East to Home

Our road trip continued east with a stop at Meteor Crater near Flagstaff, AZ ...

... and then through Winslow to ...

... Holbrook, AZ for the night.

We enjoyed the cars and ...

... trucks of yesteryear.

This cute little camper caught Paul's attention.

I wanted to spend the night in one of the Tee Pees next to an old car; but Paul thought otherwise!

Coming on East we stopped outside of Amarillo, TX at the Cadillac Ranch, where we did a little graffiti ...

... and enjoyed a park in Wichita Falls, TX ...

... and on to my sister Emily & Perry's place for 2 nights.

The creativity in her sewing room is marvelous.

While the men worked on Perry's pickup truck, Emily took me around.

I helped her stuff envelopes for their concrete business and then ...

... we went to some thrift shops and on to one of her friends who quilts.

And now it's home again. Our 20 year shingles did pretty good holding up for 18 years.

Life … With Only a Little Quilting

I’m participating in The Pi Project. I let some of my grands pick out fabric for their own number (their age), and then I quilted their block and I’m sending the unquilted block to the Pi Project.

You too can participate.

The Pi Project
From Sally Sellers
If you don't know about The Pi Project, let me tell you about it: it is an international public art project celebrating the number Pi.  Digits are made by individual participants on fabric (hooray for fiber art!) and sewn together in the precise order in which they appear in Pi.  The result is a fabric "ribbon" that could be 200 feet or 2000 feet, depending on participation.
The Pi Project is gathering steam, but I still need numbers, especially from fiber artists!  The public has responded positively and I've received many digits on 9.5" square (24 cm) pieces of fabric.  The squares need not be fancy at all.  The deadline is Jan 31, 2015, although ASAP is a far better deadline.  Please send me a digit, and spread the word to others.  For more complete information, go to www.ThePiProject.org.

More quilting on “Another Glimpse Through the Lattice.”

Graber Farm’s Christmas supper at The Grill.

Paul’s niece, Amanda and Phil (not pictured) and children came for a short visit.

My sister, Emily and Perry stopped in on their way to and from VA.

Georgi and Talya

Christmas lunch with the Grabers.

Corn Day

Last Saturday our day began in Phillip K’s corn patch, filling buckets with Incredible sweet corn.

Even the younger children helped.

Paul’s mom was a trooper and …

… stuck with the job until it was done.

Daddy took his place at the hot stove.

Silking and cleaning. They look like they are having fun!

Emily

Cutting the last of the corn off the cob and bagging it up for the freezer. Little Delta Joy gets special attention from her Great Gramma Graber.

The young cousins earned this swim after helping so well.

~~ Parting Shot ~~

“Only a Lily” – New Quilt From an Old Favorite

Each year I like to enter a quilt in The National Quilt Museum’s New Quilts From an Old Favorite contest.

This year the traditional block that our quilt was to represent was the “Carolina Lily.”

I was stunned when I received a call recently that my quilt “Only a Lily” had won 1st place. And then I got all giddy and had to call some family and friends and share my good news.

When my sister, Emily, started making some quilts using Gloria Loughman’s technique from her book “Radiant Landscapes,” I loved the effect.

Blue Bell

So, I bought a book too and studied it and decided to make a ‘lily’ quilt to practice for my entry. 

I was pleased with how “Lily” turned out and decided to use the technique for my entry.

So, I found a piece of fabric that I thought would work good for the background …

… and I cut red and green squares of 2 other pieces of fabric. I traced off a motif of the traditional Carolina Lily pattern onto the squares … 

… and cut them out.

  

When Emily saw my little bits of scraps left over she decided to make another small art quilt using them in the sky of her “Setting Sage” quilt.

I thought it marvelous and decided to change my background to the same yellow that she had chosen. But alas, it didn’t have the same effect that hers did.

  

So I went back to my original choice of background fabric and I loved what I saw.

Here, I have added a black border with slight curves.

Then I cut out ‘lily’ parts and laid them on the background. Deciding which lily I liked best was a hard choice.

When all the fusing was finished I was ready to quilt.

And after the quilting was finished the quilt wanted to wobble, ripple, and pucker up.

But that didn’t cause me too much worry as it all flattened out when I blocked it with lots of water.

And then I added the piping and binding and blocked it again.

Only a Lily

56 1/2” X 56 1/2”

“I am only … a  [humble] lily of the valleys [that grows in deep and difficult places]. … Like the lily among thorns, so are you …” –Song of Solomon 2:1, 2 (Amplified)

Detail

Don’t forget to enter my fabric giveaway HERE.

Finish It Up Friday