Revisiting The Conroy Center

Back a couple of weeks ago, just after we returned from our mini-vacation to South Carolina, I wrote this post about how we practically tripped over the Pat Conroy Literacy Center. Why, if we'd planned that as our destination, we probably never would have found it, yet there it was waiting for us as on a leisurely jaunt through Beaufort. 

Since that earlier post, I have additional thoughts to share - not so much quilting related (fair warning!) - but more literary in nature. Please indulge me!

First, I sent an email to Pat's sister, Kathy, to share the link to that first post. Incredibly, she responded! She included info about her friend who IS a quilter and who helped her navigate through the quilt-making process. Her response was very cordial, and she had a single request - to please include her friend's name. 

In Kathy's own words, "...my teacher ... Brenda Wagner, as it would not be possible without a great teacher. When I asked Brenda if she would teach me how to quilt she said yes. I said we have a slight problem - I don't know how to sew. She was not afraid of me."

Sweet. I always knew we quilters were fearless people. *grin* Consider it mentioned, Kathy.

I shared just a couple of pictures of the Conroy Center in the first post, so I will add the remaining ones here.

By any chance are you familiar with a world-wide effort known as Little Free Library? I am aware of it because one of the friends in my book club has actively established some in our area, and she continues to make sure our local Little Free Library is stocked with books. Well, before I even entered the front door at the Conroy Center, I snapped these two pictures of their Little Free Library. Click on each pic to get an enlarged view so you can read the quotes. So apropos. I knew before walking into the place, I was gonna' love it!

And speaking of Conroy quotes, note the one on this bench which along with the scene represents Conroy's year of teaching on Daufuskie Island, the subject of his memoir The Water Is Wide. I highly recommend this book; I'm planning to reread it this summer. So good. Anyway, I learned that the bench is a new addition to the Center because I now subscribe to the Conroy Center email newsletter; an artist's profile is featured in the most recent edition. I'm learning quite a lot about the Center's activities as well as the cultural scene in Beaufort. 

I mentioned in the first post (link up top) that I remember reading The Prince of Tides in the summer of '88. In response to the post, I had an email from my friend Dee (yes, our sew along Dee), in which she recollected one particularly vivid scene - and it is memorable for me from her reading it aloud when Sharon and I were gathered at her house. The scene is hilarious; Dee's email synopsised perfectly, "...Mom served pleasingly disguised dog food to the tyrannical abusive dad who had complained about the original dinner..." Yep. Perfect. The scene served to lighten the mood and tamp down the book's intensity as it came on the heels of an especially harrowing episode.

Well, that is all I have in regard to revisiting Beaufort and the Conroy Center. Hopefully, you've not been too bored.

If you've stayed with me through all that literary stuff, then you deserve to see a quilt picture. *grin* Almost exactly one year ago, I was finishing up Larkspur Stars, and I love it as much now as I did when I made it. Oh! It needs to be quilted!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Sew Along Update - Week 15

 

Perhaps you have forgotten that we three friends doing this sew along are retired English teachers. Dee and Sharon and I met as brand-spanking-new teachers at CHS back in 1979-80. Even though we separated professionally in the '90s when Dee and her husband left for jobs in northern Ohio, we three have managed to maintain our friendship across both years and miles.

We are all retired now (Hurrah!), but in true English-teacher fashion we still enjoy some nerdy aspects of the subject we taught. We treated you to a found poem by Dee in this post. A few weeks later, Sharon shared her "sentimental" poem with us in this post. Not to be outdone, today you get my poem - a sonnet, no less, in true iambic pentameter - mostly. 

But first, I am super-pumped to show you my Spring Dreams finish for this past week! This represents a milestone! My first sew along quilt - I've called it my original Spring Dreams - is quilted and bound! Longtime readers here know the rarity of my planning, making, quilting and finishing a project in such a short turn-around time! Quite the development! 

You are about to see three pictures of the finish. Note how different the color looks. I am stymied with what a chameleon this quilt is. No matter where I photograph it, no two pictures show the green sashing true enough to suit me. The picture above is on the front porch, late afternoon light, sheltered from direct sun.

Here she is in our family room, courtesy of DH and his long arms holding it for me. This room always seems somewhat dark.

This bedroom has windows on both sides, diffused by curtains when necessary. Oh well, if you can conjure up some amalgamation of these three pictures, then you know the color. *smile*

Rather than focus on my inability to accurately capture the colors, check out the similarity to Helen Phillips' inspiration quilt. She has been so gracious and such a cheerleader, as we have stitched from her beautiful photo.

Instagram photo from Helen Philipps

 

During our sew along, Helen has published a pattern for her table topper, available on Etsy, and perhaps she includes alternate sizes. We three sew along gals here have made quite a variety of sizes and in a variety of colorways. One is limited only by the amount of fabric being used for the sashing, mostly. All the blocks can be scrappy, as can the cornerstones, if necessary.

This coming week will find me attempting to finish one more quilt top using this design in reproduction fabrics. I have a healthy start, and plan to sew this afternoon.

Now for my sonnet. I do enjoy reading poetry, but as for writing it, let me just say that birthing three babies might have been easier. Geeesh, what effort! I reread poems I once taught; I searched the web for rhymes and synonyms; I gleaned interesting words from radio and audio books. My desk is strewn with scribbled-up drafts - such very messy business it is to pen a poem. *wink*

 Spring Dreams

Come Spring! And bless us with your charms!

Shrug off old winter's long and dreary days.

We long for azure skies, bright sun that warms;

On flowers, buds and blooms we long to gaze.

So gradual doth spring share her wak'ning breath,

As length'ning days do warm the vast expanse,

Yon meadows shimmer, draped green, en-wreathed.

Rejoice when Jacks and jonquils have fair chance!

As garden's cheerful crocuses burst forth

And thrumming bees dance pirouettes aloft,

Whilst songbirds trill and flit with lovers' mirth,

Throaty polliwogs through murm'ring night call soft.

Spring tiptoes timid through the frost and cold,

Crescendos buoyant full in pageant bold.

Until next update, dear readers, have a wonderfully productive week at the sewing machine!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

 

Slow Sunday Stitching

Major league baseball games are great for binding quilts. So are audio books. And so are Instagram friends. Seems a strange combination of motivators, but I shall explain how all three helped me stitch the binding on Spring Dreams.

I quilted Spring Dreams on Thursday.

 

For some reason, I typically have a hard time maintaining my focus while binding. I will stitch a little while, then pick up the cell phone or go do some other stuff, and have to force myself to finish the stitching. That is why I try to have something else to do while stitching to keep me on task.

I made and applied binding on Friday.

Our baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, had games on Friday night' and Saturday afternoon.  I did LOTS of stitching. It felt good to get so much done while also enjoying the games.

The back is pieced; using from the stash.

 

When the games weren't on, I queued up my current audio book which is due back to the library in 3 days. I needed to finish this book! I still had at least the last third of the book to read. Perfect. I plugged into my earbuds and stitched for a good long time. I have just two chapters to go.

(From Goodreads.com)

And my most unique motivator came from Instagram. I have become good IG friends with a quilter from Texas who makes the prettiest quilts and small inspirational gifts like book marks, cards, and pouches. The way we came to "know" each other is that her name is spelled the same way as mine - Jayne - and we both sew on Bernina machines. While we haven't met face to face, I have come to know her as a sweet, caring lady, and I find her creativeness very inspiring. 

After I posted about binding, she responded that she also had a quilt to bind this weekend, so we decided to have a race to see who could finish first. I rarely feel competitive about anything, but this was just enough of a challenge to keep me on task.

Bound and ready for use!

It is worth noting that rare is the occasion when I plan, make, quilt, and finish a quilt all in the same calendar year. And this one! Why I didn't have an inkling that I would make it as of March! It was the sew along with Sharon and Dee that did it, by gosh. So there's another motivator! Sew alongs definitely get me going and (sometimes) keep me going. Read more about our sew along in tomorrow's post.

I will join up with the weekly Slow Sunday Stitching gals over at Kathy's Quilts. Stop on over to see what everyone has been doing.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

It's Just The Way I'm Wired

Over the past 24 hours - give or take - I have worked on three different quilts, drafted for two different blog posts, and dreamed about scheduling the next half-dozen or so quilts on my to-do list. I know it appears to be utter madness to some, but I truly think I am wired operate in this sort of chaos. Flitting from task to task doesn't seem to impede my productivity. I suppose it could be more efficient to stick to one thing at a time, but what's the fun in that?!

First, I have a quilt to bind. I quilted it on Thursday (click here for details), but I'd not prepared the binding nor trimmed the quilt. That was among my first tasks yesterday. I am currently half done with hand stitching it - two sides done, two to go.

Still pretty much spread out across my sewing space is the reproduction version of Spring Dreams. (Since it's so clumsy typing out 'reproduction version of Spring Dreams' all the time, it's new name is Pioneer Dreams.) I am in the row-sewing phase of the process; it is easier to manage sections rather than the entire top, so I will make three sections that will then go together to form the top.

One section is done (above). Two rows and three sashings as of Friday morning. I sewed together one more sashing and two more rows, and have attached a sashing and a row (below). Next I will add the other row and then make and add another sashing for a second completed section. (Talk about chaos! Did you follow all of that??) Pioneer Dreams will soon be a quilt top!

The third quilt I worked on is a brand new one. I've only referenced it very briefly here - the Frankfort Girls are all making the same quilt, so we are doing it together next week in a 3-day mini-camp at Terry's house. In order to make the most of our camp time, all the cutting is done beforehand. That means pulling fabrics. Let's have a look at what I came up with.

First, note this picture of the quilt we are making. I have my book ordered, so I can only show you a picture of a picture from Becky's book, County Seat Quilts by Julie Hendricksen and Vickie Gerike. Based on that picture, here are my fabrics - all from the stash.

Some of these fabrics are very old - aged to perfection, wouldn't you agree? Some are cut into, others are in-tact fat quarters, other still are remnants of yardage cuts. That dark piece in the mix is gray - even though it looks sorta' blue. I hope it will look gray in the quilt.

Here's another view - I think this will be quite pretty. I am not typically one to make Halloween-themed projects, but this is subtle enough to suit me. I like that each pumpkin has a star in it; that makes it seem more quilty than Halloween-y. *eehh??*

So, welcome to my normal, squirrel-like stitching and planning - that's what's going on over here. *smile*

Hope you are having a super Saturday! It is absolutely gorgeous here today!

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Long Arming Spring Dreams

It's not a regularly scheduled update for the sew along, but since it's rather a big deal to me, I thought it worthy of a post.

I quilted my Spring Dreams quilt today. *smiles all over!*

I began the prepping and loading yesterday. I had to piece the backing which took the better part of the afternoon. Then I decided to see how far I could get into the loading process before running out of steam. What a lot of work! It doesn't help that I forget certain aspects of efficient loading, so I find myself re-doing things which is totally an aggravation.

It has been gloomy, rainy and overcast all day - the perfect sort of day for long-arming a quilt. I got started as soon as the coffee kicked in and stayed with it until I had just one final pass of the machine on the last row of blocks. Then the interruptions began. I got a phone call. Then DH came home from a morning out and about. I knew I was due for a bobbin change on this final little bit. When I returned to the final pass of quilting, as expected, almost immediately the bobbin ran out. Fixed that, and then before getting to the end of the quilt, I think the bobbin thread broke 6 times. Arrgghh! So maddening! 

Eventually, I did finish it out and removed the quilt. We won't talk too extensively about how bad the back quilting is, especially on the last bit, but let's just say I have some issues to work out before putting in another quilt. For this quilt, we are accepting her and all her 'beauty marks.' They shall be badges of honor for us! 

If you look at the back roll in the last picture, you see the floral length of backing fabric. I had just enough of it to stretch the other backing fabric (see previous picture) adequately. Here are the two backing fabrics together from a post I wrote a week or so ago.

Below, have a glimpse of my original Spring Dreams Quilt fresh off the long arm. I now need to trim her all around, then make and apply the binding for a total finish. Hoo-rah. 

I dream of the day when I can do this long arm part of the process with less trepidation. The challenge grows less and less intimidating with each quilt I do, so obviously I need to forge ahead. If I want to be comfortable doing it, I have to work through this learning phase.

Maybe Monday when I do my regularly scheduled Sew Along Update, I will have the  binding done and can provide pictures of her with some pretty staging.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

The T-Shirt Quilt Has Been Gifted

A quickie post for you today, dear readers. Over the weekend, I received these pictures of a recent MHS grad who now has a brand new quilt to take to his college dorm this fall.

I am so happy to get pictures like this. To know that the customer is happy with the quilt gives me all the warm-fuzzy feels. This is a whopper, can you tell? His mother brought me shirts in near-pristine condition, and I used some backs of shirts in the borders, so there was quite a lot of work in it. Because 25 shirts make a really big quilt, I used very narrow sashing, and as I revisit it in these photos, I am really pleased with the result.

I don't have any further commission quilts on the horizon, and I'm okay with that. I have so many irons in the fire at present with my own quilts and the long arm, I would be crazy to take on more.

To see some of my posts on the making of this t-shirt quilt, click here and here.

Happy Quilting, Friends!

Hello June!

 

My gosh, it certainly seems impossible that nearly half the 'new year' is already behind us. How does time seem to fly by so fast? Since I certainly will never be able to answer the question adequately, let's just get on with greeting June and making the most of her!

Big plans for this month? Well, I did make a list, and several quilting projects rank pretty high on that list. And I continue to add new things to that list, so I might have a impossibly long set of goals, but - hey - one can aspire!

First, let's look back at the May collage. I found that vacationing took up quite a bit of my 9 entries into the collage. Not a bad thing, and it will likely continue now that the lock down for Covid is lifting around the US.

Top Row: First, another glimpse of the flimsy finish for Scrappy 4-Patch. I love how my made-up pattern and quilt turned out. Next is the little mantle runner I made using positive/negative Ohio Star blocks. Third, a quilted finish - Seth's very late wedding quilt, quilted by me on the Tin Lizzie.

Middle Row: First, I spent a day refreshing three pillows on our bed; the pieced one shown is so much nicer looking than its predecessor. We had a guest for about 10 days - Erin's cat Rocky; looking quite ferocious here, always loved coming to enjoy the wide-open space of our home in the country. The passport shown in the next picture illustrates our first "official" US National Parks visit; while touring the low country, we hiked in Congaree National Park near Columbia, SC. We are looking forward to seeing more US National Parks on future vacations.

Bottom Row: An evening walk around Savannah, GA, was delightful; the mansion shown is just one of a gazillion pictures I took there. On our way home, we drove on a portion of the Blue Ridge Parkway and stopped at some look-out points for vistas like the middle picture. And, finally, back home, I began another quilt, which you read about in my last post.

So, those quilting goals for this month...some of the same ones I've had in previous months. 

First, finish the Spring Dreams Sew Along that my friends and I have been enjoying. I have hopes of quilting at least one of mine, and of course, finishing the current one to the flimsy stage.

Other goals (not all!) include finishing the red/white stars I began earlier this year. Reminder pic below; it's been ignored for awhile, so you may have forgotten it. In order to finish, I have to make 9 more blocks with the dark red star in the center. Then, just sew the blocks together. I'm close! I just need to re-establish my focus.

I need to be returning to that Kaffe Fassett quilt with the blue stars. Gosh. It was really high on my priority list back in January and here I am in June with only 4 trial blocks done. Again, focus, is the key word here.

As for new quilts I've added to the long list of quilts I want/need to make, first, the Frankfort Girls are planning not just one, but two fun little projects. One is long-term - 9" Ohio Star blocks that we will exchange at Christmas time. The other is a Halloween quilt with pumpkins. My details are currently sketchy, but I will certainly get it all straight soon.

A new baby is expected in September for my nephew and his wife, so a baby quilt will be rushed into production.

Of course, there's more, and I will share them if I start them. 

Have you got a big, long list of things you want to accomplish this month? I tell ya, putting the plans 'out there' for people to see helps in holding one accountable! *smile*

Have a great month!

Happy Quilting, Friends!