Lessons from the Low Country

We returned to SEWE (the SouthEastern Wildlife Exhibition) in Charleston, SC this weekend.  It was once a regular excursion for us, but it’s been many years since we were there. We took lots of photos, but not many in the art exhibits; there we were just absorbing the art and talking with the artists.  Most photos were from our strolls around town.

Here are some rather random images and observations I made.

Charleston is such a beautiful city. Old can be so glorious!

The sound of horses hooves on cobblestones is unlike any other.

Sometimes collectors of old duck decoys have them x-rayed as part of the age evaluation.

Many galleries in Charleston include work from several artists; they take turns manning the store. That gives them a chance to meet their fans, but also have undisturbed time to work.

Repetition is a great design feature. And not just in quilts.

Art takes on many forms. The fine art gallery had examples of paintings in oil, watercolor, and acrylics. We saw stunning examples of charcoal drawings and amazing photography. There were wood carvings and bronze sculptures. And we learned about less familiar techniques (at least to the Gilreaths) like scratchboard and carved bird feathers.  Oh, and using feathers to make bowties and cumberbunds.

These feet may be old, but they still get us around.  We logged more than 15 miles on foot to see the city.

Even when the city is crowded, the side streets and alleys are quiet, quaint, and serene.

I just love window boxes.

Street photography is powerful!

Details are important. Like the music playing in the art venues. Live bluegrass in the fine art gallery associated with SEWE and steel drums in the park where vendors were set up.

The weatherman is not always right. Gloomy skies and rain were predicted, but that was minimal.

Bricks and flagstone and pea gravel and cobblestones make great paving surfaces, either singly or in combination.

Even though an image is familiar, maybe iconic, it’s still a thrill to see it again.


I love geraniums, any time, any place.

It’s always nice to have a quilt in your purse.

On the way home, we visited Beaufort. Another extraordinarily beautiful town. The tumbling blocks quilt posed again with some boats.

Note: As I usually try to add a link to a quilt if I’ve already written about it, (so you can read details about it if you wish), I went searching for this blue quilt. How interesting that it was in this post about staying in beds and breakfasts – because that was one of our observations on this trip – that the overnight stays in chain hotels are usually forgettable, but staying in a great B & B is money well spent.

And, further exploration yielded this post, where I talked about backsides. It seems that I had this quilt on my mind in conjunction with backsides of people…like the lady with the cane. Interesting!

And, the blue quilt pictured was discussed here, too.

Princess Priscilla

I looked up from the sewing machine and saw another heart on the wall. I hadn’t exactly forgotten this one, but she is old.

I made her in 2005 in answer to a challenge at my local guild. Tess, our Challenge Queen, had directed us to make a quilt including hearts. A great idea since we are the Heart of Georgia Quilt Guild.

I was new to the world of quilting and to the challenge notion. This was my second opportunity to enter that competition and appliqué was the newest tool in my toolbox.

The pattern came from a book by Robyn Pandolph and many of the fabrics I used came from her designs, as well. Those were the days when I used fabric from one collection. And followed a pattern. As already stated, I was new at this quilting thing.

New at giving titles, too. I named this one Princess Priscilla loves Paisley.

Well, I sorta followed the pattern. I remember the challenge specified hearts, plural, so I added the hearts in the border. They are low contrast (I love that touch of subtle in a quilt) and asymmetrically placed. (Oh, how I love that!)

And the doll nestled among all those quilts is just one I had to bring home with me a few years ago. She’s happy bouncing around the house posing on quilts.

Speaking of posing, Priscilla went to Tifton recently and posed in front of Plough Gallery there. Don’t you just LOVE these blue doors? And, the hexagons in the paving on the walkway?

And the art in the gallery is nice, too! More stories from this place to come.

Loving Hearts

So the obsession for blue hearts outgrew the bowl. Bowls, actually; several are full.

It seemed the natural thing to do was to make more of those hearts to put in a quilt. I continued using bits of vintage linens, remnants of old clothing filled with memories, and remnants of overdyed linens.

I cut free-form hearts and stitched them to bits of background fabric and placed them on the design wall. Then a couple of days of trimming and filling in blank spaces with other beloved blue fabrics, and a quilt top was born.

Now it’s pin basted together, ready to quilt.

One of the old remnants I used included dozens of hearts like these and at least 40 of these birds. I found this gorgeous tablecloth last summer when I wrote about tattered treasures here. I didn’t appreciate the work some woman had done until I cut it up and stitched through the fabric myself.

It is a heavy cotton fabric, densely woven; what my mother would describe as “tough as pig iron” to stitch through. I realize now that the phrase makes no sense regarding stitching, but that’s what she said.

The woman who stitched all these crosses must have had sore fingers. Maybe she was a friend of Margene‘s, devoted to needlework, determined to finish.

The tablecloth was used, though. I know because of the stains and holes I found in it. That’s a good thing. I love stains and holes because I feel less guilty about cutting the piece apart and reusing the decorative stitching. And, I like knowing that the piece has stories embedded in the threads.

There are other stories in this collection of threads, as well. I bought some indigo and white homespun fabric at Elco Antique Market more than 30 years ago. My mother used it to make a dress for me. Now parts of it are in this quilt. Some of Jim’s shirts and some of mine have found their way here too.

And, those of you who make quilts are wondering about those blue dots and straight pins. I’m trying something new here, pin basting without having to close and then reopen safety pins. I like the pinning part. I’ll report on the removal process once the quilting is done.

A later post has been added with photos of the finished quilt and my verdict on the pinning dilemma. It’s here.

Hearts and Ribbons

This is the month to see hearts everywhere, and I LOVE it!

Hearts have long been one of my favorite motifs and they often show up in my quilts.  My quilt guild, (Heart of Georgia is its name – coincidence you think?) has themes for some of our Show and Tell sessions this year.  

We always bring new quilts we’ve recently finished, but the themes let us revisit favorite old quilts that we haven’t shared in a while.  Show and Tell is always inspiring and this variation allows new members to our group to see some past works they missed.

So I’ve been thinking about hearts in older quilts of mine, looking around the house at older pieces.  

One I found was this one Hearts and Ribbons– a project I made in the first appliqué class I took. Anita Shackelford was the teacher.   An excellent designer and teacher, she guided me through the intricacies of needle turn appliqué.   Though some of my work is more casual these days, I owe her all the credit for my beginning stitches in this technique.  

This piece features hearts that were made and stuffed, then hand quilted.  Later, they were attached to the background including other appliquéd elements.

The stuffed berries and delicate embroidery just add to the rich details of the piece.

This was one of my first efforts at free motion machine quilting, too.  I think I used an invisible thread and cotton batting.  

I don’t suppose anyone is surprised that the featured color here is blue.

Ollie Jane Goes for a Ride

I don’t always color coordinate my “ride along” quilts with our destination, but today I did.  I love these old greenish blue doors we discovered in a little out-of-the-way town on one of our rambles.  Today we were headed in that direction, the sun was shining, and quilts were going along for the ride.

Ollie Jane’s Flower Garden usually stays home.  Her permanent place in the world is hanging in our stairwell of our house and moving her is no minor event.  But, she’s been resting on a bed since Christmas, having given that spot of honor to a more wintry quilt, Miss Nellie’s Country Garden, for a few months.

I knew our travel plans would take us near the town with the green doors, and Ollie Jane needed to be photographed outdoors, so this seemed perfect.  Some of the hexagons in that quilt would coordinate with the color of the doors – so fabulous, aren’t they?

So, it happened!  The sun was not in a photographer’s favorite position as we passed through the little community when going or coming.  But since the desirable face of this building would not see direct sunlight for a few more months, we made the best of the opportunity at hand.

As we headed out the door, I grabbed another couple of quilts that I thought would look good in front of these turquoise doors, Sea Squared, and Annie Mae’s Lace.  I have written about these quilts before, but they haven’t been on a photo shoot.

Each of these quilts was very cooperative, as was OJ.  And, the gray doors and shuttered windows were rather showy themselves, giving the doors some competition as backgrounds.

Details of the construction of these quilts and other stories about them can be found by clicking on the links within the story above, or following them here:

Ollie Jane’s Flower Garden is here.

Annie Mae’s Lace is here.

Sea Squared is here.

I’ve already realized that Fairhope Feedsacks and another couple of quilts have fabrics that would coordinate with these doors. We will visit them again!

The Farmhouse visits The Farm House

This was one of the first few blocks I made for the 52 Tuesdays quilt. It seemed like a good idea to get a photo of the quilt with the subject that inspired this image in the background.

It was a dreary day, even drizzling cold rain, as I propped the quilt on a swing in front of the building. The hayrake and bicycle wouldn’t be included in this photo shoot, but a warm fire beckoned us inside for a few more photos.

Becky, the owner of the Farm House, was gracious as always to allow us to pose the quilt and shoot a few images.

Having a quilt in tow is a bit like carrying a baby with you, or a cute puppy. Conversations are easy! Everyone, at least in the south, has a quilt story to share. It often starts off with “my grandmother…”. I love hearing those stories.

52 Tuesdays in front of The Farm House, the subject of Tuesday #4

Judy, who works at The Farm House, said seeing 52 Tuesdays triggered fond memories of her grandmother’s quilts. That’s another reason for dragging my quilts around all over the place.

Other photo shoots at The Farm House are described in these posts:

Seven Black Birds (in the photo above).

The Farmhouse (with several quilts shown and featuring Jim’s post-processing skills).

Christmas Quilts on the Farm (interior and exterior quilt poses of Christmas quilts).

Dirt Roads

“But all of us have stories.  Who doesn’t drive past an old homestead, an old store, a bridge no longer in use, and say, “I remember…”.  That memory can live on only if we share it.  Write it down, make a voice recording, or at the very least, tell it to one person who will remember it.”

I found this quote in my notes for future blog posts.  I’m always telling people to “write it down,” when I hear stories told.  Like photographs that are no longer printed, stories from our past and present experiences may get lost.  

My friend Marie has recently published her memoirs, Dirt Roads Lead Home: A Memoir About Connections to a Place.  It’s currently available at amazon.  Details are here.

I was privileged to be an early reader of Marie’s stories and found them delightful.  I love reading memoirs of all types, but Marie and I share common roots in small town, rural Georgia landscapes.  Although our growing up experiences were in many ways not alike, her memories of buses and clotheslines and kitchen routines brought similar, yet different, personal flashbacks to mind.

Marie included maps for her family members to relate to places in the past.  Drawing maps led to the thought of drawing other things, so the volume is illustrated by Marie’s delightful sketches.

If you are a country girl from the South, or if you aren’t, check out Marie’s book to trigger memories of your childhood.  Then write them down!  Or sketch the place.  Or make a quilt.  Or do all the above!

Note:  After a month of no blogging and not much sewing; just in a different routine, it’s good to be back at it all.  I’ve been stitching by hand on the past few evenings, and it does feel great!  Today the sewing machine is humming, too.  The festive life is good: cooking, visiting, entertaining are all fun, but I’m glad to be back in a familiar groove.

Christmas Quilts on the Farm

We left home on a recent glorious fall day with a camera and some quilts in the car.  We ended up with boxes of notecards showing Jim’s photos of quilts in unexpected places.

The most stunning image to me is this one of Miss Lily’s Baskets on a hayrake.  It was a sunny day, but the magician’s hand in the digital darkroom transformed it into something ethereal.

The same little quilt posed on the mantel in a rustic living room,

and on a chair at an outdoor banquet table.

Another seasonal quilt, Pomegranates and Poinsettias, lounged on a chair in front of poinsettias and a Christmas tree.  A fire in the fireplace was welcome on this cool day.

Small Tree Farm became part of a vignette of tools on the side of a building.  

I love the contradictions in texture:  soft quilted textiles against hard rusty tools.

I love the contradictions in value:  brilliant colors of fabric against old wood faded to gray.


In case you missed them, earlier posts give details of these quilts.  Miss Lily’s Baskets is here.

Pomegranates and Poinsettias is here, and Small Tree Farm hasn’t really been described except on the page of patterns I’ve designed.  Another post about it and its larger companion piece will be forthcoming.

Last year’s post about Christmas quilts is here.  Details of some of these same quilts are included in that post, with photos in different surroundings.  If you are wondering, Mistletoe and Holly, mentioned in last year’s post, isn’t finished, but I’m working on it now – repeating my love of stitching on red and green during this season.

While browsing my photo files for Christmas quilts, I found this image of a commissioned piece I did a few years ago.  I think its colors are well suited for this season, too.

Indigo Playtime


Bundle of doilies at the flea market: $1

Others acquired at more junk piles later in the day:  total $5

One hour of dipping and rinsing, Maytag at work, some drying on the rack, then this:  Priceless!

Someone, or several someones, had a bunch of doilies and such that they didn’t want.  They might have a tiny hole or a stain or two, but in the donation pile they went.  I brought them home, dumped them on the table, and photographed them.  The first ugly photo above  is the $1 pile.

Another couple of pieces came from another store, the hankie with the hideous yellow lace was $1, a tea towel was $1.  You see those in the second ugly shot.

I had a fresh vat of indigo dye that I had mixed for friends earlier in the week, so I wet the fabrics and began dipping.

The dye appears green and when the fabric is first removed from the vat, it is green.  But, exposed to air, the chemistry magic takes place.  The oxidation process makes the color change to blue right before your eyes.

This photo shows the first few pieces as they oxidize.  The one on the bottom right is freshest from the dye vat, the others have been out in the air from 1 to 5 minutes longer.

One of the beauties of overdying old linens is the reveal on embroidered pieces.  White-on-white embroidery is beautiful in its own way, but, the dye takes it to another level.  This huck cloth pillow sham (an earlier find) is a great example of that.

Damask tablecloths and napkins are amazing, too.  The subtle color changes from the differing directions of thread in the weave is not subtle after dyeing.  This tablecloth (a piece from an earlier dyeing session) also has variations because I left some areas bundled up so less dye reached the fibers and/or less oxidation took place.


And, I thought the two yellowed tea towels I dipped yesterday were plain.  But, no.  Once I hung them up, I saw patterns woven in the fabric.  Amazing!

It’s addictive; this blue magic.  Every stage is exciting.  Seeing the color change.  Seeing what’s left after rinsing (the pale blue trim was dipped three times, but because it’s not a natural fiber – has a lot of polyester in it, I think – it never becomes the deep blue like the others).  Playing with it after it’s dried.  Then planning how to incorporate it into a piece of fiber art.  All stages are fun.  

And, that, for certain, is priceless.


The same mass of textiles, now blue.  Variations in color come from different fiber content of the pieces and the number of times I dipped them.

I’ve written about the process of indigo dyeing before:  several posts, in fact.  You can click on links here and here to see earlier posts…or if you are reading this later than the original post,  type “indigo” in the search box and you’ll find more with photos of finished projects using indigo-dyed pieces.

Fairhope Feedsacks

It was a gray day when we recently visited Fairhope, Alabama, but I had a bit of color in my purse.  Early in my quilting adventures (2003, I think), we visited Fairhope and I saw a log cabin quilt made from reproduction feedsack fabrics.  I came home and started sewing.

When we headed to Fairhope last week, I rolled the little quilt and tucked it into my purse just in case there were any photo ops.

The skies were heavy, so I stopped at the first picket fence with a color-coordinated house behind it, and snapped this view.

In a couple of shops, I saw welcoming vignettes and store owners graciously let me drape the fabric about their merchandise.  It’s amazing what a crazy old woman can get away with if she bothers to ask.

In a tee-shirt shop, I was amazed that they had laid out a display of shirts in just these feedsack colors!

And then, Sailor sauntered by and plopped down for a nap.  He was kind enough to model the quilt, creating a unique spot for Fairhope Feedsacks to rest.

At the pier, pilings and tree roots served as quilt racks.

And, at a candy store, more fences, porch railings, an old dresser, and even a baby carriage, a blue baby carriage, gave the little bit of a quilt a place to perch.

Now I’m looking for places to take some other small quilts.  I love making the little ones.  And since I”m doing it for fun, who cares what size it is?  I know a lot of people think a quilt has to cover a bed.  I’m so glad they are wrong!  

Fairhope Feedsacks measures 19” x 24” .  The logs finish at  3/4” wide.  I probably used Dream cotton request batting and cotton thread.  

Lessons learned from this quilt:  

Washing a quilt gives it a softened aged look instantly.  

I personally don’t like the same fabrics used in the same position in a log cabin (that’s what I did here, giving the double dose of turquoise every time the blocks meet).  I like the colors to be more random, scrappier.

The result, this little piece, was one of my first attempts at free motion quilting.  I used a variegated thread and a simple meandering stitched path.  It’s not complicated, It’s not a competitive piece, but the little quilt is pleasing to hang about the house…or on fence posts, or at the beach, or on a cooperative doggie.

Here is a photo of Fairhope Feedsacks at home, atop the clock in the breakfast room where it hung out all summer with a compatibly colored rooster.