As I mentioned in my euphoria yesterday, I took the boys to Augusta for clothes shopping.

The big surprise was some of the shirts and pants that Joshua thought were cool…and he even wanted to get a red tie (or possibly a nice pale pink) to go with this outfit! Can you believe he is still 12? Will be 13 in November, looks…14?

Of course, once we started taking photos, he wanted me to take another, and another, and another and and and…… so here you go. I’m now waiting for hubby to tease me that (a) that MY genes are responsible and (b) they are from the shallow end of the gene pool.

Ahem…well……Personally, I’ll take credit for a boy with a sense of humor, good looks, good brains (of course, getting him to USE them in school is another matter entirely)….

And here’s the second son (who from time to time I swear channels his late Uncle Charlie, my half brother who died of cancer and about 96 years of hard living packed into 42 years back in 1982– it’s the impish grin that does it….). Mirriam-Webster may substitute his photo under the definition of CUTE! (not that I’m biased in any way of course…..)

Hmmm…..well…about that shallow end of the gene pool…. “grin!” I DO love my boys!

Tippety tap! Tippety tap! Happy alert!

So, this afternoon I was in the boys’ aisle at Kohl’s in Augusta doing school clothes shopping (with two increasingly restive and starting-to-lose-it boys) when the cell phone rings. It is hubby, with the news that he just spoke with Ricky Tims his own self, who called to tell ME (??!!!!????!!!!!) that I had won Best Composition and Design, one of three awards (the other two are Best in Show and Best Workmanship) in the Au Naturale show at Tims’ La Veta Gallery!!!!!

Major HAPPY DANCE! Here is the quilt that won the award, based on a photograph I took at Machu Picchu, when Paul and I were there in 1988 or 89 (forget which year):

and here is a link to it on my website, and here is another link to the detail shot! And here is the original photo:

I began the quilt in a workshop with Esterita Austin (here’s a link to her workshops page), but instead of doing one of her patterns, “did my own thing.” Boy am I glad–both to have taken the class and to have done my own picture!

I’ve NEVER, EVER won a national level award., and I’m most insecure about my design abilities, so to have won that particular award is REALLY special! I’ve won the equivalent of best in show at the San Juan County (Washington state) fair, and I’ve won blue ribbons and been in the top tier this year and last at the state-wide Maine Quilts, but I’ve never won more than $5 for a ribbon…this one is $100 and will pay for this show’s entry fee and shipping, and maybe most of the fees and shipping for a second show! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

The show opens on Saturday, so am guessing that pictures of quilts in the show will be on-line either this weekend or early next week. I can’t wait to see the other quilts! Best of all, I called Ricky to say thank you!!! and he said that this show may be an annual, and the “BIG” Expressions the Art Quilt will run every other year. YEAH! I’m so thrilled at what he is doing for the art of quilting, and for having the medium gain acceptance as a true art medium. I look forward to entering again!

Well, Maine Quilts has come and gone for another year, and it was wonderful. This time I volunteered even more, helping hang and take down the show, and I can tell you I am impressed by the organization, time, commitment, effort and professionalism of the women (at least I think it is all or almost all women) who make this show happen. The show is a project (hope that’s the correct word) of the state-wide Pine Tree Quilt Guild (PTQG..click on the initials to go to the website), and invites entries not only from across the state but from elsewhere as well (last year, a teacher at the show based in Florida, I think, entered and won Best in Show!). This year, including 9 garments, all the exhibits, display quilts, judged quilts, and special exhibits, there were 515 entries filling the Augusta Civic Center.

Best in Show this year went to Pat LaPierre-McAfee for her fish quilt “For a Lifetime” inspired by a carved fish on the wall at a Red Lobster Restaurant in Minnesota (Pat invented the Free Motion Slider!). Clearly she has mastered not only machine quilting, but good design and impeccable workmanship!

The quilt is two-sided, no less….here is Pat her own self holding the big fish to show his bony backside. After looking closely, I realized she quilted two separate fish (front and back) then joined them…fantastic work! This quilt was the only one to receive an Exceptional Merit ribbon this year (meaning a score of 97 or higher out of 100). Here’s one more photo…a detail of the soft colors and dense quilting:

My nativity quilt, Christmas Tableau, was hanging right next to hers and I’m thrilled that it got a first place, as there were only six blue ribbons in the entire show which had 124 judged quilts. And as luck would have it, it was hanging right next to Pat’s (whom I didn’t recognize when I walked up right next to her with her new super blond hair!). And by the way..don’t those awful faded burgundy drapes suck the life and color out of things?

I don’t quite know why, but this very traditional quilt really appealed to me, and obviously to the judges also, since it received a Judges’ Choice in addition to a third place ribbon (and why all the Judges’ choice ribbons went to second and third place quilts baffles me…who ever understands the mind of a quilt judge?) It is listed as 3 CC Autumn by Mollie Gibbons, who said it is an original design inspired by looking at many lovely pineapple quilts.

Another very simple but stunning quilt was hanging just to the right of the pineapple quilt took a second place ribbon….as a friend said, I’d love to see the house that goes with the bedroom in which this quilt resides:

The color and fabric selections were spot on. The quilting was simple, but absolutely suited to the quilt! It is titled Gingko Goddesses by Frances M. Parker (97×102 inches! it was too long for the drapes, so the bottom is pinned up to the back). Frances said in the program that she used a traditional Japanese print style of framing for the setting and the top medallions are from a block by Kumiko Sudo.

Roxanne Wells, co-Pres. of my local chapter Coastal Quilters, is a fabulous art quilter (although I expect if she reads this she’ll protest that oh no she’s not…well, I have to tell ya Roxanne, you ARE! You don’t need to be modest, because you are good!!!) Anyway, Roxanne did a wonderful, colorful applique quilt. She said it was, at first, intended to be a tablecloth to go with her Fiesta dishes…not any more!

I loved this quilt, in the teachers’ aisle, by Jenny Raymond:

and here’s a detail…she had it professionally quilted, and wow it’s smashing:

This quilt, on the very sweet side, won a first place ribbon and both viewers’ and vendors’ choice awards!

Several of the quilts in the Lobster challenge were wonderful. Every year, Maine Quilts has a “theme”; last year it was loons, this year, lobster, and has a challenge and a display to celebrate something “Maine.” This year was the year of Lobstah Chowdah! Here are three of the 40+ quilts in the exhibit. The top one in this first photo is by Jeanne-Marie Robinson; in my local chapter, she always has animals and critters in her quilts, does mostly all hand applique and hand quilting, and wonderful embellishments. She wrote about “Pot Luck” “My lobster is still alive and who knows if it ever will be in a chowder?

I also totally loved the Maine Lobster license plate…done in “real” size…which hung directly beneath Jeanne-Marie’s quilt. Titled “Chwdah” by Ann Woodhead, she says “design and pattern came courtesy of the on-line site of the Maine State Department of Motor Vehicles.” LOVE it!

And I loved the humor in “What Happened to Larry?” by Judith Sala. Made for a challenge at a fabric store in Rockland, the challenge fabric is in the border and is an original design. The serving dish is slightly 3-D.

This lobster was SO dramatic…and exceptionally well-done by Carla Selberg (Carla’s Crustacean, 28 wide by 24):

Art Quilts Maine, the state-wide chapter in the PTQG, had an aisle to itself, with five entries in the “Clothesline” challenge, and another 14 or so in the rest of the exhibit. I managed, somehow, to *not* get photos of individual quilts other than these two closeups of portions of Mary McFarland’s “Calendar Section: January, February, March” (the photos are of January and March)

There was a whole lot more, and tons of wonderful quilts that I missed. I really wanted to take a photo of the whole show / auditorium from the upper balcony area, but when I both had my camera AND remembered, the quilts were all taken down! Next year I guess! And I guess this has gone on for Soooooooo loooonnngggg that I’ll wrap it up for now!

We are heading away on vacation and (eeek! Gasp! horrors!) I’ll be away from computer, internet and e-mail for nearly (eeek, gasp, horrors again) two weeks…. but should have lots of fun stuff when I get back. I’ll post again before we leave, though, so talk to you in a couple of days!

Here’s a great quotation from the first chapter, p. 9:

In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative. … It takes skill to bring something you’ve imagined into the world. … No one is born with that skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blending of learning and reflection that’s both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.

WOW….sounds like me in my intro to my machine quilting class. Toddlers don’t run marathons. They learn to toddle and stumble, then walk, then run (seemingly in a matter of a few days when you’re a tired mom of little ones).

Rita Mae Brown wrote a wonderful book called Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual, about learning to write. She said that people aren’t born neurosurgeons, they learn how to do it, and the same can be said of writing. You can learn how to write, and write well, and she sets out a way to do just that beginning with reading the classics, learning Latin and Greek and (you guessed it) practicing.

In modern US society we are so into instant gratification that many folks have learned that you have to work at something to be good at it. So here’s to working at creativity and art—YEAH!

And..a promise…quilt content and pictures coming tomorrow!

About a decade or so ago, my friend Carol and I “rescued” some hostas and daylilies from a house in the northern Virginia DC suburbs that was about to be bull-dozed for a mini-mansion. Carol, by the way, is a master at getting “free” plants….spotting places that are about to be trashed, and getting permission to salvage the plants. We split the proceeds of the day’s digging, and I planted some at my house in Arlington, and she planted some at her house in Falls Church.

Then we moved, twice (first to Friday Harbor, Wash., and then to Camden, Maine), but Carol stayed put. She recently moved to a new house, and somewhere in the process lifted and divided her hostas and daylilies…the ones we had rescued. She offered to send me some! They came lovingly wrapped, and tagged as to what was what, in damp newspaper and plastic bags, in about late November. Carol suggested planting out, except that it was already frozen outside up here in Maine. So the plants spent the winter the subjects of benign neglect in our garage.

This week, we got our FIRST lily!

And the hostas are doing well, too……small, but growing (as in not dead! hooray!)…. When my dear father-in-law passed away, he had two garden “statues.” One was a girl with an umbrella that he said always reminded him of his daughter, and the St. Francis bird bath. When we were dividing up his home after he died four years or so ago, Faire got the girl, and we got St. Francis. I was particularly thrilled because my birthday is on the feast day of St. Francis, I love his poem, and I relate to anyone who talks to animals. So I decided to create a little hosta garden around St. Francis, which is the photo at the top.

Isn’t it wonderful? Good friends, good family, quilterly plants, all in one shady spot!