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The quilt show is over for another 2 years; we'll be back in September 2011, if our needles hold out! I've updated my Quilt Gallery at right with the two quilts I had in this year's show. Not My Grandma's Flower Garden started as a retreat project in 2005, and I finished it this month. Let Freedom Shine is made from blocks I won in a block exchange in July 2007. I finished it just minutes before I was due to check in for Flower Valley Quilting Guild's 2009 show.
Since there were about 300 items on exhibit, I've just included photos of a few here. The variety of styles is always evident at our shows. The quilt at right is made of counted cross stitch panels depicting lighthouses. Our only male quilter, Marty, made this quilt from cross stitch to quilting and label. It won the Viewer's Choice award as well as 2nd place in bed size quilts.
My two quilts were in the Wall Quilt division. The blue ribbon wall quilt was this one, made by a 10-year old girl who is a neighbor of one of our most experienced and creative members. Many people who have seen the photo, as well as those at the show, remarked that it reminded them of the strippy patterns used by the Gees Bend quilters. The young girl picked her colors, arranged the blocks, sewed them on Barb's machine, and then even did some of the machine quilting learning to "drive" Barb's long-arm quilting machine. Quite a lot of talent for the first decade of life!
All of our more recent shows have included a showcase by a featured quilter. This collection of work drew many admiring visitors, because Wanetha (seated at left) has perfected various techniques of piecing, applique and embroidery, and she is a sought after teacher as well.
Wanetha's traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden with its unique appliqued border highlights its owner's commitment to perfection, and it earned a blue ribbon for bed-sized quilt.
This quilt by Jane S. greeted show visitors with some light hearted whimsy. "It's in the Bag" is its title, and it has won honors at other shows for its maker.
Miniatures are exact scale replicas of full sized patterns. This little Storm at Sea was a prize winner in that division and again, precision counts. And Theresa does have a great eye for color!
Back in the wall quilts, the white ribbon went to this marvelous diary of a retired teacher's family and career. Using licensed prints from the Dick and Jane series, as well as photo transfers of her family, Judy K has created an album in textile form that will be cherished forever.
Soon we hope to learn how many visitors our show had, and how much money we made on our raffle quilt. (No, I didn't win it....) Thanks to many friends, including Marty H., Barb F., and Gary and Karen M., for coming. On Sunday at show closing I stayed, as did many others, to help take down and sort the quilts for pickup, as well as to break down the exhibit poles and drapes and return them to containers for the exhibit company to pick up. The school gym was completely transformed in about two hours, with many willing bodies there to do the work. Outside of aching feet and one blood blister on my right hand, I was no worse for the weekend.
Now, it's time to go through my stash and pile of UFOs in my "fabric aging room" and see what to work on next. Also I'm co-chairing our Charity Quilts Committee for next year and it's time to start deciding on what to make for that, as well. But first, I think I need to clean and reorganize the sewing room before it's time to move the plants inside, since many of them live in that south window in the winter. And it's blowing colder outside!
Well, I got my two quilts finished and turned in for the show about 5:30 last night. Today I'll be spending most of the day at the show, either staffing the admission table or showing people around. Plus voting on my favorites and visiting the interesting vendors. And bringing some of the church's men's club's delicious barbecue home for supper. I'll take photos of my quilts and others and hopefully post some this evening.
The show particulars:
More than 300 quilted items made by members of the Flower Valley Quilting Guild
Saturday, Sept. 26, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 27, noon - 4 p.m.
Atonement Lutheran Church School Gym, 1285 New Florissant Road (at Parker Road)
Florissant, MO.
Hope to see many friends there!
I apologize for not having a picture of this thing, but we got a new trash can this week. Actually it's a huge (to us) dumpster on wheels. Our waste management company dropped one at every home in the village yesterday with instructions on how to place them at the curb on Trash Day, which is Wednesday around here. The dumpster has to be placed just so, three feet away from trees, other cans, or posts, in order for a robot arm operated by the truck driver to pick it up, tip it and place it back on the ground. Thus it requires only one operator (the driver) to pick up the trash, allowing the company to be more profitable. (Translation: there goes another job eliminated in the recession.)
The amazing thing is that every home received a 95-gallon dumpster. It is larger than our 65-gallon recycle dumpster by far. Ever since single-stream recycling came to our village we have had, at most, one kraft grocery sack of trash a week that wouldn't even take up much room in our old 30-gallon can. (All of our vegetable garbage and egg shells go into the compost heap...) Why we need a receptacle three times larger, especially with recycling taking most of the cardboard, paper, metal, plastic and glass, is a mystery. Even if we had a family of 6, we wouldn't fill the thing more often than every three weeks! Usually we put the recycle can out only every other week, and it's never full, either. We solved the can congestion at the back of the house problem by going together with Barb, our driveway-sharing neighbor. We'll both use her trash can, and our recycling can. We stored the extras under her carport, and we'll probably use them to store summer lawn furniture cushions and other outdoor gear this winter. (Each household pays almost $20 a month for these lovely receptacles and the once a week pickup.)
So far no special dumpster for the lawn waste (grass, leaves, small limbs) pickup. We can still use a plain waste can or paper bags (no plastic!) for those. That truck still has a crew of three--two riders and a driver. At least for now.....
On a planet that needs less consumption and less trash, it seems a shame that we now have these plastic behemoths lining the streets each week, begging people to throw out more stuff they didn't need in the first place! OK, end of rant; I'm climbing off the soap box now. Although I wonder where these things were made...if we imported them, there's some more American jobs headed for the landfill.
Last night I was reviewing my 200+ posts on Twitter, and realized that I had let an anniversary slip by. I started tweeting on Sept. 13 of last year, and soon was sending updates about our heavy rains following Tropical Depression Ike as it drifted northward and got hung up right over St. Louis. I joined Twitter so I could follow a friend who was sending updates from an event. He has since dropped out of Twitter, but I have managed to find a use for the 140-character brevity in these little messages. Today I learned (from Old Media, like Radio Station KMOX) that the co-founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, is a St. Louis native. He grew up not far from the church we now attend in the Compton neighborhood. On TV tonight, he looks so YOUNG.
Unfortunately, I tend to be a follower and not an early adopter of technology. (The lone exception was computing itself; our office at the University was among the first to get PCs in the mid 1980s, but at first all we did was use them as infinitely correctable typewriters. I was suspicious of the Mac interface (having started on CPM and graduated to DOS by taking free courses) at first, but when I had the chance to teach in a Mac lab, I jumped in and haven't looked back. I loved having students submit work as e-mail attachments so I could add comments electronically and send them back for revision instead of going through red or green ink.
But the pioneering spirit stopped there. By the time I really went for e-mail, younger people were into chat instead. (I've resisted IM so far.) I finally got into blogging after I saw what a niece could do with pictures and what a former student could do with words. That was in 2006, about the time that cell phones started having text and every young person developed sore thumb joints. No text for me....I want my phone to just be a phone. Although when my 2-year agreement with my way too expensive carrier expires in November, I won't be renewing it. I'm going to get something like a Jitterbug for plain old calls and then...well..I must confess that I would like an iPod Touch. I didn't realize you could surf the 'net for free and check your email on one at free wifi hot spots, until this spring when a computer savvy 30-something friend showed me. That would save me having to pack the laptop when I travel! Of course, I don't have any kind of iPod now, and by the time I get one, they will be Old, too, I guess.
Geting back to Twitter, at first I wasn't sure how useful it could be, but in my review tonight I find it makes a perfect online diary that gives me the dates the first hummingbird showed up, when the first tree frog croaked, when the raspberries were ripe, how many sleet storms we had last winter, etc. As well as departures and arrivals on trips, various ailments and other things that I posted to update the family. I think I'll just print the tweets for this year out and paste them in that dead tree journal I never have time to write in anymore.
A number of former students have also found me on Twitter and I enjoy following them and reading their updates. (Well, most of the time. I don't really need to know that your lunch gave you indigestion...) But even Twitter has lost some of its allure for the tech savvy. Everyone is on FaceBook now.
One of my close friends follows the exploits of her grandbaby on her daughter's FaceBook page. But she and I are the same age and if she can figure out FaceBook, well, I don't want to be behind. I keep getting requests to be friends with people and so far I have ignored them, but I think I'm going to have to give in. I have resisted so far because if I join FaceBook, something else will have to give--blogging? Twitter? Sleep? There aren't enough hours in the day! (Or Night.) But I'm also aware that as soon as I finally sign in to FaceBook, I'll read an article the next morning in the New York Times (online, of course--another nail in the coffin of print) telling me that sites like FaceBook are now passe too, and the Next New Thing is what I need. Sigh.
Just in case, I still have my Royal manual portable typewriter in its case in a closet upstairs, and last time I checked, the ribbon still had ink in it. You never know: the entire electrical grid we take for granted could crash and I want to be prepared. Someday paper and ink could once again be the Next New Thing. Meanwhile, feel free to follow me on Twitter, or read this blog, or whatever suits your level of techhie comfort. And when I do find the time and energy to debut on FaceBook, my loyal readers here will be among The First To Know. Thank you, and good night!
These days I'm trying to find time to finish my own quilts for the Flower Valley Quilting Guild's biennial show, which will be Sept. 26 and 27 at Atonement Lutheran Church in Florissant, MO. Hours are 10-4 on Saturday and Noon-4 on Sunday. Visitors can vote for their favorites in several categories on Saturday (my own two wall quilts will be there....) Ribbons will be in place on Sunday. I plan to hang out there most of the time both days. Admission is only $5, children under 10 are free. The quilt shown here was pieced and quilted by guild members and it will be raffled to raise funds for our guild programs the next two years. About 300 items ranging from clothing to full size quilts will be on display, plus we have a whole passel of neat vendors. Do try to attend if you can; the next show won't be until 2011.
Right now I'm finishing machine quilting and binding my entries. Once they are ready for the camera, I'll add them to my quilt gallery at the right of the blog.
The weather has been so nice, and the mosquito population so low, that we have been able to enjoy sitting on the front porch a lot this summer. One of our three hummingbird feeders is on the porch, so we get to see a lot of the action from our tiny territorial defenders. In between sorties to engage incoming enemies, the resident "papa" bird, or alpha male, often perches in the redbud tree, just a few feet away.
One afternoon not long ago, this female or immature male, either from a local brood or perhaps a migrator, managed to get in several sips before alpha papa attacked. And for once I had the camera handy.
The humming birds often challenge us as well. Few sights are as scary as one of these miniature gunships flaunting its wings, shaking its tail, and pointing that needle sharp beak at you from less than 5 feet away! Especially if you are another hummingbird. Thank goodness, the warfare has mostly ended now. Starting around Labor Day, the alpha papas departed for Central America. (The males are always first to arrive in spring and first to leave in fall. That means the females and younguns get to travel alone, without any fighter escort. So much for hummingbird chivalry!) Lately there have been what seem to be a lot of transient birds. They slip in just before dusk, perch and drink for a long time, perhaps replenishing calories depleted by their journey. How something so small can travel so far continues to amaze us. And they manage to spot our feeders, too, from a fairly high altitude.
Last week I was sitting on the porch, filing my fingernails so I wouldn't mess up the house, and a hummingbird flew right up in front of me, displayed its full array of feathers, and then just seemed to look at me quizically. Finally he or she flew away around the side of the house. And then it dawned on me--I was wearing my St. Louis Cardinals 2006 Championship T-Shirt--which is bright red. This puzzled avian briefly mistook me for a source of lunch. Sorry, little guy!
Today I was sitting on the porch going through the mail and drinking some coffee after getting home from Water Exercise. A car from Wisconsin pulled up in the driveway and it was one of our neighbor Barb's friends and business partners. She called out to me and said she knew Barb wasn't home, which is true. Barb and Ava are in Wichita until the end of the week. But her friend was in town for a wedding and decided to stop in briefly anyway. There is something old fashioned and touching and oddly reassuring about living in a neighborhood where friends know how to find the extra key and can use your place as a rest stop whether you are home or not. I realize that people who think it's crazy to share a driveway will disagree with me, but I'm glad we have such neighbors. It makes the world less harsh and scary, and in times like these, that is a Good Thing.
Labor Day has been a Lazy Day for us so far. We could go to the Greek Festival and eat a lot of baklava, or we could go to the Japanese Festival and hear the Taiko Drummers, or we could drive up near the river and look for migrating birds. Or I could get a lot of quilting done. It's only an hour and a half until noon and we are still deciding!
Once, Labor Day meant the end of summer vacation and the start of school, but these days, school begins the middle of August for a lot of people. I know that when I still worked, summer was over the first week of August because it was time to start dusting off lesson plans and going to meetings. In the South, where stricter fashion rules apply, Labor Day means putting away your white shoes, accessories and jackets in favor of more sober colors for fall. It also means the start of the fall housecleaning season almost anywhere.
For me, although I'm still finding house plants that need to be taken out to the porch for their summer outing, Labor Day is a time to look back over what has transpired since Memorial Day, the start of the summer season. Like any school kid on summer break, I still want to tally up what I have "accomplished" on my vacation. By almost any measure, summer has been good. The weather was cooler than normal, resulting in lower electric bills. June was very wet, so we haven't had to water much until lately. Plants have grown spectacularly, and some of them were even free, like this sweet potato vine that we over wintered as a tuber in a sack in the basement. We are still enjoying our home grown tomatoes and raspberries, and sharing them with neighbors and friends. We got to see all of Norm's sibs and some of their kids, as well as one of Norm's cousins in June. My cousin and his wife visited us in July. We took a long driving trip to western Oklahoma, and a shorter one to Arkansas, something I wasn't sure I could do in the winter when my cervical stenosis and resulting radiculopathy was first diagnosed. Physical therapy did wonders for it. We read books and learned more about genealogical research. We enjoyed a bonus visit from Matt and Doug in July. We are especially thankful that three first-time mothers who had life-threatening complications either with pregnancy or delivery--Heather, Jeanne and Michelle, are now all returned to health and their babies are thriving. We give thanks for all of our friends and just yesterday enjoyed a call from John and Nancy and learned that the publication of Nan's first book is closer to reality.
When I was a college aged summer camp counselor in Oklahoma, one of the first botanical harbingers of fall was the purple flowers of a common plant, ironweed. Just seeing it in bloom made me more conscious of the earlier darkness and a sense that the year was starting to pick up speed and rush headlong into winter, not my favorite season. Ironweed always made me a little sad. These days, my botanical harbinger is the wild sweet autumn star clematis, which frosts the tops of many shrubs both in town and out, as in my top photo here. I saw some on our trip to Arkansas a couple of weeks ago, and now it is all over town here, including several spots in our back yard. We still have lots of zinnias, as well as phlox and even hostas in bloom, and the chrysanthemums that have gone wild are starting to bloom, too. But seeing the clematis tells me that it's time to forget about taking the remaining house plants out, and to start planning how I'll get the ones on the porch ready to move back in. Summer is still here, but its days are numbered.
Happy labor day, to all who are still working at jobs, as well as those in well deserved retirement. And for those who need a job, or a better or more fulfilling one, may you find that soon.
On the middle day of our vacation, we set off in the opposite direction, to Fulton County, and Salem, the county seat. After a fruitful visit to the county library, where we found plat maps and other interesting items, we had some lunch and then approached the courthouse. The indexing situation, in contrast to the handy computer records we found in Randolph County, was primitive. Deeds from the years we were interested in were in books "G", "H" and on through "N". The books were Very Old, fragile, and on high shelves. The oldest one didn't even have an index in the front, and searching through 500 hand written pages for one deed seemed too daunting, so we pressed on until we found volumes with indexes in the front. Norm, bless him, lifted these 10+ pound weights overhead many times in the two days we rummaged around in the courthouses.
One note: unlike St. Louis County's courthouse, where you have to pass through metal detectors and submit your briefcase and purse to a search, we were just motioned to the back room by the circuit clerks and told to "holler if you need anything." Clearly that balance and weight work in our aerobics for over 50 class has paid off.
That deeds from the 1880s and early 1900s survive at all is a testament to the quality of the paper and ink used in those days. Handwriting is very clear and stylish; good penmanship was taught in the schools and apparently was a requirement for the job of court clerk. This one was a pivotal find; it records the sale of a land grant in Fulton County that Jesse's older brother TJ and his wife sold in January of 1908. TJ had already moved to Oklahoma and one of my theories is that the brothers and their families moved to Oklahoma Territory together. This helps advance the hypothesis. The land TJ owned was next to the partial section owned by their father, Albert A. McElyea. We didn't find that sale deed but think it would have been sold by the heirs after Albert's wife died in 1907. After a while, this kind of research is addictive, or else numbingly boring if it isn't your relative!
Researchers have to eat to keep going. We saw this bakery across from the courthouse, and thought we would get coffee and something to go with it at noon. They had just brought out their baked pepperoni and cheese sandwiches so we acquired them for lunch, which we ate on a shaded bench outside the courthouse. Salem isn't as large as Pocahontas, and the courthouse is very plain, having been built in 1890 and remodeled in the 1950s. Most of Fulton county is rocky brush and pasture, with lots of hay and cattle. The place has a no-nonsense feel to it. (Randolph County, in contrast, is part hilly, but traversed by 5 scenic rivers that bring tourists. And the eastern half of the county is in the Mississippi River delta, full of large farms devoted to rice, corn, soybeans and cotton.)
One building that caught my eye as being from the early days was this one on a corner. It seems to have been remodeled; the windows are new. It appears to be vacant, though. Perhaps it was a hotel in Salem's heyday.
While we were at the library, we asked for directions to the Old Burk Cemetery, where several records I have say that Jesse's father, A. A. McElyea, is buried. He died in 1898. I wasn't sure it would be accessible, after our fruitless search in Randolph County for Emma's parents' final resting place. But you know, you can count on libraries! A woman who was working there as a clerk helped us with the genealogy resources and said, "Oh, you mean Burk's Chapel. It's right down the road from where I live." And she gave us directions to follow county roads to the spot, and then to proceed by the section where Albert had lived as well. The McElyeas didn't live at Salem, but at a little village called Camp. (They say it is short for Indian Camp. Many Native Americans were displaced and their land sold by the government to settlers in the early 1800s.) Another nearby family was the Burks, and Albert and Mary's oldest daughter, Nancy, married one of them. And this lady in the library was related to the Burks as well. So we are practically kin.
If the directions hadn't been so good, I would never have had the courage to steer Gracie over some 6 or 7 miles of graded, dusty, red rock tracks through back country. (We still had Fulton County red dirt on the back window when we got home!) But lo, the chapel (above, built in the 1920s) did appear, and the cemetery beside it. We found the Burks and McElyeas, including some we didn't expect, near the road in one of the oldest sections. This photo shows the grouping of stones that mark the family burials. At left is the grave of Joseph, TJ and Jesse's older brother, who died in 1907. In the foreground is Albert's grave. The head stone has come off its base but someone has propped it up facing the opposite side. At the right is a monument to Nancy McElyea Burk and her baby, Lois, who both died in an epidemic in 1889. Albert's wife, Mary, isn't buried here. She lived with Jesse and TJ's younger sister, Geneva Bell, until her death in 1907. She is buried in Missouri--a trip for another day.
When I started the quest a couple of years ago to visit the graves of all four of my great grandmothers, I didn't really expect to go back any farther. But standing in that quiet country cemetery on a bright, warm August afternoon, I got goosebumps (and also chiggers) when I realized I was at the burial place of a great-great grandparent. One thing about the McElyeas is that a lot of research is online about them, and published family trees trace the line back to a Scotch-Irish ancestor who immigrated from Ireland around 1749. So I could look for Albert's father, Jesse P., in Tennesee, and his father, Hugh, in North Carolina, and his father, Laughlin, in North Carolina as well. Given the ravages of time on a stone erected in 1898, though, I'm not sure what if anything I would find. Albert (A.A. on the stone) was a Mason, and the Masonic emblem is visible on his headstone. The words carved at the top are "Come Ye Blessed" which is in keeping with his status as a ruling elder of the Cumberland Presbyterian congregation he helped to found. One day after this discovery, at Words & After Words, the book store in Hardy, I found and bought a very clear and helpful guide to genealogy research. It has checklists for everything, and on visiting cemeteries it says to bring lots of large plain sheets of paper and crayons or artist's charcoal to make rubbings. Duh! Too late, so I have the photo, and a written transcription. But I'll take the rubbing supplies if I go on any more cemetery trips. That, and I'll apply the insect repellent that is always in the car.
Back at the Hardy House, I had plenty to reflect on as I relaxed in the swing on the carport. Jesse and Emma, as well as their siblings and their parents, are coming alive to me as people instead of being names on a family tree. These two young folks, raised in adjoining counties, took off for Memphis, about 100 miles away, just before Christmas in 1891 to be married by a Justice of the Peace. I have always wondered why they left the state to get married, when there were churches and ministers at home. Census research has convinced me that they went to Tennessee because that state allowed cousins to marry and Arkansas did not. No one in the family ever talked about it, but Jesse's mother, Mary Tanner, and Emma's father, W.W. Tanner, were siblings. Jesse and Emma were first cousins. So that question is answered, but many more remain. I hope I will have more opportunities to trace their life story, a journey that began when I found a love letter Emma had written to Jesse in 1891 some 11 months before their marriage. When I get organized, I'll probably post more details about this great grandmother on my Thursday's Child blog. Goodness knows that if I think I have had far to go, well, it certainly runs in the family.
The next chapter in my journey to research the saga of my great-grandparents, Jesse and Emma McElyea, took us to Randolph County, Arkansas, where Emma spent her childhood, where her parents are buried, and where Emma and Jesse lived at least part of the time between 1892 (after their son, my grandfather, was born) and 1903 (when the last record of them in Pocahontas appears.) This picture shows the historic 1872 county courthouse, which now houses city offices.
We went to Pocahontas on the second day of our vacation, and spent the morning in the excellent Genealogy Room in the bowels of the county library. There we found various helpful indexes as well as abstracts of newspaper articles, including some from 1903 that told of Jesse's election to a secret society, Emma's week-long visit with her relatives in Walnut Hill, where she grew up, and rumors that Jesse might run for sheriff. Only a few years and months of the papers are indexed and of course I wanted more. We took a break for lunch at the Green Tomato Cafe, located in a great renovated space with inexpensive, fresh sandwiches and salads. It was Norm's birthday, so we treated him to a piece of excellent carrot cake. If you are ever in Pocahontas, this is the place for breakfast or lunch. They close at 2 p.m., though.
All along, I had been wondering where Jesse and Emma lived between 1901, when a newspaper clipping told of the death of a baby daughter in Pocahontas, and 1910, when they turned up in the census at Erick, OK. And why they moved West. We did find newspaper references to local floods in 1903, and also some newspaper ads enticing people to move to then Indian Territory or Oklahoma Territory. After lunch, we went to the "new" courthouse, which had deed records in an online data base. I found several references to Emma's father, who bought and sold a lot of land in a now-defunct settlement called Walnut Hill. He was a merchant, and he and his wife are buried in Janes Cemetery near Walnut HIll. Alas, we never could find any maps or anyone who could tell us exactly where it was, although we drove through the general area on two different days. We assume the cemetery is on somebody's farm, and might not be all that accessible, anyway.
In pegging my family history and memoir on the lives of my great grandmothers, I have noted that I know for a fact that three of them--the other three besides Emma--were quilters. I don't have any evidence that Emma quilted, but Pocahontas is a hotbed of quilt lore never the less. One nice surprise on this visit was a quilt trail through the historic town square. Buildings are decorated with weather proof images of 37 quilts that relate to the county's history and heritage. It is billed as "Arkansas' Only Quilt Trail" and is worth the trip if you are within shouting distance of Pocahontas. After seeing these quilts and reading the little booklet that gives the history of each pattern and each maker, I realize that Emma probably did at least learn to quilt as a girl in the 1880s in this area, and that her mother probably quilted. But of course, I'll never really know.
When we were poring over the various deeds in the courthouse vault, there were more surprises, and also more questions that will need follow up at some point. For example, we found detailed descriptions of land that Emma's father purchased in a town site, in partnership with a Presbyterian minister who was close to the family. But I forgot to ask for a plat book, and the library was closed when I tried to look there. I'll have to find one online somehow, or write to the library for a copy. I also learned that Jesse bought a town lot in Pocahontas in January 1901, not long after the birth of their little daughter who would die in June of that year. The big surprise was that he and Emma sold the property in May 1903. That after all the publicity in the paper suggesting how active they were in the town. So, did they move to Oklahoma then? Or did they go somewhere else first? The only other clue we have is a handwritten deed we found in the Fulton County courthouse in Salem, indicating they sold their interest in property that they inherited when one of Jesse's brothers died in 1907. The deed is dated January 1908 and the it notes that they are residents of Beckham County, OK, along with Jesse's remaining brother. So, now we have only a 5-year gap, where earlier there was a 9-year one. Where were Emma and Jesse, as well as my grandfather and his two sisters, between 1903 and 1908? From family records and oral history I can think of at least two other counties where I might look. So another trip may be in the offing, after I've done some more research online. Since this move took place between census years, deeds and newspaper references are my best clues, if they weren't burned in some courthouse fire! The deed book in the photo shows one of the deeds pertaining to the McElyeas that we found in the Fulton County courthouse in Salem on the next day's trip. The thumb holding the book upright belongs to Norm, who played a pivotal part in that search... Stay tuned....
The quilt show is over for another 2 years; we'll be back in September 2011, if our needles hold out! I've updated my Quilt Gallery at right with the two quilts I had in this year's show. Not My Grandma's Flower Garden started as a retreat project in 2005, and I finished it this month. Let Freedom Shine is made from blocks I won in a block exchange in July 2007. I finished it just minutes before I was due to check in for Flower Valley Quilting Guild's 2009 show.
Since there were about 300 items on exhibit, I've just included photos of a few here. The variety of styles is always evident at our shows. The quilt at right is made of counted cross stitch panels depicting lighthouses. Our only male quilter, Marty, made this quilt from cross stitch to quilting and label. It won the Viewer's Choice award as well as 2nd place in bed size quilts.
My two quilts were in the Wall Quilt division. The blue ribbon wall quilt was this one, made by a 10-year old girl who is a neighbor of one of our most experienced and creative members. Many people who have seen the photo, as well as those at the show, remarked that it reminded them of the strippy patterns used by the Gees Bend quilters. The young girl picked her colors, arranged the blocks, sewed them on Barb's machine, and then even did some of the machine quilting learning to "drive" Barb's long-arm quilting machine. Quite a lot of talent for the first decade of life!
All of our more recent shows have included a showcase by a featured quilter. This collection of work drew many admiring visitors, because Wanetha (seated at left) has perfected various techniques of piecing, applique and embroidery, and she is a sought after teacher as well.
Wanetha's traditional Grandmother's Flower Garden with its unique appliqued border highlights its owner's commitment to perfection, and it earned a blue ribbon for bed-sized quilt.
Back in the wall quilts, the white ribbon went to this marvelous diary of a retired teacher's family and career. Using licensed prints from the Dick and Jane series, as well as photo transfers of her family, Judy K has created an album in textile form that will be cherished forever.
