A Very Nice Day

Early this morning I met up with my friend Panda and we drove to a quilt show.  It was a great day and we had a great time together.

After the quilt show, we went to a late lunch at a place called Dr. Hogly Wogly's Tyler Texas BBQ, I hadn't eaten there in probably 17+ years as I don't live in the area any more and Panda had never eaten there.  Oh Yum!! So very good, but I used a bit of the 'hot' barbecue sauce on my sausage link sandwich and now, hours later, I'm ready for the antacid.  I guess I can't do spicy sauce the way I used to {sad face}, sure tasted good though.  By the time we were ready to leave, the next crowd was coming in and it was a waiting line!

I found two quilts especially fascinating.  One is a Baltimore Album type, all hand appliqued and embellished.  Unfortunately, my little pocket-size Canon camera doesn't give me the sharpest detail and doesn't do the quilts justice.

An almost full image of this large quilt.

A close-up of one section.

The maker's statement.

An even closer image of the bird-nest.  The white-glove lady said that the maker even used her own hair in this 3-D bird's nest.  The entire quilt had a lot of embroidery accents and was stunning.

This next one was smaller (and for some reason, I didn't get a shot of the entire quilt) but I found it very beautiful as I have an interest in Brazilian embroidery which I posted about here.  The exquisite embroidery, was accompanied by crystals and there may have been some tiny beads too.  

The maker's commentary.

One block.

Detail of the floral arrangement on the column.

Detail of the foxglove.

Another block.

And who has ever seen a blue batik horse with a purple and pink batik mane?  Still, I liked it but I'm afraid I didn't get a good shot of the maker's description.

Personally, I was happy to see that a high number of the quilts in the show reflected traditional quilting structure rather than the art 'quilts'.  While I appreciate the beauty, creativity and time involved in some art quilts, I will always define them as 'fabric art' and not true 'quilts'.  I can't cuddle under wall art, but I can under a quilt :)  The show also had a small room displaying dolls but since neither Panda nor I are into that art, we didn't take time to see them.  

While at the show browsing through the vendor booths I saw a lady and she saw me and it was one of those "I know I know you" moments, we both went about our browsing and a few minutes later again were in the same booth at the same time only this time I said, "I know you!".  And we did.  Some 30+ years ago when I was living in another town, I had a then close friend and she in turn had another friend and the lady at the show was that other friend.  I had had opportunity back then to meet her on several occasions at gatherings at the mutual friends home, but didn't associate with her outside of that.  We ran into each other again later shortly before we left the show and chatted for awhile.  It's always nice to be 'recognized' even if you are 30+ years older, more wrinkled, grayer and carrying a whole lot more poundage as I do now.

I got home, and took a nap.   Oh, and the only money I spent today was the show admission and lunch.  Can you believe I didn't buy a thing?!  I exercised great discipline as I will be in Oregon....near Sisters....and get to attend the Sisters Quilt Show....and visit The Stitchin' Post in July....yippee {doing the happy dance}.

Hopping Aboard

Lately I see so many needlework projects popping up on the quilty blogs I visit.  So OK, I'm jumping on the bandwagon too so that I don't get left behind - I admit, I'm more of a follower than a leader.  In reality, their works are just encouraging me to return to needlework crafts that I use to do a lot of, and some of which I've wanted to do for several years.  

Like this project, which I bought way-y-y-y back in 2006 on one of my trips to the northern wet land.  I bought it from a lady whose company (of one?) is known as The Brass Needle and she was sitting at her booth with some of her wares and working away, and oh my, it was so very enticing, and beautiful!  So I bought one very small kit.  When finished, the design will only measure 3" x 3".  The little basket in this piece is made by weaving one type of thread, and then it is edged in a stem stitch using a boucle' thread - first time I've used that and now my thumb and fingers are a bit tender.  I've never used such a big needle with embroidery before either, but it's one of two that came with the kit (the other not a lot smaller) and was recommended to be used for the basket threads because they're heavier.  It says it has a 'large' eye, large compared to what? a gnat's eye? Oh my but it was hard to thread those things, even using a short length of regular sewing thread put through the eye to make a loop to draw the kit threads through!  It wasn't possible to draw the boucle' through that way, so struggled with getting a good point on the end of the thread and getting a good aim!

Really, I do have a picture of this project, so I suppose I should show it, no?

EdMar Brazilian Embroidery Geraniums kit

Basket and needle.  I don't know if this pattern was just printed too light on the cloth, or if it's faded in the 6+ years I've had it squirreled away, so I'll be doing a bit of looking at the kit photo and the true-size print on the instructions in order to work it.

Two and a half years ago, I purchased an even larger kit while at a quilt show on the coast of that wet land.  It's a lovely heart pattern...appropriate since this month has Valentine's Day, but I'm sure I won't be working on it for a long time. 

EdMar Brazilian Embroidery kit, Ariel's Heart  These threads are all rayon thread, and very slippery - should be interesting!

One of my thoughts with learning Brazilian Embroidery, is that it could be quite lovely on a crazy quilt some day, yet another desire of mine to create.  A good book for learning the stitches is one by Maria A. Freitas The Art of Dimensional Embroidery.  I would also like to try my hand at ribbon embroidery, which I thought was in this book, but I dug out the book and there's none in it...hmmm, guess I'll have to research that more.

Thirty plus years ago, I was an in-home sales consultant for Artcraft Concepts, a needlework company out of Ballston Spa, NY.  They no longer exist, but I still have all my teaching tools and quite a number of projects in boxes that I never started.  The company had embroidery, longstitch projects, plastic canvas, wonderful latchhook rugs and many other needlework projects - remember when all of that was really big back in that era?  I wrote about one of my other projects from the company here. I've done just a little more work on it recently too, as I have 30 minutes of time to work on something while I wait for Nick at his piano lesson, and I've run out of my usual crossword puzzles.