Block Exchange, Locust Grove Home

It's hard to imagine this old curmudgeon is the same man as the strapping young man accepting the surrender of the British as depicted in the painting below...






What a fun day at the historic Locust Grove Home in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. It's so wonderful living in a state with such rich history. The Locust Grove Historic home is where George Rogers Clark, one half of the famous Lewis and Clark Expedition sent his remaining years of life. It's sad to think he had to move into this home, which was owned by his sister and brother in law, after he lost his leg in an accident and wasn't able to take care of himself well. This is a lovely day trip for anyone in Louisville. If you are going with a group, you can have City Cafe deliver the lunch to you, like we did, and it's an all inclusive trip. The artifacts are as close to the early period of the home. Very few are found that belong to the original family because the house was sold and only taken back by the government in the late 1960's for preservation.

Textiles were an important part of the early lives of the plantation which included many crops, not just one. Beautiful grounds surround the once many thousand acre home, which is now a 55 acre historical landmark. It is the sight of many fairs and reenactments over the seasons.


Quilter's don't forget to bring your blocks for the exchange next week. You only need fabric to be written on.

Here's the schedule for the next 6 months...smile

Well, once again the group has had a fantastic brain storming/planning session. This "semester" I think we have a variety everyone should enjoy. When we are not traveling or learning something new, we are having our usual Sit-N-Sew at Northeast Christian Church, in Louisville, Kentucky, USA every Tuesday.

That being said, our plans are thus:

July 24th: Shirley will be finishing up the Underground Sampler blocks.

July 31st: We will be touring the Locust Grove Home. This is an antebellum home with some civil war era quilts. We will have a guided tour and lunch at the home.

August 7th: It's time already for the signature block exchange to begin. Our Bloomin' Rose block exchange was such a huge success, that once again, Shirley will lead us in our gift to each other for the Christmas party in December. Look through your stash of fabric and bring your biggest piece of material to work from, or be creative and bring what you want for your color coordinated blocks this time.

August 21st: Julie organizes a trip to the Kentucky State Fair.

September 11th: Joan teaches a mystery class.

October 16th: Sheelah organizes a trip to Louisville Stoneware and Hadley Pottery.

November 16th: Shirley teaches a string quilt class.

November 20th: Julie organizes a trip to the Farmington Historic Home.

December 1st: Party at Sheelah's house.

Learning opportunities at our local quilt shops pop up from time to time and sometimes we take a class together. Also, we have pot luck lunches at our member's homes. So, by no means is this the final say in our fun times together. There's never too much laughter or too many opportunities to expand our ability to learn something new, about quilting or life.

Bloomin' Rose Block Party

One thing almost all quilt groups are good at is having a party. Heaven forbid there not be cake, or puppies or husbands hanging around. Of course we played games. Sherrill and Evelyn are having a discussion concerning their winnings. We used just such an occasion to have our chance to show off all the quilts we'd made. Last December, instead of a gift exchange at our Christmas party, we had a signature block exchange for the members that wanted to participate. We exchanged 16 blocks with each other, and added a lot more or a few more to come up with these lovely quilts.

Shirley hosted us at her home and made a rag quilt version of the blocks, quilting as you go and leaving the frayed edges, thus the rag quilt look.

Sherrill made extra blocks and made butterflies and add a striking blue sashing which fit just right.

Evelyn is our Queen of the guild. She isthe longest attending member of the quilt guild. She showed her stuff with making, I think one of the largest quilts. What is most impressive is she does most, if not all her work, by hand!

Lovely Mary makes the most lovely quilts. If we were to award a prize, we all agreed, she would win.

Ginny got the prize for using up the stash in the best way. This border fabric is from a retreat trip we took several years back.

Our group is blessed with some particularly great quilters. Joan is one of those. She is, what I call a master quilter. In her other life, she taught home economics, has been published in magazines and sews anything and everything quilt or not related. She was also the first to complete her quilt for the Show and Tell.

CiCi is a newer member that has created this lovely quilt with the leaves as a secondary design-very nice movement in this quilt.

Carol is another new quilter that continues to amaze us. I can't wait to see her interpretation of a quilt she's working on.
Yours truly. I was the only one that pieced the border. I like the way the hourglass blocks mimicked the center blocks. The corner blocks were free motion quilted roses.Deloris made a lovely quilt, choosing just the right colors in the borders.

Dot did the most innovative piecing technique for the group project. She butted the blocks together and fused the striped sashing over the top. Then she zigzagged over the top of the fused sashing. Click to enlarge to see the borders better, sorry about the blurry picture.
Ruth lightened up the design with a delicate looking quilt that is very nice.

We had to add some extra signatures but, that was half the fun, finding your name in another person's quilt. Some of us added our name more than once...oh well...smile.

A good day was had by all and we went on our way looking forward to planning another year together, parties, Sit-N-Sew and travels.

Brainstorming planning day Tuesday, July 10 from 10:00 to 1:00. If you are looking for a new group to join, check us out at Northeast Christian church.
Happy Quilting!

Lavenders, Bread of Life, and King Quilt Products

Northeast Quilting Friends was on the move in style to the hinter lands of Kentucky. We drove and we drove through the beautiful rural country side around Danville and Liberty, Ky. Miles and miles of 4 rail wood fences and lovely stone fences escorted us along our way.

Fifteen of our members made the annual trek to, first off, Kings Quilt Products in Liberty, Ky. If you go with a large group, to any of these places, they really appreciate a phone call to give them a chance to have the extra staff to handle that many people.

Here we are filing in and browsing through $2.00 a yard fabric and finding lots of goodies. Now, I must give a bit of caution, several of the bolts did have a "seconds" sticker on them, but not all, so buyer beware. Built alongside the quilt shop is everything you need for the farm The farm supply side had, what I think, was the largest selection of bib overalls I've ever seen....imagine that...smile...

Following Kings, it was on to The Bread of Life,
a restaurant that helps support the local economy and gives some aid to people in need. Anyway-great buffet-good 'ole country food-and the best warm chocolate cake with peanut butter icing-I've ever eaten. '
The chewy praline fudge is also highly recommended.

Then it was on to Lavender's Quilt Shop.

The store is deep in the country with a few Amish that still need a hitching post where they can tie up their horses.

What fun we all had while the husband and wife team that lives near and owns the shop, cut our fabric for us and also kept us entertained with their humor.

My oh my what a wonderful day!

Quilter's Day Out was a HUGE SUCCESS!

When people come together for quilting, it's a wonderful thing, and this weekend for the national Quilter's Day Out celebration, it was no exception. Well over 500 people attended this event.


We began the day at 10:00 with registration at the door, for $2.00 and a canned good for the local food pantry, you received a Big gift bag filled with all kinds of quilter things and then some.

Next you were able to choose between viewing a quilt challenge called "Think Green Quilt Challenge" or going into the gymnasium and viewing the participating guilds and vendors




Midway through the day, there was a guest speaker, Valerie White, who was a great motivating speaker. Valerie, who is an accomplished quilt artist, is standing to the right of our event organizing leprechaun, Linda Slye, who is holding the tote bag full of fabric our group gave away.


Dot, one of our fabulous members, seated, is manning the voting area for the Think Green Quilt Challenge. We had 23 quilts entered in the competition. I'm sure there were over 500 attending the event, because I made 300 ballots for Viewer's Choice voting and we ran out of those pretty early and had to improvise ballots, using notebook paper. Anyway, we had first, second and third place winners, which received ribbons and cash prizes. All voters were eligible for winning a tote bag filled with fabric.

You could also choose to see 8 award winning quilts from Happy Heart Quilt Guild. These quilts were interpretations of Mother Goose.


All in all, it was a wonderful day of quilting and fun and our quilt guild, the most wonderful guild in the world, had a lot of fun and are looking forward to next year's national quilt holiday, Quilter's Day Out. Come join us or start your own...smile...