmouth) decided to organize a retreat with teacher for her guild, and I got to be the lucky teacher!   I arrived late Thursday (tho as the crow flies it’s not so far from mid-coast Maine to western New Hampshire, the roads are two-lane twisty turny—up here all roads lead to Boston, if you’re going anywhere else, it takes a lot of slow driving time!).  We had full day classes on Friday (Applique 3 1/2 ways), Saturday (Intro to Machine Quilting), a lecture Friday night (With a dash of color), and half-day class Sunday morning (Fine Finishes, about bindings, but a short version of the class).

Leaving Hope/home, Thursday morning--it has been rainy for weeks in Maine

I’ve never had the chance before to spend that much time with a group, either as a student or as a teacher.  It was so wonderful to get to know the ladies (hey Chris!  Thanks for being my on-site IT help!), share potluck (I gained a couple of pounds…sigh), and just hang out.  Michelle booked the group into the Shaker Museum.  Yes, a MUSEUM that used to be a Shaker colony. Here’s a photo from Route 4 (or was it 4A?):

The Museum is on the right. My room was the two windows on the 3rd floor on the right. They were doing re-roofing, and every so often during class debris would plummet past the windows!

And my room…really large!  I expect at least four if not more persons slept in these rooms.  The furniture was reproduction shaker furniture (there is a Shaker Workshops catalog..I actually made Joshua a long bookcase from their stuff about 14 years ago and it is still wonderful and sturdy) and there were gorgeous and still well-working built-ins in the room:

View in my room. Like most old buildings, the windows were finnicky, but they were large and the room airly and light.

The door on the left (with the white patch of paint on the bottom) is the door from the hallway. Built in next to it are drawers and a cupboard (perhaps for a chamberpot?). The walls are lined with peg boards. There are these cool shelves that can hang from a peg, plus one can lift the chairs off the floor to sweep by perching them on the pegs. The desk, chair, and stool/bench at the foot of the bed are repro pieces. And that small mountain by the door is my teaching stuff--pink boards to pin up samples, suitcases with class samples and stuff to sell, my laptop/projector bag, and the crate has my handouts and teaching binders for the various classes. I swear the schlepping of "stuff" is what will drive me out of teaching (that and air travel).

And here are some quintessentially New England buildings nearby:

Another Shaker building, lumpy (as opposed to flat-finished) stone, large and gorgeous...across the road

Next to the museum...probably a private residence

Next post I’ll share about the classes!

A few weeks ago a bit of art appeared on the side of the road not long after the last (FINALLY!) snow of April… one of those moments of whimsy and suprise that pop up hither and yon.  I decided that along with Moments of Beauty, I need to begin a series of posts about unexpected delights, whatever those might be.  This one is art, and is currently alongside Route 105 which runs (at least hearabouts…it goes beyond, too) from Hope to Camden.

At first I didn't really get to see the art, as it blends in to the side of the barn...

But I could tell it was worth slowing down, pulling over, and having the camera!

I just love this...if I ever win the lottery, maybe I'll be able to afford to buy art, not just admire it

and the artist’s sign over the garage door:

Art by Ron Russell

Have I said recently how much I love living in Maine?

A is for Apricot

One of the reasons I’ve been walkabout so long is that I was part of another Postmark’d Art postcard swap.  I had thought that due to the move and the general chaos that I would be really late, and thankfully the group said that’s OK…just get them eventually done.  Luckily, I was only about a week late.  This time I was in three groups swapping with five other women.  The themes I chose to participate in this time were  Fruit, Bridges and Buttons.  So the one above is obviously Fruit.  I’ll try to take photos in few weeks of the cards I received and share those, too.

My second effort was B is for Button, and I made a “button band” like on the front of a tailored shirt, then sewed the buttons to that.  All the buttons came from my stash, and one postcard (the one I kept…sorry ladies!) had vintage buttons from Mama’s button box.

B is for button

I wanted to continue the  “A is For, B is for” series with my bridges card, but B  was already taken.  And I wanted to do a picture of the stunningly lovely Penobscot Narrows bridge (click on the hotlink to see the Wikipedia article).  It is between Prospect and Verona Island (in the middle of the Penobscot River, with Bucksport on the north side), and is so completely unexpected in this relatively remote stretch of road.  It is Route 1, the old Atlantic Coast Highway, that runs north-south on the East Coast of the US (what folks used before the interstate  highway system), but it is still  pretty far out of the way…maybe  3 1/2 hours north of Portland, Maine, and 4 or so hours south of Canada.  But P for Penobscot or N for the Narrows seemed to be stretching things a bit, so I decided to let that idea go and keep it simple.

The quilting says Penobscot Narrows Bridge, Prospect, Maine.

I had thought it was about three days since my last blogpost, not two weeks!   EEEK!  Thanks to a couple of you who wrote to see if I was still alive and OK…. just swamped!   I have decided I just can’t keep up.  Between the older son, my mother, teaching, trying to sleep, trying not to fall apart, the house, the husband and younger son, the end of school-year frenetic activities, Eli’s sports schedule, and whatnot, there are two options.  Fall behind or fall behind more~! And oh yeah… I’d actually like to quilt or make art and not implode somewhere in there, too!

So, blogging got put on the back burner, and the calendar evaporated even faster than usual.  I had intended to post this photo on  Mother’ s  Day.  Remember what I said about being behind?

with Mama (age 92) in early May 2011

Mama is in the dementia unit of a WONDERFUL local facility called Quarry Hill.  Since she fell and broke her collarbone (thank heavens it wasn’t worse) in February, her decline has accelerated.  We have begun hospice care, and I am so glad the charge nurse suggested it.  They are really being proactive about saying she needs pain meds (she is too far gone to remember / understand to ask or say she hurts, and the hospice folks have more leeway under rules and regulations to administer to those who can’t verbalize well for themselves) and attending to her care.  She is on a waiting list for a place in the area nursing care level facility for dementia patients, but for now, this is so good for her.  So I am grateful for their care and the time I get to see her.

Paul and the boys gave me flowers, a card (which Joshua’s girlfriend even signed…I loved that!), and I got to pick where we ate when we went to Portland for a Sea Dogs game the previous day.  Life is good!

Mother's Day flowers combined with daffodils from the garden in our new home

I’ll be back with more posts when I can.  I have tons to share, just not enough time to process photos, write, upload photos, and deal with the glacial internet here in the boonies.

Twelve by Twelve: The international art quilt challenge

A while ago an early review of this book summed up their feelings in two words.  Ditto:

Buy it!

Table of contents: twelve chapters for twelve challenges

That said, here’s a few more details about this fascinating, informative book!  The project began with Diane Perin Hock, who invited quilt artists –newbies and experienced– into what became the Twelve by 12 challenge.  (You can see their website here and blog here.)  My friend and fellow Frayed Edges member Deborah Boschert (website here and blog here) is among the twelve, so I am especially thrilled to have followed this group from their beginnings, to thinking about a book and submitting a proposal, to published.  And how well they have done all along the way!

The book is arranged into twelve chapters, one for each of the two-month challenges.  The first chapter is written by Diane Perin Hock who is the featured artist for the first challenge, whose theme “Dandelion” she also selected.  Each chapter opens with all 12 of the 12×12 inch quiltlets on the left hand page and a large photo of the “featured” artist’s quilt on the right hand page.   In this chapter Diane explains how she came up with the idea for the challenge and got things rolling including  My Quilting Life, Choosing the Theme, Exploring the Theme, Creating My Piece, and Starting Your Own Challenge Group, a  how-to sidebar.  At the bottom of each page  the other 11 quiltlets are shown (larger than on the group page) with a  paragraph by each artist about her piece.

The subsequent chapters follow a similar pattern, though the person who selected the theme is not necessarily the featured artists for the theme.  The book ends with succinct artist profiles and links to their websites and/or blogs and—as every good book must have—an index. Of course I had to pick Deborah’s chapter to share:

Chapter 12, Deborah Boschert featured artist; I love Love LOVE the "thread wrap" Deborah has developed for her bindings. You get a clear "end" to a piece yet the picture continues in the thread stitched around the binding. Way cool! (PS--sorry about the salt shaker...needed something to hold the book open and it was nearby!)

As I read through the book, and yes I wanted to read every word, you  can see how the sense of community developed among this group.  It is amazing that each person managed to complete every challenge on time (or pretty much on time), and they share how they needed to make the bi-monthly “reveal” date stretch to accomodate the fact that members live in Belgium, the UK, the US and Australia and the dateline and time zones shift!  Each chapter has a  how-to section, and I think what I liked most was reading how each artist developed here quilt, sometimes rejected false starts, or re-working them, or admitting that “this was my least favorite.”  Not everything “works,” and it is refreshing to see something in print that acknowledges this necessary part of the learning and art experience.

To go back to where I began:  buy this book!  It is a treasure.  You’ll want to sit down and read it through.  Then browse.  Then soak in the art.  Consider inspiration.  Consider technique.  Ask yourself “what would I have done with this theme or problem?”  Then read it again…the book is available many places online including at Amazon.