At the urging of my friend Priscilla, Jim and I took a road trip today to Newnan, Ga. Selections from Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentrys body of work are on display there. This amazing quiltmaker’s work has always intrigued me, so we hit the road.
Our route was along backroads, as usual for us, and we included some antiquing and enjoying other parts of the day, but the purpose and highlight was studying some 43 pieces of Caryls work. We were almost the only ones there, photography was allowed, so we took our time. I read every word of her descriptions, studying the weight and fiber content of thread, marveling at the stitches she used and noting the color choices in each space.
Like many quiltmakers, Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentry began making traditional quilts with commercial fabrics. Over the years, her style developed using her hand-dyed fabrics, then a line of commercial Gradations fabric that she designed. Some of her work is abstract, but all is full of meaning. And the girl knows her mathematics!
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.
Theres 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. Im familiar with Caryl Bryer Fallert-Gentrys 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 didnt dare) brings that back into the experience.
Ive seen some of Caryls work in shows in the past, but today at my leisure, I examined a variety of her works spanning forty years of quilt making. Wow.
The Donald Nixon Center for the Performing and Visual Arts is currently Forty Years of Light and Motion through February 17. Their website is here if you want details. And Caryl’s website is here if you want to read more about her.
All photos are of Caryl Bryer Fallert’s work on display at the Nixon Center in Newnan, GA.
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 cant think of one that didnt 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.
Weve 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). Weve 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&Bs 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!
As is our habit, we were eating after the crowded hour, in fact, we had the place to ourselves. It was open, inviting, very clean, and offered just the menu we were looking for; soups, sandwiches, salads.
Our waitress Vicki told us that the soup was almost gone, being in high demand on a such a cold day. There was less than a serving (by their standards) left of todays special so they gave us a complimentary bowl. It was fabulous, as were our sandwiches. But before the food was served, I was captivated by the decor. There were quilts! An old log cabin quilt first caught my eye. It was hung above a beautiful dresser and its subtle colors and handwork stole my heart! A more modern medallion quilt was displayed in another corner, and yet another eyecatcher, a blue and white quilt, was used on a table.
Jo is not a quilter, but has treasured the quilts these family members made and decorates her home and restaurant with them. Vicki has done needlework in the past, but quilting is not part of her experience (yet) though she has friends who sew and quilt.
The sisterhood of experiences connecting us with needle and thread is never to be denied. Vicki told of her friend who makes bags, pillows, quilts, when she hears of a need. I recalled the women in the Peachtree City guild who were making tote bags and duffle bags for children in foster care to use. I never cease to be amazed at the generosity of women who sew.
Grits are a staple in any southern girls diet. We have them for breakfast sometimes, but all my life Ive had grits at sunset more often than at sunrise.
Every time I make grits, I think of my friend Ferrelle. Ferrelle owned a wonderful cooking, kitchen, and gift shop, and served up fabulous ideas for enjoying life. We once had a conversation about grits which upped my game. Ferrelles advice included using stone ground grits (we favor the yellow ones from Noras Mill in Helen, GA), cooking them with chicken broth rather than water, and adding a bit of cream right before removing them from the heat. Oh, my. They are so rich and creamy. I vary the flavor by adding different cheeses at times, and cooked, crumbled bacon on top adds flavor and garnish.
Photo notes: Since I seem to think everything should be a story in cloth, I’ve begun stitching on a Nora’s Mill bag. You see images of the front and backside. More work to be done, but I know you’re hungry, so go cook some grits.
In recent months, Ive had several opportunities to share my quilting stories. The emphasis is on sharing – listening to quilting stories from other people as much telling them about mine. There is the frequent conversation beginning with, I remember seeing my grandmother make quilts, but there are many different experiences along those lines. I also hear, Ive always wanted to learn to quilt, I have my mothers sewing machine, and I find it so relaxing to sit and stitch. I never hear, “what is a quilt?” Everyone seems to have memories of quilts in their lives.
A few weeks ago, I spent three days sharing Fifty-two Tuesdays, the quilt and the book at Mistletoe Market ( a festival-like weekend shopping experience in Perry, Ga.). As I repeatedly summarized my experience with that journal quilt, I came to realize how that adventure changed my focus from traditional quilts to story quilts. In the fifty-two weeks of 2015, I depicted a scene that represented an experience in my life each week. I also explored every quilting technique I could, in essence making it a sampler quilt, too. In so doing, I tried things that I would not have wanted to pursue on a large scale.
I learned that printing on silk fabric gave a luster to photographs that seemed dull when printed on paper or canvas. Now Ive explored that more fully with several art quilts. (Examples written about here are 
Make no mistake, I still love traditional quilts and will continue to make those. But the freedom to tell a story in a small piece of cloth, using traditional quiltmaking techniques is very compelling right now.
I am assembling the blocks from Fifty-Two Wednesdays, my journal quilt for 2016. Im still imagining what the journal quilt for 2017 might be – if I do the weekly quilt block again. I have a few days to decide; I will continue the weekly format I’ve done before, using Thursday as my deadline.
On this Black Friday we wanted to drive backroads with the camera and maybe find an antique shop or two. One goal of photography was some country Christmas scenes. The treasure of the day was a church decorated with Christmas wreaths on every window. And, this church has a chimney. Ive never seen a church with a chimney. An old cemetery surrounded by a white picket fence is well maintained by a local boy scout troop.
We had lunch at our favorite locally owned restaurant in Monroe, GA, across the street from this pocket park. The focus of this park is an old bank vault (left when the downburst of 93 destroyed the building). Two treasures here: the safe itself and the fact that the town preserved it and made a park there.
Visits to a few antique stores generated minimal purchases. The highlight for me was packages of old bias tape and rickrack, all cotton, all unopened, bearing original $.19 price tags. I could imagine the vendor thinking, nobody will want this old stuff. And, Im thinking, WOW. What fun is this! The wicker item had a tag saying lampshade, but I thought bee skep”.
Yes, we did some shopping on Black Friday. But we didnt elbow anyone out of the way, never stood in line, didnt get frustrated, and had no traffic snarls to navigate. Back roads and small businesses, thats the way to do it.
The guilds quilt challenge for 2013 required us to use small bits of fabric from Tesss stash. The Challenge Queen does this occasionally; requiring the use of what some might think of as uglies. That certainly was the case for my envelope. Yuck. A red and black color combination was given to me, a calico and something else, 2 squares of each. I tried several things that didnt make my heart sing, but at some point I remembered a pattern from Country Threads featuring pieced goats.
A well-dressed goat appears in
Yesterday Jim and I went junking. Well, not really. Dumpster divers we arent. We arent even heavily into yard sales or estate sales. We like antique malls where someone else has made the selections, maybe done some cleaning up, and displayed items in a pleasing manner. Well, the last is not always true. But, we do like antique malls.
But I did find a few things I couldnt leave behind. An old quilt with a masculine look will be perfect as the backing for men in photographs. The homespun backside is amazing, too. A blue cross-stitched linen tablecloth. A couple of bargain pieces which will be amazing labels, and a lovely bee!
I didnt really plan to spend a day this week cutting apart old wool coats and felting them. But at $5.00 each, these 100% wool coats begged to be included in a quilt project. Ok, will do. Any ideas about what to do with the fur collar?
And I found inspiration! Not so much in the textiles themselves, but in displays. Old suitcases opened with vintage trims and fabrics inside, laces and ribbons wrapped around old wooden spindles, jars of buttons pleasingly arranged. These kinds of things make my heart sing.
Our guilds challenge quilt is due in three weeks. Its secret until then, so I cant show photos of it now, but I can say Im excited about what Im doing. 
I cut the largest square I could from the focus print (20 finished. (I know – it must have been a generous half-yard cut)), then cut smaller squares from the fish fabric and the others. 20 finished was a nice measure to use as the reference. It was easy to patch together units using 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 components.
As the project grew on the design wall, I had fun finishing a fish. Where one had been cut off, I could find missing components of that fellow somewhere else in the smaller squares and place it close by to make his image extend into the other spaces. I even discovered a batik striped fabric that mimicked the background of Mablys fish and inserted that.
As the squarequarium grew on my design wall, I began imagining quilting lines. I could stitch even more of the missing parts of fish bodies, add bubbles in the water, and enhance fish fins and tails. Oh, my, how fun was that?
I sewed quickly to get the piecing done, layered it with cotton batting, and began dancing with my sewing machine. I used some heavy threads on some of the solid spaces, enjoyed stitching lots of free-motion quilting motifs, and especially enjoyed adding the octopus and starfish.
A solid blue fabric on the back made the stitching details noticeable. Susan said she liked the back of this quilt better than the front. So for her next birthday, I stitched a fish on blue fabric for her beach house.
A recently purchased linen doily reminded me of a mat for a framed portrait. I didnt have a photo on fabric that fit, and wanted to stitch something on this marvelous piece of linen with the wide handmade tatting.
As I neared the finish, I hadnt come up with a title. But my original plan to let the doily serve as an inner mat for a portrait was still on my mind, so Portrait of Red Coneflower was simple enough. One more vintage doily (with a history and stains to prove it) served as the label.