Let's start this off with some of the nicest hand-stitching on wool you will ever see...
Everyone knows that by age 42 your eyesight starts to go...by age 44 almost everyone is wearing glasses...by age 46 those same people are out of glasses because they've had lasik...and then at some point they are back wearing glasses because nothing lasts forever! Above is one of Terry's hand-stitched wool pieces - Terry's work belies her age and while I don't know how old she is, I can tell you she definitely has young eyes! Even if you enlarge this picture you will be hard pressed to even see her stitches...and it's the same in person - her stitches are so small, so minute, they are practically invisible which is why she is the queen in our humble little group when it comes to anything hand-stitched!
Terry had some really cool Halloween vignettes around her home, she loves Halloween as much as I do but I've yet to drag all of my crappola out...soon though!
This is just so whimsical and fun - I love all of Terry's decorations - there is a surprise around every corner so I just kept walking around taking pictures - I didn't want to miss anything - even in her kitchen she had fun decorations - like the little potion jars pictured below!
Terry served us a great lunch that included a fennel and onion dish, salad, soup, homemade rolls and a generous serving of baklava with vanilla ice cream...I managed to get myself home before I passed out from the inevitable sugar crush that it caused - but so worth it!
These are the kind of pictures you'd find in Country Living Magazine or Southern Living, right? Or maybe the kind you'd want to find! Terry frames her hand-work with such care - always matching the frame to the piece. Thanks Terry for the great meeting/lunch/show!
On the way to our meeting Denise stopped at the Habitat for Humanity garage sale and found this beautiful cross-stitch for just a few bucks! I really like it but I would like it better if the words self-control weren't on there...really, who needs to be reminded about that?!?! I was reading all of the beautiful words and thinking how cool it was then I read self-control and thought, uh-uh - don't need none of that!
Stephanie and her husband spent time recently on Kauai and when Stephanie spied this beautiful hand-made bowl she had to have it! It's pretty cool and will always remind her of Hawaii!
Years ago, Claudia purchased two yards of fabric from IKEA - it had a beige background and a lot of colorful hand-appliqued animals all over it. When Claudia moved away she gave the fabric to me. The fabric sat in my pile for a year before I realized I would never do anything with it so I took it to quilt group and Stephanie took it home...at our meeting Stephanie brought in the fabric and showed it to us - she had dyed it with black dye, hoping to get a dark gray. Instead it ended up sort of a purplish gray - but very cool nonetheless! I would show you a picture but neither of the pics I took turned out. Anyway, the point of me telling you this is it's okay to give something away so someone else and make something fabulous with it...at least that's what I've been telling myself!
This is just HAPPY! Diane made this quilt using Kaffe fabrics and it is bright and happy and we all loved it...Diane is not entirely sold on this yet - these are not usually the colors she works with but given some time I know Diane will come to love this as much as we do! Diane told us she was "thinking like Helen" when she decided to make this quilt...we all want a "Helen Quilt" for ourselves and now Diane has one!
About half of this snowman runner got cut off - it's longer than pictured and so very cute. Diane made this - she's been very busy churning out quilts while she's been recuperating from knee replacement surgery...I'm quite envious of how industrious she's been!
Diane made this fox quilt top for her grandson. Every time I see this pattern I tell myself I'm going to make one...hopefully I will before my grandson graduates from high school!!! I love this Diane - and I love the colors you used!
You've seen this before, this is Janet's fabulous quilt. She brought it in to show us when it was still a top...and before she took it to be quilted she wanted to iron it. Unfortunately, Janet hit the "clean iron" button and before she could stop it the iron had spit out brown water on her beautiful quilt! Once the quilt was quilted she washed it - and her unlucky streak continued because one of the reds bled all over! Thanks to a dozen color catchers she was able to get most of the bleeding out of the quilt. I do love a quilt with a good story...but I prefer a good story under a quilt!
I really tried to get all of this quilt in the picture!! Seeing this quilt was like seeing an old friend...at first I didn't recognize "her" but then it came back to me! When Deborah left our group to go back to work in 2004, our quilt group made her this quilt. Deborah likes orange so that's why we used those colors. I made the center block and put the top together on point...I think I even quilted and bound this quilt, too! I was SO sad to see Deborah leave the group - she brought so much creativity to us! Now, 14 years later she has rejoined our group but we just learned she will soon be moving to the east coast - after 35 years of living in the Northwest! We are going to miss her all over again!
This is Janet's wool Boston Album quilt top. It's spectacular!! This is what I call a once-in-a-lifetime-quilt...once someone makes a quilt this intricate, this time-consuming, this amazing, well there just isn't time left for them to make another, no matter how old they are! I lurve this quilt - which means I really, really love it!
Okay kids, that's it for today! Hope you're all enjoying the Fall colors with your pumpkin spice whatever!