More Friends and Fabric!

It's Friday and it's a beautiful day here in Minnesota! We are having some glorious fall weather which is good because the recent flooding really caused problems for a lot of people. Lots of folk are having to do clean-up from the flooding and thankfully the weather is dry right now so clean up is a bit easier. There's a lot of road repair going on, too, but at least roads out of Henderson are finally open! Farmers can get in the field and I love the sight of all those tractors and combines in the fields. It is one of my favorite things to see harvest come in the fall. I love to travel to Iowa at this time of the year and that's what I will be doing today. I'm leaving my husband and the dog home alone and am going to visit my mom. I think I will count the combines in the fields just for the fun of it. I'll report back on Monday. :-)
Before I leave, though, I want to share more friends and fabric fun at the retreat. Meet Carol Majerus...........

Carol and I met when I presented a program on crazy quilting at the Scott County Historical Society back in January of 2000. The program evolved from a crazy quilt project that was a fund-raiser for The~Landing. (If you go to that link and click on the video you can see what a lovely place it is.) Pictured on the right is the crazy quilt that was made by staff, volunteers and friends of The Landing. All the fabric scraps came from my stash. In the late 1970's, I made reproduction Gibson Girl porcelain dolls and also dressed reproduction French dolls for a local doll artist. I had lots of fancy scraps from those projects so I made up little bags and anyone that wanted to make a block could grab a bag and start stitching. When the finished blocks were assembled, I bought black velvet for the sashing (I ripped the strips rather than cutting them and they were more accurate - a tip I learned from someone long ago) and the quilt is backed with red satin (a left-over from bridesmaids dresses from a co-workers wedding). It was very hard to see the quilt go to the winner but it raised over $2500 and was the best quilt raffle we ever did at The Landing.

I was seriously hoping I would win the quilt. So were several others who had made blocks. An offer of meeting space from Judith at the Scott County Historical Society allowed us to come together and work on our own crazy quilted projects. To get the enthusiasm going, I presented a program on the quilt and a little demonstration of making a crazy quilt block. Twenty-two people (including some guys) showed up on that cold winter's night for the program. There was enough interest that we began meeting regularly the very next month. February isn't any warmer than January here, but six people showed up to begin our group that night. Carol was there and has been with our group ever since then. We have an awesome time and celebrated our ten year anniversary this past year. I could write a book about the exhibits we have hosted and the projects we have done. I'll get to some of it in future posts. :-)

Getting back to "show and tell" at the retreat..........this is one of Carol's projects. It's a shirt that has been embellished with bias cut strips of fabric. It was a pattern Carol had wanted to do for several years and she said she finally got to it this past year. It was just gorgeous and we were all wondering how we might make something similar. Double-click on the photo to see the detail on the shirt.
Here is another project that I've watched Carol work on for the past several months. It's a cross-stitch baby quilt. While "crazy quilter's" is in our group name, we don't just crazy quilt anymore. We only have one rule in our group........no machine sewing at the meetings, it's all about handwork. :-) Our group is also quite fun because we do not hold a business meeting. We just get right to the sewing and chatting. Sometimes we do a potluck so we get right to the food and then we sew. LOL!

Carol is a very accomplished quilter and has made quilts for almost all her kids and grandkids, plus she makes some samples for Eagle~Creek~Quilt~Shop. She works there one day a week so if you stop in to the shop and she's working, please say "Hi!"

Next up is Yvonne Smith. Yvonne was new to our retreat and most of us had never met her before. However, Carol was quite familiar with Yvonne........they are mother and daughter! There were a couple cancellations for the retreat this year, so I asked Carol if she thought Yvonne might like to join us and she said "yes". You can see by the smile on her face that she is "sew happy" to be at the retreat. :-)

The project she was working on is going to be beautiful. Maybe I can get her to send a photo of the finished project. For "show 'n tell", Yvonne shared this gorgeous bargello quilt top that she just recently finished. She's thinking she will use it on her bed.

I wish I had taken a better photo so you could see the full design. I apologize........I will win no awards for my photo-taking but at least you get an idea of how beautiful it is.

That's it for today. I'll be back on Monday with a "What's on the line?" post and then three more posts on "Friends, Fabric and Retreat projects" and a fourth one that has a retreat surprise that you can enjoy. No other clues. :-) I'll see ya on Monday morning!

Have a good weekend!
Sandi