New Jacket X 2

This is the newest jacket that I just completed, made in "kimono" style. The fabric came from a shop in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar that Priscilla and I visited on our trip to Turkey in 2002. It's a fairly heavy knit with lots of drape.

The jacket was made with no lining so that it is reversible, which you will see in the pictures below....

Summer flowers & visitors

We have no resident horses, but many deer visit during the day and night and have adopted the large fenced pasture as their own. Here a mother deer and fawn are close to the house and have come up to the fence line.

These delicate iris in the front of the house continue to expand and produce wonderful flowers. As previously mentioned, these plants were a gift from the Berardi's when they moved to their current residence. We enjoy them very much.




It has been a good year for roses. This bush adorns a pole at roadside and flourishes in a semi-shady spot and within 10 feet of road -- You never know!!









We have had this prickly pear cactus since the early '90s when our friend Dorothy gave us a small piece of her plant. It used to live outdoors year round, but lately we've kept it in a container and move it outside in the summer (very carefully!). It produces very pretty yellow flowers, and you can see the first few in bloom here.

Old friends, new friends .....

Some friends from Palmyra-Macedon High School, who graduated together just a few years ago, got together recently --- Judy, Caroline, Marnie, Marcia, Jim, Sharon, and Mary Ann. Some of us (but not all of us!) remembered that Schooner's Restaurant where we had lunch was a hot spot in the 60's known as Gingham Town or "G-Town".
Jeanne Simpson isn't in the picture, but she joined Nancy Hicks, Pat Pauly, Linda Bachman, and I for some studio time.









This is the cute kitty kat quilt top that our niece, Jenna, started last year at a workshop and recently completed. She'll be bringing it with her when she visits next month to work on the quilting.

Beth's Quilts

When Beth was here for sewing earlier this week, she brought four quilts that she acquired at an antique sale that were made by Lena Mae Cooke. Mrs. Cooke was the 2nd president of the Genesee Valley Quilt Club.

This twin-bed sized quilt and its mate have a Carolina Lily pattern with green swags. Neither of the quilts have dates.










This quilt has appliqued tulips and a blue ribbon swag. Click on the picture to see a close-up of the quilting. It has a date of 1941 on it.












Beth found a date of 1936 quilted in the corner of this scrappy basket quilt.















This is a detail picture of the basket pattern in the quilt above.

Sewing Day

Today was an "open" sewing day, with everyone working on their own projects.

Beth worked on aprons, a new purse pattern, and even baby hats!







Jeanne Simpson is creating fabric for a vest, using some wonderful Australian prints.













Linda Bachman is cutting into her stash of beautiful shibori fabrics. She made some of them last summer and bought more from Pat Pauly at last weekend's quilt show.








And Priscilla created this top from some terrific handwoven ikat fabric she found in her stash. She used two of her molas to embellish the front and back.

2009 GVQC Garden Tour - part 2

Carol and Keith Boas, across-the-street neighbors of the Dailor's, open their landscape to visitors. They have a beautiful enclosed porch and a deck over looking their backyard.









The deck leads to a stone stairs, which heads out to well-developed gardens. The quilt was a special display only for the day (we think!)











The front yard features a colorful border strip which contained many species whose blossoms are in full flower. The sale of tickets from this event helps the Club Scholarship fund, which offers help to needy club members who apply to attend guild workshops and classes.









The small water feature is complete with lovely water lillies and is one of many focal points in this lush collection of well-manicured gardens. The gardens are all fenced in to protect them from the resident deer. The property backs up to a 55-acre "forever green" area that is part of this development. The neighborhood residents all seem to appreciate the special nature of this area and well-developed lawns and plantings are evident throughout.

2009 GVQC Garden Tour - part 1

Nancy Hicks is this year's chairman for the quilt club's annual garden tour. Nancy worked hard and found four gardeners willing to open their gardens to tours for interested spectators. She was our hostess and gatekeeper for one of the stops in the Fairport area.






Mary Lou Dailor displays one of her beautiful pieces as part of her gracious hosting of the gardens at her house. She does wonderful hand quilting and applique.















She and her husband, Jim, have several small islands and a very nice arrangement of perennials on their "hilly" backyard.










A nicely-marked trail leads along a woodchip path interspersed with bench rest areas. Of course, a few quilts are added charms as one strolls the property.

SAQA Musings Exhibit

at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, Grand Rapids, MI
June 19, 2009 - August 31, 2009

http://www.ford.utexas.edu/museum/exhibits/SAQA/index.html

Check out the site to see most of the quilts that will be shown in the exhibit.....

Following is the information on the show from the juror, Sandra Sider:

This exhibition juried from quilts by members of Studio Art Quilt Associates focuses on the theme of “musings,” which connotes contemplation, meditation, and reflection. The idea of the artist’s muse also comes to mind—the provocative force or source of inspiration driving us to create art. Several of the artists whose work was selected for Musings conceptualized serene natural settings conducive to a meditative state, notably White Birch Forest by Ann Loveless, while others designed a peaceful indoor space, such as Shelley Brucar’s Room with a View. Tracy McCabe Stewart referenced a specific type of location in her splendid Torii Gate, a structure functioning in Japanese culture as a portal to sacred space. Asian sources influenced other artists, including Casey Puetz, whose Balance is itself a meditation on yin and yang. Although constructed as a simple, one-patch quilt, Units 14:“Shibumi” by Benedicte Caneill, with its sophisticated patterns of color and texture, epitomizes the effortless perfection defined by “shibumi.” Specific images captured the imagination of a few artists, who mused on an idea then expressed it in fabric. Unexpected by B.J. Adams centers a group of onions within an elegant floral grid, and Dottie Moore’s eerie Metamorphosis transforms tree leaves into a flight of butterflies. Gera Witte’s Dress Up seems to float shoes and purses in a stream of consciousness, accompanied by dress patterns embedded in memory. Two quilts by Judith Plotner document her private musings on sunsets and the Adirondacks, with half-formed words and vague, intriguing associations. Denise Linet’s colorful Folio III riffs on color studies of the same name by Josef Albers. In Reflections V: Bog, Peg Keeney not only contemplates the idea of a bog, with its neutral colors and layering, but also visualizes that process of reflection. The graphic abstraction of these works situates them within the category of abstracted thought shared by the majority of quilts presented in the exhibition.Flight, darkness, insomnia, pain, anxiety, secrets, and passages were food for thought. Clairan Ferrono’s Darkness Surrounds, with its flickers of light, seems to be settling in for a good night’s sleep, while Insomnia by Gwyned Trefethen screams out the frustration of a white night. In Eileen Lauterborn’s Writing on the Wall, her fatalistic message is transmitted in jagged white lines, and Frauke Palmer creates an anxious surface with the color contrasts of Troubled Waters.

Other abstractions show the artist contemplating an aesthetic concept or problem, such as the numerous truncations in Marcia DeCamp’s Broken Squares and the swelling of color in Big Red II by Pat Pauly. Mary Andrews’s Sand Dollar #10 positions her imagery in narrow sections, locating her subject in its littoral environment. Each work in this exhibition was conceived to express a specific idea, or the artist contemplated the work as it progressed, building on associations and reflections until an idea was born. The power of contemporary quilt art stems from the juncture of content and materiality—objects that encourage both enjoyment and thought.---Sandra Sider, Musings juror

Quilt Exhibit News

Blocks #5 has been juried into the Art Quilts Lowell 2009 exhibit at The Brush Art Gallery in Lowell, MA, during the month of August. It is one of the 40 pieces chosen from over 300 entries.

The exhibit is part of the Lowell Quilt Festival - A Citywide Celebration of Quilts to be held August 6 - 9.

This quilt was completed in 2008 and is 62" h X 28"w.







Detail of Blocks #5: The quilting was done with Sulky 12 wt variegated thread.

GVQC Quilt Show - 3

This is the guild's Gift Gallery, which offered many new and gently-used items, along with hand-crafted items, for sale.
















This view of the show floor shows some of the benches that guests could use for a rest. In the background you can see a bit of the 2nd floor concession area.










I had six quilts hung at the show, but only took pictures of four:

The quilt on the bottom left is Sea Kelp, and the quilt on the right is Night & Day.








The quilt on the left is Blocks #4, and the one on the right is Jet Trails #5.


























The challenge quilt contest was sponsored by Blank Textiles, and there were many clever entries.

This entry from Nancy Hicks won the 2nd prize.

And this entry from Pat Berardi won the 3rd prize.

GVQC Quilt Show - 2

There were over 40 vendors offering fabric, furniture, quilting notions, and both sewing and long-arm quilting machines.












Guild members donated several items for the Silent Auction.

There were over 750 quilts on display, and the show drew a steady large crowd on Saturday.








This year's show included wonderful options for classes and lectures by local and nationally-known teachers. Here is Janet Root getting ready to teach her class on paper piecing the blocks for "In the Garden", based on the "Midnight in the Garden" quilt used for the 2009 GVQC raffle quilt.



This is Jane Sassaman's class listening to her presentation. The student wearing the blue shirt made her skirt from some of Jane's fabric -- Beautiful!

These are some of Jane's samples.

Jane is assisting her students as they get down to work on their own projects.