Quilts, Quilts and more Quilts

Hello Y'all!!!!     With each passing day here in my neck of the woods, the leaves are getting more colorful and each night brings a little more of a nip in the air.    It is just a reminder of all things Fall.   Fall is a time of "all things beautiful" because of the colors that are associated with fall.    If we have a beautiful fall with all the lovely colors, you see everything from the most beautiful gold to the boldest red and a million colors in between!    I love all the colors that bring us on up to Thanksgiving.    I think pumpkins and other winter squashes are what really tell me the season is upon me.    When I start seeing all those lovely items in the fresh food aisles at the grocery stores, I know fall is upon me, even if I haven't noticed outside yet.    hahahaha     Ohhh, I have to say that I LOVE acorn squash!    I love to take a  real small acorn squash, cut it in half and scoop out the seeds and make a crumble of a little butter, brown sugar, oats and a dab of flour with a sausage link crumbled in each of the halves and bake till it's nice and tender.....ooohhhh, you talkin' 'bout some yummy for your tummy food, this is!!!!     It may not look real nice in your rear view mirror, but you can't see that unless you look, right!    hehehe

I just wanted to share with y'all that this was one very exciting weekend for all of the Family Community Education Club members here in our county.    We had our first ever, and hopefully to be the first of many to come, Quilt Shows.    I gotta tell ya, I knew when we first started talking about that it would be good, simply because I know the caliber of ladies that are in these clubs.    They go all out for something that is worthy of the time and effort.    This Quilt Show far exceeded any of our expectations though!!!!!  

I had been to a Quilt Show back in April of this year at Paducah, Ky and I must say that their Quilt Show could not hold a candle to ours!!!!    Theirs was a juried Quilt Show, meaning that the quilts were being voted on to place in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so on..........but there was NOT a quilt there that was any more beautiful than what we had, just for fun and show!!!!

We also had 2 ladies come and present their Trunk Shows for us, ohhhhhh how much fun that was!!!! I had never seen a trunk show before and what it is, it's where the quilt artist brings a trunk load of her quilts and tells the story of how the quilts came to be and how they choose the fabrics to make such beautiful quilts and how they modify on the fly to suit their needs and just any little interesting or fun detail of the quilt.     If you have never been to one, I suggest if you ever see where one is gonna be, make plans to attend, you will NOT be disappointed!!!!    These 2 ladies was as much an artist as Rembrandt or Monet or any of the masters of the brush.    These ladies are masters of the thread arts, and it truly is an art.

Now, there are at least 2 types of quilts.    Bearing in mind, this is from my perspective.   hahahaha   There are utilitarian quilts.    Those are the ones that we sleep under in the winter time and we may not be as likely to put those on display, unless you call hanging one out on the clothes line being on display.    hahahaha     Then there are the quilts that are literally works of ART!!!!!     Those are made just to garner the oohhhs and aahhhs of everyone that sees them.    At our Quilt Show we seen a whole lot of both!!!    And absolutely everything I seen was amazing!!!!  

We had 122 items on display!!!!!   With over 80 of those being quilts and the rest was table runners, pillows, table toppers, hot pads and all kinds of stuff.    We had from baby quilts all the way up to the extra huge king sized quilts and bedspreads.     We had old quilts, I mean old quilts to quilts that was 4 months old.    It was just a baby in age compared to most of the others, but an heirloom just the same.  

We worked on Thursday and Friday putting it all together and I do have to say that it was a great success and it was beautiful and we are looking forward to next year, for sure.     Who knows, I may even make a pot holder for it next year!    hahahaha      I would love to make a full sized quilt, but I really doubt that will happen, but a small quilt may be in the works, who knows.

You know I would not tell you about something without some pics to back up the story, right?     Yeah, y'all know me well enough now to know there will be pictures.    I just wish I could share ALL 275 of them, but I will share a good sampling of what I got and I do hope that you enjoy them.    You know that if you click on a picture, it will enlarge it a whole lot and you can see better, so do that, but make sure to read about the ones that have a story with it.    I tried to find out as much info about them as I could to share with the guests as they came through.   It made it fun for them and me.    I hope you enjoy.

This quilt is called "Dear Jane".    I didn't name it.    I was thinking that a much better name for it would be "Insane Jane"!     hahaha      But there are over 250 blocks making up this quilt and no material in it is a repeating material other then the blue border around the outside and the backing.    The pics do no justice for any of these quilts and I am sorry for that.

This quilt is called "Stars" and it was made in 1891.   It is also considered a string quilt.   Each star is made up of 8 points.    Some of the points had two or three pieces of fabrics.     One of the points had no less than 18 pieces of fabric in one of the points!!!    The lady had it said that it was made by her husbands grandmother.    There was an appraiser there and after her appraisal show was over, she went around with myself and another lady and offered free appraisals on a few of the really old quilts and she said this one, for insurance purposes, would be valued at $1800 to $2000.   I really loved looking at all the old material!!!

Ok, so this was a very special quilt to me, I'll tell ya.   The name of this quilt is "Crosses of War"    The same lady owns this quilt that owns the one above.     This quilt was pieced and quilted by the ladies of Watertown Tennessee in 1943.    After they got the quilt done, they sold raffle tickets and raffled this quilt off to raise money for the War Effort during World War 2!!!!     That really spoke to me!!!   The lady that owns it said her husband used the money he got from selling his crop of tobacco that year to buy raffle tickets for this quilt.     The money earned from most tobacco crops would have been used to see the family on the farm through the coming winter.     That's how important they thought the War Effort was back then.     It too, was valued at around $1800 to $2000.     This quilt made me proud to be at the Quilt Show!!!!!

 This was a "Crazy Quilt".      They are made with all kinds of fabrics and shapes of fabrics using all different kinds of stitches directly over the seams of the quilt on the front side.     Some of those stitches were very elaborate.    Most of the modern sewing machines have a ton of built in fun and funny stitches to use.    This could very easily be duplicated on the machines of today.    Most of them just used small scraps for these types of quilts.     And then of course there are "string quilts" that literally use up stuff that most would toss in the trash.    Pieces no larger than a finger nail, used in a string quilt.

This was a shot from the back far left hand corner up to the front right hand corner of the main exhibit hall.    

This was from the right hand side back up to the front left hand side.    I do believe some of these pictures was taken on Friday sometime, because som of the quilts was rearranged to better utilize the space and show off the quilts.

This is the right front wall.     And just a short story to tell in the midst of the pictures.    I had texted my brother on Friday night and told him about the quilt show and asked him to come and bring mom down to see the quilts if he didn't have to work or if he felt like it.    Well, I never heard anything from on Friday night.   I checked my cell phone Saturday morning, still no word from him.    If I would have had time, I would have been upset and probably cried a little, but, heck fire, I was so busy I didn't have time for tears.    hahaha    Several times throughout the morning I thought about mom and I just knew she would have loved this.    I had sat down for a minute when there was a little lull between guests and all of the sudden I looked toward the front door, squinting a little, from the farthest corner and I seen......YES......that's my brother and my mother standing there looking right at me and I jumped up and went hopping and running and squealing off to meet them!!!!    People thought I was crazy for a little bit.    One of my friends, when I told her that was my mom, she looked at both of us and said, "that's where you get your sparkle from, because she's got the same sparkle!"   Well, what can I say, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, or is it nut, oh well, neither falls from the tree.     hehehehe      That was another thing that made the quilt show extra special for me, my brother taking the time to bring mom down and they both really enjoyed it!!!!

Back left hand corner.

 Front right hand corner again and some along the back.   You can't see it very well, but the quilt in the corner that is folded in half on the front wall was made in the early 1900's by the mother of two of my good friends.     It was made from men's wool suits that had been taken apart and cut into 4 inch squares and just sewn together in no form or shape other than a quilt sized rectangle.    It was tacked in the center of each square.    It being wool, you could tell is was very warm and also very heavy.

This shot is looking at the antique wall from the far back left hand corner.    There are several more that did not get in this picture.

This area with the tables in the forefront of the picture was Family Community Education Clubs fundraiser table.     Ladies searched thru their fabrics and brought scraps and old patterns and all kinds of stuff to sell if anyone seen something they wanted.    That little table of items earned about $100.     That was awesome!  

 More of the fundraiser table.

This area in front of the chairs is where the appraisals and the trunk shows took place.    When the lady that done the appraising was in the process of that, another lady and myself was helping open up quilts that had been brought in for appraisal.    She and I worked together like we had done that all our lives and the appraiser offered both of us jobs with her!!!!   Cracked me up!!!!   hahahaha     She kept saying, "Wow, y'all are really good, wanna job!"     hahaha     It was fun!

That quilt with the paper underneath it is called an "Anniversary Quilt".    It was made in honor of the recipients 50th wedding anniversary.    Their daughter-in-law took quilt squares to all their friends and neighbors and family and had them to do something special on the quilt squares.    Each block represented some one or something on the farm, and animal or a tool or a building.   It was just awesome to look at that quilt.

 This was in one of the smaller exhibit rooms.   It also had some amazing quilts in it!!

This too, is the same room.

On these tables is some of the smaller quilted items.   One is a quilted cake pan sized carrier.    It was a really nice cake carrier.

The folded quilt was made out of blocks that were completely finished.    Each one was about pot holder sized and then sewn together to make a quilt.    The owner could easily add more blocks to make it wider or longer.    I wish I had paid more attention to it, but I just remember it was a really neat quilt.

I loved the quilted wall hanging there.    It was such a fun item, I wanted it so bad, but the owner of it did not feel sorry for me at all.   hahaha

4 quilts are shown here.    The edge of the light blue and white blocks.    That was "State Flowers".   It was hand embroidered and done back when there was only 48 states.    I thought that was pretty neat.     The next one is called "Brides Bouquet" and you can see the shape of the block and how it got its name.     The next one is the grandmother of them all.     It was pieced and quilted in 1866!!!!   I almost was moved to tears when I touched it!!!!     In the center of each star was some patterned material that had lost all the color except for what looked like dirt.    I got to looking at it and all the alike pieces had that same dirty look, only it wasn't dirt at all.    It is where the color had disintegrated!!!!     Also upon closer inspection, the pink that you see inside the blue and beige was an 8 tipped star cut out as 1 single piece!!!!! And the circle center was stitched in with the beige, and then the individual beige points that led to the individual blue points.    I am still at a loss as to how this was accomplished as neatly and nicely as it was 150 years ago!!!!!

This quilt is white, obviously......but what is not so obvious is the patterns in the quilting.    The quilting itself is what was on display.     It was the most gorgeous handwork I have ever seen!!!!   Every stitch on that quilt was exactly the same length!!!!    One person even tried to argue with me that it wasn't hand stitched.    I finally showed the comparison of a machine stitched vs hand stitched and convinced them it was hand stitched.    It is about the finest work I ever seen!!!!!

Well, this is just a sampling of the over 275 pics that I took!!!!     I really hope and pray that y'all enjoyed seeing these pieces of art.    Oh how I wish I had enough room to share every one of them with y'all.    I know some of y'all would love it!!     But don't ever let anyone tell you that piecing and quilting quilts is not art, because let me tell you, it is ART in is purest form, especially when every stitch is hand stitched!!!!     Fabric is just one of the many medias that people choose to work in and it takes a lot of talent and skill put it all together with perfect stitches to make a beautiful quilt.  

Well, it's just about bed time for me.    But before I go, I have a question for all of us.    Where will you spend eternity, if you don't wake up in the morning?     If you would say, "I don't know", all I can say is don't go to bed unsettled.    Know that you know that you know you will spend eternity in the presence of Jesus Christ our Messiah.     How do I do that you may ask?     #1.   Confess with your mouth that you are a sinner.     Tell Yeshua, Jesus Christ that you are a sinner and have made a lot of mistakes.    #2.    Believe in your heart that Yeshua, Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, lived His life teaching His disciples to be teachers, died on the Cross by crucifixion, was buried in a borrowed tomb and was resurrected on the 3rd day and walked with His disciples and many others and then ascended into heaven where He sits at His Fathers right hand making intercession on our behalf.   These are basic fundamental beliefs that every one who believes in Yeshua, Jesus Christ believes, or you don't believe and thus are not a believer.    #3.    Then ask Yeshua, Jesus Christ to come into your heart and to be the Lord of your life, directing each step you take, through the direction of the Holy Spirit.    I just have to tell you, that if you haven't yet given your life to Christ, it will be the best thing you will ever do for yourself!!!!    It's hard to explain it until you've committed your life to Christ, and then you will be wondering why you didn't do it sooner.    Anyway, if you have questions, ask me here or seek out a trusted person that you know is a Christian and talk to that trusted person and tell him or her what you want to do or that you want more information.    Start reading your bible, if you don't have a bible, get one and start reading John and the the other gospels and move on in to the writings of Paul.    Don't worry if you don't understand everything you read, the Holy Spirit will help you understand what you need to understand at the time you are reading.   And when you do read, ask for more understanding and ask for more and ask for more and it won't be long till you will be grasping and understanding what you are reading.     Just know that you know that you know before you lay your head on your pillow tonight, that if you don't wake up in the morning on planet earth, that you will be in the presence of Yeshua, Jesus Christ.

I hope and pray that y'all have a wonderful, peaceful night of refreshing rest and that tomorrow will be the best day of your life so far!!!    Always remember that Yahweh, God loves you more than you can possibly understand.     He is the One that gave His Son for us to be in right relationship with Him!!!!     That's love!!!!     I love y'all too and hope to see you back here real soon!!    hugs and love, Patty

(ps: please forgive and overlook any misspelled words, it's late and I want to rest so badly, but I wanted to get this posted too.  I will try to correct any that I see tomorrow.)