What an adventure we had this morning! Our friends Jerry and Rose Payne invited us to their home, Tick Hill, so that Jim might photograph some uncommon butterflies, Giant Yucca Skippers. We did see the target insect and some other species, but the highlight of the trip for me was the bottle farm. Well, that and fascinating conversation with Jerry.
We have a bottle tree in our yard, and so far, it’s done its job of warding off evil spirits. Jerry does not have a bottle tree, he has a bottle forest – made of 135 trees and counting. That’s more than 10,000 bottles. Amazing!
Jerry can tell you a lot about bottles. He knows which companies use recycled bottles, which ones make brown bottles, or green bottles, or blue bottles, or frosted, or painted. He knows spikes, too. Winds at his place will cause bottles to pull the spikes out of the post if they are less than 6” long. The spacing of the spikes is determined by the bottles he’s planning to use and the intended final design.
As a child in Virginia, Jerry was fascinated by bottle trees he saw on his walk to school. His forest is a tribute to that memory and to individuals in his life. There is a tree with colored bottles entwined much like a barber’s pole: a salute to his uncle who wielded clippers for a living. Another has only bottles from the monastery where a friend resides. Yet another holds pickle jars, all from a neighbor whose children eat a LOT of pickles. There are trees comprised only of brown beer bottles, or frosted wine bottles, or medicine bottles, or tiny bottles, or bottles dug from a particular location.
As we walked, our conversation included weather, butterfly behavior, plant identification, educational systems, life in south Georgia, mutual acquaintances from years past, and the history of Catholicism in Virginia. We exchanged stories of family experiences and art pursuits. We learned more about each other’s educational backgrounds and professional experiences.
Jerry’s folk art is delightful and we were fortunate to bring home some treasures today. Jerry paints bits of tree limbs and roots that he finds lying about as well as shells and bones from animals. There were some roots and branches whose shapes said to Jerry they were a chicken, a whippoorwill, and a tadpole. Here you see the tadpole.
And this piece is one of a series where he painted insects on tortoise shells. This one, Water Strider Flotilla, includes images of those known as pond skimmers, water striders, Jesus bugs, water skaters, or pond skitters.
Time spent with Jerry and Rose is a treasure in itself. Rose was away for part of the morning, so our visit with her was abbreviated this time.
Dr. Payne is an amazing person whose breadth of knowledge seems neverending. He is best known in some circles for his ground breaking work in forensic science. In the 1960’s, he detailed the changes that occur as insects are introduced to decomposing pig carcasses. A documentary film has been made about his life and a more complete biography is here.
And for those who read this blog hoping to see a quilt of some description, here is one of my latest art pieces. A butterfly photo is relevant, don’t you think? This is Swallowtail in the Briarpatch. A photo of Jim’s I printed on silk fabric, quilted using free motion machine stitching with silk thread, then framed it with a batik and some cottons.
The stalk of the flower and some leaves are stitched with a heavier rayon thread. The finished piece is mounted on foam core and measures 11” x 14”.
This time of year we see hearts in abundant numbers. This symbol of love is everywhere, and often seen in shades of red.
I love the heart motif and have it all around my house and in quilts I’ve made. This year I’ve been adding to my bowl of blue hearts in the breakfast room. I made a few last year and in the past couple of weeks, I’ve been adding more.
I’ve used ribbons, buttons, and lace to embellish some of them. In other cases, I just stitched and stuffed some of my favorite fabrics. I added French knots to one. On another I stitched pearls from a rescued strand I bought. The fabrics include barkcloth, vintage ticking, African indigo batik, hand-dyed linen, bits of an old quilt, and fabrics from well-worn clothing.
Oh, I can use red fabric, too.
A few days ago, I crashed a party. We were on a backroads jaunt and I remembered that some of my friends were attending a quilting retreat at a nearby wildlife refuge. I asked Jim to make a stop and let me say Hello. He asked, “Can you just pop in? Were you invited? “ I assured him, “It will be fine. They won’t mind. They will all be happy to show me their projects.”
Angie was piecing some animals. Mary was working with baskets. Jean had stars on her design wall. She had discovered that her alternate blocks were cut from directional fabric, unnoticed until they were put on the wall. She had lots of advisors to help her decide how to deal with this dilemma.
Joyce had two big appliqué projects: a Baltimore Album that just needs a few details and a border attached, and a fabulous Kim McLean pattern all with big pieces of Kaffe fabrics. Joyce is one of our guild’s charter members and she still produces more quilts than several of the rest of us combined! She was sitting beside Hilda, her BFF for more than FIFTY years. They have worked on many projects and been to many retreats and heard many stories in that time, don’t you know?
Dewey was there with his longarm machine and an eight-foot table. He had already quilted two quilts at the retreat for other participants and was doodling on his machine while he waited for others to get backs prepared for him to quilt their tops.
Here is Donna working on a One-Block Wonder. And Dewey had just finished the quilting on her Friendship Garden before the retreat. Now she can add the binding and label and it’s done!
Mary had run to the store, but her work-in-progress is here. Mary is the organizer of this event. Someone has to take charge and she does it well! She reserves the space, organizes the guest list, plans the food, and assures that everyone has fun. And she is successful, because these people plan their calendars around Mary’s retreat dates. Because of her, the sisterhood thrives.
Lynn was putting the finishing touches on a garden scene, while Eleanor was working on a batik project complete with labels to insure that every block ended up in exactly the right place.
At the urging of my friend Priscilla, Jim and I took a road trip today to Newnan, Ga. Selections from Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry’s body of work are on display there. This amazing quiltmaker’s work has always intrigued me, so we hit the road.
Some of the work was familiar to me as signature Caryl Bryer Fallert – like the feather studies, the Fibonacci series, and her dancers. Others, specifically the pictorial ones, were surprising to me that they were hers. Each piece was interesting in its own way. I learned a lot from the experience, but being able to take close up photos of the quilting designs meant that I will learn from her work over and over again.
There’s something about seeing a quilt in person that makes it worth the trip. Technology allows us to learn a lot online, to study excellent professional photos that inform us of details, and even to take classes from experts. I’m familiar with Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry’s work though those technologies. But the tactile nature of fabric means that any distance from a piece of fiber art diminishes the intimacy of the art form. So being close enough to touch (even though I didn’t dare) brings that back into the experience.
We are Bed & Breakfast travelers sometimes. When we leave home, we like adventure. B&Bs provide a unique experience every time. And, in thirty years of enjoying this, I can’t think of one that didn’t prove to be positive. Of course, there was the one where we stopped and looked around, but choose not to stay the night because it seemed spooky to Jim.
We’ve stayed in B&Bs in the mountains, at the beach, in warm weather and cold (oh, my goodness was it cold once in Charleston – and our room was at the back of a long addition to an antebellum cottage. We thought the heat must have been distributed from the front to the back). We’ve enjoyed them in small, medium, and large cities, and in out-of-the-way places that made us wonder how guests ever found them often enough to keep them in business.
I suspect some of those people remember me as the lady who takes a sewing basket wherever she goes.
The tiny desk tucked in a corner made us think of all the creativity that had come from such quaint attic spaces. Jim commented on the quaintness at the same time that he said he would go insane ducking his head all the time. My reply was that many creative people did just that – went insane.
The make-do decor in B&B’s is always interesting. Many time inn owners have clearly been decorating on a budget, saving the big bucks for luxurious towels, fine soaps, and good food. This kitchen faucet intrigued us. Perhaps repurposed, it extended past the perimeter of the sink in most positions. Fun and funny to us!
Sarah Beth, Sarah Bob, Sarah Frances. Margaret Ann, Lou Emmelyn, Mary Frances; all are common names in the South. And with women, both halves of the double names are used on a daily basis. Shortened forms of Mary Elizabeths I’ve known were Lilly Bet, Mae Liz, and the ever popular Mary Beth. To get the right perspective here, you should read the list aloud, slowly. Very slowly. Put a little twang in there. Now you’ve got it.
es of popularity. In one generation, almost all the Sadies have died out. Then there is a rash of little Sadies running around. I think that particular name is beautiful, because it is beautiful, and the Sadie (actually in her generation it was Sadie Belle) in my life was a beautiful person. She is the woman pictured at the top of this post. There was a beautiful Cleo in my life, too. But I’m not hoping to see that name resurrected. The same goes for Ena Belle, Maudie Lee, and Mary Etta. Those don’t roll trippingly off the tongue.
In the South, if a woman doesn’t have a double name already, we make it so by adding Miss or Aunt. Miss Lily, Miss Emily, Aunt Gladys (though no kinship exists) were big in my life. And then I became Miss Sandy.
Miz Sadie Turns 80 was made for my mother-in-law in 2004. The blocks are the traditional Ohio Star blocks, finished at 9”. Sashing is 1” wide (beginning my insistence that narrow sashing separates, but doesn’t overwhelm the blocks). The overall quilt measures 63” square. It is pictured here hanging at the Georgia National Fair in 2004, one of the first quilt competitions I entered. It won a blue ribbon, and Miz Sadie was so pleased that she asked if she could have the ribbon, too. The quilt hung in her home with ribbon attached, as long as she lived there.
The label is a 
