Quilting Classes and a new BOM

I get calls about teaching quilting a lot.  In the past, I was always too busy teaching high school chemistry and physics to even think (or feel like) teaching another group of people, even if it was on a subject I loved.  But since I retired in '08 from the classroom, I found I missed teaching.  So the next group that called me about teaching a quilt class or two, I eagerly accepted.

And I'm glad I did.  I love teaching in general and teaching quilting, something I have such passion about, is doubly rewarding.  But I have learned something very valuable along the way.  There is a big difference between teaching someone how to quilt and teaching someone how to make a quilt.  Almost anytime I post a quilt on my facebook account or someone sees one of my quilts either under construction or finished, I'm invariably asked, "Can you teach me how to quilt?"

That's not what this person really means.  What they mean is "Can you teach me how to make this quilt?"  And I can.  And quite often I do.  However, that's not really teaching someone how to quilt.  Teaching someone how to quilt involves at least six months of meeting once a week and going over numerous skills before a finished product comes out of the process.  But if someone really wants to learn how to quilt, this is the way I do it.  By the end of the classes, they can piece and quilt just about anything they want to. 

Teaching someone how to make one of my quilts is valuable.  They'll learn tricks and tips and some of the skills learned can be transferred to other quilts.  But they won't come away with full knowledge. 

And this makes me a little sad and a little worried, too.  Like most artisians and crafters, I'm well aware that most arts are just one generation from being forgotten about and gone.  I'm always excited to see young people in my classes or in my quilt groups.  But I want these folks...young and old...to come away at some point with a full knowledge of the craft, not just bits and pieces.

So there is a big difference in teaching someone how to quilt and how to make a quilt.

Anyway...enough of that rambling.

I am excited because next month the Quilting Cuties are starting a new block-of-the-month.  We're doing Mothers of the Bible and it's awesome   The pattern is by Carol Honderich and her company patternsoffath.com.  She has some wonderful patterns centering around quilting through the Psalms and the women of the Bible.  They blocks are 6 inches finished and I'm busy trying to enlarge the patterns for 12 inch finished blocks.  Some of the blocks are easy to do...others are decidedly more challenging.  It's expanding my skills and trying my patience.  But below are sneak peeks.

Star of Hope with Persistent Kudzu and Pineapple

I laughed at this block so much...if you've lived anywhere in the South for any length of time, you're well acquainted with a little plant we have around here called Kudzu.  Kudzu is amazing.  Give the vine an inch and it will take a mile....or two...or three acres with it!

And the oddest thing about this plant?  It's not even native to us.  Nope.  Nada.  It came from Asia.  Some American botanist (whose name has been forgotten -- which is a good thing, some of us would cheerfully strangle him with a Kudzu vine), was studying in that region and came across Kudzu.  He decided it would work great in the South to prevent soil erosion.  So he happily came back home with Kudzu seeds (while masses of Asians were snickering behind his back). 

Well, the vine grew alright.  And grew....and grew...like a bad dream Jack-in-the-Beanstalk.  It's taken over fields and abandoned cars and old houses and probably an elderly person or two who couldn't outrun it.  On a hot summer's night, Kudzu can grow as much as six inches.  The only product I've seen made from it was Kudzu jelly and I wouldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole.  It's a pity we can' t find someway to run automobiles off the stuff, because the south would become the answer to America's Middle East dependence on oil.  Honestly -- the only thing I have seen control the vine is goats.  Goats will eat the plant as fast as it can grow.  But if you live in the country club area, it's hard to explain a herd of goats to your HOA.

Anyway, this is a fun, fast, and easy block.  One piece of applique, and even that's not so small and curvy that it would drive you nuts.  Again, piece your block before you applique.  And remember to be as persistent as a Kudzu plant in getting this quilt finished.

The Pineapple block is the third whole-cloth applique block in the Southern Album Quilt. Once more, please...if you don't take to heart anything in this blog but this, heed it well:  This quilt is applique heavy.  Please for the love of God and your sanity, work on the four whole cloth applique blocks while you're piecing the others.  Also remember that the whole cloth blocks are going to be 14 inches square when you're working on them.  You will trim them down to 12 1/2 inches before you sew the squares together. And when you get the whole cloth blocks done, start on the center medallion.  There are 44 circles in that sucker and while the results are beautiful, it is labor intensive.

I love pineapples....to eat, put in cakes, make sorbet out of, throw on top of banana splits....pineapples are awesome.  And in the south, from Williamsburg, Virginia to Duluth, Mississippi, the pineapple is a symbol of hospitality.  The fruit begins to show up on flags and wreaths here around Thanksgiving and sticks around until we start putting the Easter bunnies out.  I still have my stately black flag with the pineapple and fruit on it hanging from the side of the house from Thanksgiving.  It's a beautiful, colorful, welcoming thing...or so I thought until my twenty-something year-old daughter told me that now the pineapple the logo of swingers.

Oy-vey.  They have messed up a wonderful fruit with a wonderful meaning.  How dare they....

Oak Reel and Acorns and Cake Stand with Magnolia

As an Elon University graduate, this block holds particular affection for me.  Elon means oak.  When you enter Elon as a freshman, you're given an acorn.  When you graduate, you're given an oak sapling to take with you to remind you off all the lessons (both in the classroom and out) that you learned at the university.  So, yeah...Oak Reel and Acorn -- definitely tugs at my heart and my memories.

This is another of the whole cloth appliques in the Southern Album Quilt.  Again, I strongly advise working on all the heavy applique blocks while you're piecing the other blocks. 

The Cake Stand with Magnolia involves half-square triangles galore and applique.  Remember is you want to do the quick-method half-square triangles you're going to need additional material since you'll have to add 7/8 of an inch to the finished square's size to utilize this method. 

The other thing is to be sure as you're appliquing to put down the pieces in the numerical order that they're listed.  One goes down before two, two before three, etc.  You'll save yourself a world of time and unsewing if you do. 

Four Crowns Among the Dogwood

After all that venting about the City of High Point and its library, let's move onto something more positive.

I'm positive you'll like this block.

It has the best of both worlds -- piecing for the piece-lovers and applique for us applique nuts.  If you like either or both, you'll enjoy this block.  The directions given in A Southern Album Quilt by Kirstin  Steiner and Diane Wilson are clear and accurate.  This block reflects the history of the four "crowns" that ruled the regions of the South (Native Americans, Spanish, English, and French) and is then kissed by the dogwood blosson.  Flowering dogwoods are all over the this area when Spring decides to reappear.  They grow both "on purpose" (ie, the tree was bought at Lowe's or Home Depo or some other landscaping place and planted in the yard) or wild.  I am blessed by four wild growing dogwoods in my backyard.  Dogwood blooms are either pink or white, so if you're going for the realistic look, keep that in mind.  There's also a neat story about how the dogwood blossom tells the story of the crucifixion of the Christ, if you want to Google it. 

And as always, piece the block together before doing the applique.

As an added bonus, there's a recipe for the Southern Chicken Bog.  I've included it below.  It's a wonderful one-dish meal on a cold night.  Bogs are a soup, coming from the French influence on our part of the country. 

Chicken Bog
1 (3-4 lb) chicken, stewed and deboned
8 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 cup rice

Bring broth, salt, and pepper to a boil.  Add cooked chicken and uncooked rice.  Bring back to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium and cook for 20 to 30 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed.  Some people add cooked sausage for a little extra zip.  I like mine with the sausage.

(From South Carolina -- A History  by Dr. Walter Edgar)

Updates and Upsets

I apologize for not posting last week, but in all reality, I had a good excuse.

My mother-in-law passed away.

Martha Lena Fields was 81 years young and was the victim of a bad heart valve.  She was the mother to five children, grandmother to fifteen grandchildren, great-grand mother to 28, and great-great grandmother to four.  If she and Lawrence Dale Fields hadn't met, Jamestown would be without one-fourth of its residents. 

Needless to say, I've been busy.  On top of that, Bill and I have had the opportunity to purchase her old home place and we're in the thick of painting and re-doing and trying to decide if we're going to stay in our present home in the "family enclave" or move into his mother's old house.  It's an old farmhouse, the kind where quilts and grand kids could dwell peacefully together with a rocking chair front porch perfect for shelling butter beans or shucking corn when it comes in from the garden.  There's enough land that we could even have a cow to raise organically.  The possibilities are there, but right now indecision reigns.  My best guess is that we won't know what we're going to do until we're about halfway through the renovations of the home place. 

So that's why I didn't have a blog last week.  I'm going to make it up to you this week -- you're getting two.  I'm going to continue with the blogs on the Southern Album Quilt, but I'd like to pause from this with this blog and extrapolate on quilt groups/guilds.

I belong to a Sit and Sew, a Bee, and a "Group."  The Sit and Sew is at Dragonfly Quilt Shop on Eastchester in High Point and it's exactly what it advertises to be.  You call the shop ahead of time, let them know you're coming, show up at 6 p.m. on Tuesday night, and sit and sew until 8 p.m.  It's a stitch-and-bitch session, which every woman needs at times, but the women that attend are experienced quilters.  If I'm in a tight spot or don't know what to do, this is the group I turn to and ask opinions and questions and get really good answers.  There's no charge for this group.  And like everything that is at Dragonfly, it's awesome.

Then I belong to a "group" and I use that term loosely.  It meets at High Point Library the last Saturday of the month from 1 - 2:30 p.m. and this is the group I feel most ripped off about.  It's led by a nice lady, but she's not a quilter.  She's a librarian who is interested in quilting.  The rest of the group are quilters.  Now I love the members of this group.  This is the most diversified group of quilters I've ever had the opportunity to hang out with.  There are men and women of all ages and all racial and ethnic backgrounds in this group.  There's no pretense.  Everyone wants to help each other.  So why am I not tickled pink by this group?

It was supposed to be guild.

I have attended both of the Greensboro Quilt Guilds and have either A) left in tears; B) been ashamed that quilters act like that towards each other; C) been so put off I felt like I didn't belong and wasn't a good enough quilter to darken that guild's door; D) been so angry I couldn't see straight; or E) a mixture of all of the above.   So I cut off quilters' guilds as a part of my life. I figured once Bill and I retire to the North Carolina coast, I'd join one of those guilds.  There are five quilt guilds between Shallotte and Myrtle Beach, close enough together you can throw a rock and hit all five.  I  met with some of them while we were in Shallote and they all are really nice.

But there are perks to belonging to a guild.  You get a membership card that allows you discounts on your purchases at fabric shops.  There are meetings and educational opportunities and trips to quilt shows.  When I called the leader of this quilt group at the High Point Library, I asked if the group would become a guild.  I was told yes.  And for the last four meetings I've attended, this was discussed. Then the City of High Point had to rear its ugly head.  They said we were a part of the library, couldn't raise money, issue membership cards, or become a guild. 

I was not happy.  Not at all.  Not one iota.  And neither were the other members. 

This is an unusual group and I was slobbering at the mouth to see it become a guild.  Most quilt guilds are comprised of white middle-to-upper class women who are a bit snooty.  This guild would be soooooo different it would rock their socks.

But we're not going down without a fight.  Ben's talking to the library and the City.  I'll keep you updated on what happens.

Now let me talk about my Bee.  I belong to a group called the Quilting Cuties and we've been a Quilt Bee for nine years.  It started as the block-of-the month club at Hancock Fabrics and after corporate decided not to have a BOM any longer, we still continued to meet and Hancock's on High Point Road is still gracious enough to let us meet the third Saturday of every month at 10 a.m. and not charge us a thing.  I always promote a notion and we all spend some money before we leave. 

I love, love, love this group of ladies.  We've seen each other through marriage disillusions, issues with kids, job loss, parent loss, and weight loss.  These women are experienced quilters from all over the Piedmont.  Ellen Freeman led this group for nine years.  She has since moved to the beach (lucky girl) and now I have the privilege of leading this group.  This is the group that really taught me to quilt.  This is the kind of group that any quilter needs to belong to.  The Bee provides fellowship, fun, and encouragement.  And Bees are older than guilds.  There's a quilt bee in Kansas that has meet for almost 125 years. 

Bark that up your Quilt Guild tree....

                                         Christmas with the Quilting Cuties

                                          Linda and Ellen with Show and Tell

                                          Ellen's quilt she made for her grandson.  Isn't it beautiful?