In June I had the great good fortune to be invited to teach at the National Quilt Association show in Columbus, Ohio. What FUN! I had never been to the show, tho last year had a quilt in a special exhibit and won an Honorable Mention for my Bijagos Warrior quilt. So this year was an all-new experience for me. I thoroughly enjoyed the show… it had top level quilts (entry is first-come gets in, not juried! the only show I think at the national level that isn’t juried), great vendors, but was not so huge that you felt overwhelmed. I knew Marjorie Hallowell, owner of my local Maine-ly Sewing shop would be vending, but didn’t expect to meet anyone I knew other than two ladies from the Janome 6500/6600/7700 list who were to be in my classes. Imagine my surprise then when I went into the hall on set-up day to take something to Marge, when I hear “Sarah Smith! What are you doing here!” and turn to see Judi Yakab, hand-dyer extraordinaire and owner of Mamaw’s Hand-dyes.
Sarah and Judi Yakab
Judi and I met in a Carol Soderlund dyeing workshop a few years back held at ProChem in Fall River, Mass. It’s wonderful to see how her business has taken off! An aisle away I found Marge, then while strolling along a tall woman pops into the aisle (I was nearly asleep at this point) and shouts “Sarah Ann Smith”! And there were mom and daughter team Jan and Kirsten from Fiber on a Whim! A couple days later, I met Nancy Z. who runs Maine Quilts and was there with her sister and mom…. AND, remember that trip to teach for the Arizona Quilt Guild? Well I think about 80 percent of that guild’s leadership is ALSO part of the leadership of the NQA, and everywhere I turned were familiar faces…what FUN!
Here are some of my favorite quilts, and I will confess… I committed the cardinal sin and forgot to get pics of the makers. If any of you know who they are, please tell me and I’ll add the info:
This one made me stop and gasp!... GORGEOUS!
Diane Rusin Doran made the orange and yellow quilt with the ribbon–way to go Diane!
Oh my! Another beauty!
My quilt, Be Inspired No. 1, is on the right; Gloria Hansen's Blushing Triangles is on the left and...yeah! won a ribbon. Gloria is co-designer of my website, too!
From the Trees exhibit...this is paper pieced!!!!!!!
Another one that stops you in your tracks!
And the last morning….the sunrise sky wasn’t quite that lavender in real life, but it was beautiful:
And a close up:
Sunrise, the day I headed home
I’ll have some pictures of my classes…alas I was so busy in two of them that I forgot to take many pictures!
Woooohooo! (and OMG…two posts in one day?) Doing the Snoopy Dance (despite the dank humidity and clammy temps here in usually balmy Maine): Cookie? PLEEEZE Cookie!, my portrait of our pug Pigwidgeon, got juried into the World of Beauty contest that is the heart of the IQA Quilt Festival in Houston this fall! (Click on picture for much larger view.)
In addition to this sweet pug mug, I’ll have the portrait of my son Joshua in the Beneath the Surface exhibit (thanks to MistyFuse our sponsor!), and two quilts in the special exhibit showing quilts from Lark Books’ popular 5oo Art Quilts book. WOOT! Tippety tap, tippety tap…sounds like more celebrating…break out the ice cream!
On one of my internet groups, a friend from Scotland posted a link to this YouTube video. It has been around a while, but I hadn’t seen it, and like it so much I too wanted to share.
She wrote:
The Palindrome Video
“This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forwards.
Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite.
Confused ? I was … but just take 1 mnute 44 seconds to read and listen to this video.
It was submitted in a contest by a 20 year old student – the contest was called ‘U @ 50’
It won 2nd place and everyone in the room broke into spontaneous applause when they saw it.
Sometimes the simplest things are the most brilliant !”
And here is the link, and now I’m going to try to embed this in my blogpost:
Well…I’m only 2+ months behind on some blogging! I’ve been busy on the road teaching in Arizona, Massahusetts and Ohio (at the NQA show!), and then Knoxville (AQS), TN, in July! But I am trying to get caught up and share some of the lovely things I saw while on our family vacation after teaching in Arizona for the statewide quilt guild. Here is what the Grand Canyon looked like when we arrived at the South Rim in late April:
Notice that dark cloud on the horizon, especially to the left…well, it moved fast! The following sequence of photos was taken as we walked along the rim…took all of 40 minutes. We went from overcast:
Notice the cheerful (sigh…) family…woefully underdressed for the weather we were about to encounter:
All I can say is THANK HEAVENS the boys got this glimpse…even the jaded teenager went “WHOA!!!!!!” on first looking over the railing/wall!
To mist moving into the canyon about (literally) two minutes later:
Then looking down into the canyon:
And watching the veils of mist and snow and rain and shafts of sunlight–it was actually pretty cool to see this, as opposed to screaming blue skies and sunshine typical of summer:
To rain:
To clouds down in the canyon:
And the markers explaining the stone layers that you see:
And drifting cloud wisps–you can see the snow gathering on the north rim:
Then the north rim disappeared:
To SNOW…a late spring snowstorm.
To WhiteOut:
On the drive back to Flagstaff, cars on the Interstate highway had slowed to 25 miles an hour the road conditions were so slippery! So before we got on the road, we went into the big old inn for some hot food. I loved the table setting:
Back during winter, I took an online course on Lino-cutting with Australian Dijanne Cevaal (her blog is here). One Sunday while watching the Winter Olympics, I began carving this 12″ block–it took most of four hours to Oh-So-Carefully cut (and not slip) just the pebbly center, but it was SO worth the ache in my hands. I just love the way this turned out:
You may be able to get more feel for the quilting from this angled shot:
The quilt was quilted, then wrapped onto artists’ stretcher bars (staple gunned to the back), then finished the back with a nice cloth cover. Here’s a detail:
Hope you like it!
PS–Dijanne offers the course periodically. If you are interested, surf over to her blog and ask when it is next scheduled. OK…just checked, next session starts July 14, so am posting this earlier than I initially planned! If you move fast, you can take the class soon!
(1).png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
.png){kind=small}
And a close up:
