Spring retreat

I am off to the retreat tomorrow morning. At least it's only 30 miles away so packing is not such a panicky thing for me. (If I forget something crucial I can always go home and get it!) I'm sure I will have some sort of post-retreat report next week, although they may not be as long as those ones for the fall retreat were. Which is probably a good thing, anyway.

More Linda Cantrell

I found a picture of her Halloween quilt. (To get the full effect, you have to be able to read the funny things on the tombstones, though. But be sure to notice the killer tomato in the pumpkin patch.)

Here's more: pictures from one of her lectures (it's several pages so be sure to keep following the links).

The Apartment

By Linda Cantrell, who was our speaker at quilt guild last night. If you ever get a chance to hear her, go. She was hilarious.

You should be able to see Elvis on the 2nd floor on the right - and that's his clothes on the line, too. (Elvis seemed to be in most of her quilts.) The two gossiping ladies in the detail are talking about the lady above - her husband has come home early and her boyfriend is hiding on the balcony in his underwear. And Grace Kelly and Jimmy Stewart are on the top floor.

(I took these pictures at the quilt show in Houston last fall. I didn't realize who the speaker was tonight until I got there and saw this quilt.)

Detail #1 - aliens

The mother alien is saying, "We come from France."

Detail #2 - gossips

American Memory exhibit

The Library of Congress has posted one of their online "American Memory" exhibits about quiltmaking. Quilts and Quiltmaking in America 1978-1996 is really two very different exhibits - a Blue-Ridge-Parkway-area collection from 1978, and the results of some 1990s contests. Be sure to check out the gallery, which appears to have about 400 pictures in it.

Crazy

While we're on the subject of jewel tones (which we were a week or so ago when I last posted), I thought I would post pictures of a couple of my crazy quilt blocks, which are basically in the same color palette as my mother's Storm at Sea quilt. I participated in a swap a couple of years ago; I think it was organized by CQ Magazine and it was called a "peacock swap" - you were supposed to swap motifs and fabrics in peacock colors - blue, green and purple. (I participated in a number of swaps until I realized that, as usual, I was collecting much more fabric - and thread, motifs, buttons, etc. - than I could ever possibly use at the rate I was going. Plus it was getting very very expensive, what with the silk fabric and vintage buttons and so on. If I ever go back to actually working on the blocks, I might allow myself to buy some more fabric for it.)

CQ block #1

CQ block #2

Jewels of the Sea

Storm-at-Sea in batiks. Another one of my mom's. (It's draped over a box in that picture, which is why the perspective looks wonky.)

I love those colors, which are what my mother considers "jewel tones" - which started a whole family argument. What constitutes jewel tones? My mother maintained that it was only blue, green, and purple. But you can't say that ruby's not a jewel, can you? I consider all really deep bright colors to be jewel tones, really - red definitely, but even fuchsia and gold. (Although there's no natural jewel that's fuchsia that I know of. Those pink CZs that you see places like QVC definitely do not qualify as natural.)

Interview

I know I've mentioned Sue Garman a couple of times - she belongs to my guild, and my mother is working on a couple of her applique quilts - so for those of you who don't already know her work, here's a nice interview with her (from Real Women Quilt). The santa quilt, the 2nd quilt down, is one of the ones that my mom is working on.

(I just checked, if you look at the September archives, I have pictures both of the quilts that my mother is doing, plus a really bad picture of one that Sue herself was working on at our fall retreat - the santas in a different colorway.)

March winds

I don't know if my mom has put it up yet, but it just occurred to me that she has a March quilt for the door, so here it is. (You can probably tell this, but it's out of the same book as the January one that I showed the picture of a couple of weeks ago.)