The Endless Knot

Here is the quilt that I am submitting to the Asheville School Quilt Show, "Threads that Hold Communities Together." It measures 36 inches square and it is shown lying on my living room floor here, not hung on a wall. So the beige berber is my carpet, not part of the quilt!

As I understand it, a teacher at Asheville School, which is a local private school, is sharing her interest in quilting with her teen aged students. I guess I was taken by the concept that likely she is not only imparting some quilting skills, but is also guiding her students to stage an exhibit and to evaluate quilted entries based on the theme of the show. It just seemed like something a career educator should support.

I found the theme a little vague. This seems to commonly be the case. So I did a little "googling" about community and community images and didn't come up with a whole lot. Somewhere in this internet wandering I came across the endless or eternal knot. It looks Celtic to me, but actually it's a traditional Tibetan Buddhist symbol that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. One of the interpretations mentioned "interdependence," which is a wonderful word that to me is the essence of community. The knot retains it's integrity because each piece is in the proper place.

I think that it really should be displayed "on point," like the picture below:
But I needed to attach a sleeve on one side so that it could be displayed for the show. The quilt itself was foundation paper pieced, however I ended up doing that all wrong, backwards actually. So it is far from perfect, but I am happy with the overall result. It was a learning experience!

Here is a detail of one of the corners. I hoped the quilting would show up, but it really doesn't. I think you can see the fabrics better though.

The show runs from January 19th through March 2nd in the Art Gallery of Asheville School. I hope this venture is a success.

Quilts on display could be offered for sale, but I think that my daughter Nora may like to have this quilt, so I am not going to attempt to sell it. :-)

Holiday Homemades

Now that the Christmas gifting is over with, I will share a few of the homemade gifts I made this season.

First of all, a NYC-themed pillow for my brother...

My brother is crazy about NYC, having made literally hundreds of trips there over the years. Often he just goes for a day, sometimes for a particular event, but often just to walk miles and miles and take in whatever is happening on the street. If you want to know where to find great pizza, deli food, architectural details, or even the best nearest public restroom in NYC, he's the man to ask. So when I got to visit The City Quilter and saw their exclusive NYC prints, I just had to buy a few and reproduce a pillow I saw there. This one covers a 14 inch pillow form. Here's the back:

I guess this was the year for pillows, because I made this one for my friend, Barb:

I saw the pattern in the Connecting Threads catalog done in redwork. Barb loves snow and snowmen and her favorite color is blue, so I bought the pattern and gathered my supplies to do it up in blue. It's been a while since I did so much embroidery, but it was a good project to work on in front of the TV for many nights and I was pleased with how it came out. Here is the corner detail:

Finally, I made some gift card holders, thanks to a pattern from my friend Alice. They were a surprise hit with my kids who enjoyed pulling the "string" so that an iTunes gift card popped up!

It's always fun to make a few things to "gift" during the holiday season!

I made a man-bib!

A couple years ago I made some adult bibs for the Asheville Quilt Guild. As part of the "community quilts" outreach, they were given to elderly people in our area. About that same time I made some adult bibs for my mother. Her failing eyesight made spilled food nearly an every meal occurrence and she has been a regular bib user since then.
My sister-in-law, familiar with my mother's bibs, asked if I could make a more manly bib for her elderly father, "maybe with a neck tie," she said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. So here is my man-bib:
And here is a little closer look:I hope Carl likes it!

Gingerbread Houses?

Yesterday Russ and I headed to the Grove Park Inn for lunch and to view the entries from their annual gingerbread house competition. We started out with lunch on the Sunset Terrace which is the large open back porch area off the grand lobby. It was a somewhat cloudy day but the air temperature was close to 70, so it was actually very pleasant to be eating outside. The terrace overlooks the Grove Park Inn Spa and golf course and then in the distance you can see the Asheville skyline and the backdrop of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains beyond that. So even on a grey November day, the view is quite spectacular. If you go for lunch (the food is pretty darn good, too), I would recommend that you treat yourself to a Bloody Mary!

The gingerbread competition was judged on Monday and included a lot of traditional houses, most decked out for the holiday season. Lots had amazing details, like decorated rooms visible through faux windows, landscaping, lawn decorations, animals and people... it's really quite amazing! The grand prize winner was this shoe:

The stern looking woman you can see in the mirror was a guard that would not really let me, or anybody, close enough to get a detailed photo. She was placed there to protect the work until they could install a plexiglass box around it.

Since the winner was a non-traditional house, I thought I'd share a few of the other non-traditional gingerbread houses we saw.

Of course, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this sewing machine. Notice the basket with spools of thread, the scissors, and buttons. That is all 100% edible!
How about a Native American gingerbread house?
And this carousel horse:
The next two are from the teen or youth division:
Look at this chest full of edible Christmas ornaments!

MINI Cooper Quilts

In September, we brought my MINI Cooper to our dealer, Century MINI in Greenville, for servicing.

While waiting for the courtesy car to take us to the mall, I had a conversation with the manager about the art that was on display in the show room. He was very proud of the fact that the artwork, which were framed watercolors of MINIs and artful photos of MINI features, were done by customers. When I told him that I made quilts, he said that he would be interested in buying a small wall quilt to add to the collection.

I always like a challenge, so I told him I would see what I could come up with.

Here are my efforts:

The hexagon is called "MINI-go-round." I was able to find custom printed MINI Cooper fabric on-line which allowed me to use these nice fabric images in a creative way. Lots of the MINI Cooper literature makes use of the black and white racing flag motif. It measures about 14x16 inches.

This 12 inch square is called "MINI-malism," and was inspired by an illustration in one of the sales booklets. Again, I have used the racing flag motif. The image of the car is actually painted on the fabric. I think it gives a nice illusion.

I emailed these pictures to the manager and he will buy both of them!

He said they will have them framed, which I think is the proper way to display them in a public place.

How cool is that?!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Yesterday was the open house at the poinsettia nursery in Mills River.

Going to see the plants in flower before they are sent off to be sold for the season has been our start of the holiday season ritual for the last few years. There are acres of greenhouses and a vast variety of poinsettias, the colors forming a patchwork as they are arranged on the floor by the thousands. It's quite a sight to see.

So here are a few pictures for you to enjoy:

To NYC for the Marathon!

Last weekend we were in NYC, cheering Russ along as he ran the NYC Marathon!

We arrived a few days early, to enjoy the city with our family. On Thursday, Maggie, Dave, Nora, Russ and I went to the taping of the Friday night "Late Show with David Letterman." Here are Maggie and Nora in front of the Ed Sullivan theater where the program is taped.

Earlier in the day, Russ and I had gone to the Javitt's Center to the Marathon Expo to pick up his shirt and number. Here he is!

The race day, Sunday, was sunny and pleasant. We were able to see Russ run by at the 13.1 mile mark (half way there) and then again just before the finish. I got this picture of him as he went by at mile 25. He looks pretty darn good!

After the race, we all enjoyed some "lunch" at Lenny's. Here's Russ with his finisher's medal and Nora.

And then some pictures of Nora with Ari and Maggie with Dave.