Couldn't Resist

Yesterday's Bayberry Quilters' meeting did not have a speaker because of her illness. But they did have a members'flea market. Also the "free table" was especially laden. I took a couple of bags of stuff I knew I would no longer use. Many others did too. I came back with almost as much as I took, but I think I'll use ... well some, if not all, of it. Among the things I picked up were two packages of prestamped fabric "paper" piecing type patterns for a log cabin variation.

I'm a major fan of paper piecing and have seen these printed foundation fabrics but never purchased or use one. So almost as soon as I got home I had to try it. I decided to make a dent in my blue scraps. Here is what I did. Obviously I haven't trimmed the squares at all. You can see some of the foundation fabric behind. It's by Benetrex and very nice muslin. I like this! It feels good and I don't enjoy tearing the paper off my blocks. So I'll continue. Possibly some of the blocks will be another color for more punch and interest in the final quilt.

Also I couldn't resist, since so many blogs I read have done this: a snow picture -- this is what's immediately outside my sewing room window this morning.

New Quilt Guild

The Bayberry Quilters are the largest guild on the Cape. I joined in August and attended a new member's tea a couple of weeks ago. The first meeting was yesterday. Being a new member I was prepared to be anonymous, but I found several people were friendly, including another new member who happened to sit near me who remembered me introducing myself at the tea. Very nicely the oldest member of the quilt, who was there and seems to e going strong at 96, came up and introduced herself, said she does only hand quilting and is a charter member of the guild. I heard later she is quite a good quilter and has been honored with one woman shows. People were, in fact, friendlier than expected. I think I'm going to enjoy this group.

The speaker was super quilter Pat Delaney who began making blue ribbon quilts ten years ago and has produced at least one major winner each year since [they win in multiple shows and multiple categories.] The photo above gives very little sense of her quilts. She is very strong on color blending and harmonics, and, of course, is technically a perfectionist -- as was obvious when she mentioned taking out machine stitching on a 10 or 12 inch wide border of a full size quilt. She did it because it could not be awarded a prize as was since the tension had made some puckers on the back. That kind of perfectism it way beyond my comprehension.

Clearly she is very much a professional prize winner. This is no hobby, this is her identity, she works very hard at it and produces spectacular quilts with a traditional/contemporary sensibility. They are heirloom quilts but not art quilts.

The meeting moved along very efficiently, this group was more attentive than I found at Empire Guild meetings. They have my favorite extra that Empire had as well, only it's handled a little differently -- the scrap/share table. I contributed a number of quilt magazines and took several pieces of fabric -- very satisfying. The meeting place is one town further east, easy to reach and a very satisfactory room in a church annex. There was even free coffee! Now that's a lovely addition to a 9:00 a.m. meeting.

New Acquaintances

Getting acquainted at a new members' tea is an impossible task. But a new members' tea is a friendly gesture that I appreciate. I speak of the Bayberry Quilters Guild which I have joined. They have 230+ members so finding someone compatible is not really possible without joining a committee or subgroup. It was even more difficult to get acquainted in the Empire Quilters Guild in NYC with their 400+ members. Today, I sat at a table with three very pleasant women, two fairly long term members and one a member just since last March. Apparently none of us were on the same level of competence nor interested in the same challenges. No matter, we chatted about various places we have lived.

The truth is, I don't really join a quilt guild to make new friends -- but if I should find a few with like quilting tastes, that would be a pleasure. I like to hear the guest speakers, I like the annual shows, I like the share/free table. That's enough to hold my interest. I prefer to quilt on my own and am not a taker of classes. I learn new techniques from books and the making of a quilt is its own reward -- although I enjoy a pat on the back if I display something at Show & Tell -- and I will. This guild has . advantages a NYC guild cannot have, largely due to real estate. Finding meeting places large enough for over 100 people, preferably with tables big enough to work on with sewing projects, is difficult and very expensive in NYC. Here it is much easier. We met today in a former school house with a large meeting room and available kitchen, their meetings are in a church meeting room and at a tech school. Whatever the rental, it's a pittance compared to NYC.

This group brings well known speakers and had TV personalities Ricki Tims and Libby Lehmann here Labor Day weekend with over 375 people signed up for the seminars -- people came by the dozens or scores from as far away as Canada and even Scotland. They all braved the dire hurricane warnings [which proved over stated] and apparently had a wonderful weekend. I have never seen the pair on TV but disliked one of Tim's books; that was not the kind of program that appeals to me but I'm very impressed that this guild was able to present such a program. Again part of it has to do with real estate -- and the abundance of reasonably priced accommodations in the area.

The picture above was this year's raffle quilt for their show which was held in August an which I wrote about attending.

Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod Show

The Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod is a large guild that meets mid-Cape, which I joined today when I went to see their show. A few years ago Rachel and I went to one of their shows and were quite underwhelmed. But today's show had many lovely quilts to look at, mostly contemporary pieced, quite a few older quilts were shown and quite a few were traditional usually with contemporary fabric. I was happy that long arm machine quilting was not as prominent as in some shows I've seen in the last few years. And there were a few hand quilted bed size quilts that were beautifully done. Yes, there were some art quilts but none I felt inclined to photograph.

In a way I call the blue quilt above an art quilt. It was my favorite and I'm driving myself a bit nuts trying to figure out my own handwriting to see who made it and I've miserably failed. I'm sorry because this is another Marian Rosenthal kaleidoscope quilt, possibly the prettiest, I've seen so far. I constantly learn how important the fabric choice is and that various things work, in this case a fabric that did not have a great deal of pattern and was only blue.
This quilt with the bright orange, which is less than a quarter the size of the blue one, is as bold and vibrant as the blue is serene. The piecing didn't photograph well. It is an askew log cabin and each black central square has a blue button on it. This is gy Julie Larivaire and I took the picture because this paper pieced pattern keeps appearing when I go through my stack of "someday" pictures and patterns. I would choose different fabrics, of course, I think this reminds me not to use something this brilliant.
There were several pretty batik quilts including this one by Kathryn Kacergis. I think it works very well. These batiks have been popular for quite a few years and, lovely as they are, they're beginning to seem to me ho-hum. Maybe that's only because I currently have a batik quilt on my bed which has dark and vibrant colors on one side and pastels on the other and I've been looking at it a little too long.

The guild did a very good job with the show. They had a very fine group of vendors, a caterer who offered good sandwiches for a good price [I always found awful food available at the various shows I've been to in New Jersey], and the quilts were displayed well. The venue, a technical school complex, is extremely easy to find. Two different doors were marked as entrances. As it happened I went out the one I had not come in and found myself facing a parking lot that my car was not in. It took me a bit to orient myself and find my car.

Bayberry Quilters

To my delight, a long, long time friend who I think I've seen once or twice in thirty years, called this week to invite me to go to a meeting of the Bayberry Quilters of Cape Cod. I had tried to contact them last fall but, like many Cape Cod organizations, they did not respond to the email. And I got busy. I also knew Marylou lives part of the year here but had not called her as I was trying to get my bearings and deal with the culture shock of life on Cape Cod after so many years in NYC. Happily, a mutual friend gave her my phone number and, happily, we went to the meeting yesterday. Renewing an acquaintance was wonderful, and seeing a well run organization was also wonderful.

Plus the speaker of the day was Froncie Quinn a very bouncy and practiced speaker who had a very well planned presentation. Froncie mainly calls herself a pattern writer but she is very much a researcher and historian. She has a book called Enduring Grace, Quilts From the Shelburne Museum. Her talk was about many of these quilts. She had made sample reproductions which were passed around as well as having many laminated printed pictures of details of the actual quilts. She had fascinating information about their making and makers -- some very, very well made, beautiful old quilts were made by very young women, in one case by a girl of 8 and it was her 4th quilt! Although historical quilts interest me less than contemporary and art quilts, Froncie was a very good speaker who made the subject very interesting and her reproductions were shown close up so we could actually marvel at what past quilters were able to do. I'm very sorry I didn't take my camera. I would have liked to share a few of the quilts here. She has written patterns for making many historic quilts with directions both for the old fashioned construction method and for more modern construction.