ROAD TRIP!!!

A group of friends and I meet once a month to sew. We started primarily to work on miniatures. We call ourselves Third Friday /Twisted Stitchers. Third Friday.. so we will remember the meetings.. Twisted ... well because..
There are seven members. Nancy, goes to NY State to her cottage on the lake for the summer. So six of us took a road trip to Quilt National at the Dairy Barn in Athens Ohio

I have seen, and like many innovative design quilts. I would have to say that quite a few of these were truly 'art' quilts. Because, for many of them, you would have to really use the term quilt loosely. But I did get to see a Jane Burch Cochran quilt called Deviled and Angel. It can be seen on her website http://www.janeburchcochran.com/Pages/Gallery3.html that was a fun quilt. I also saw a quilted sculpture by Susan Else called Bingo. http://www.susanelse.com/images/bingo.jpg Take a look at her website at that sculpture, and her others which are amazing.

There were 3 quilts I absolutely loved. They were bright, and used surface design teqniques such as discharge and over dyeing, cyanotype images, shibori.. very beautiful. Unfortunately, none of the artists have websites, so I can't show you. I also liked the 'quilt' (one of the loosely based quilts I mentioned) High Fiber. It can be seen here http://www.lindamccurry.com/ . No photos are allowed at the exhibit, so if we wanted to have something to remember it by, we had to buy the $25.00 book. None of us wanted to remember it that badly. Here is a peek of the Bathroom stained glass

We took a parting shot of the Dairy Barn as we left.

We also visited a small bead shop in Athens. I think it was called Beads and Things. I spent %50.00 and walked out with a tiny little bag. It always amazes me how much I can spend and it will only go into a bag that will fit in my purse. I bought some beads from Peru, and a bunch of embelishments.. not any seed beads. I can get those anywhere. Maybe I will get them out and take a photo of them.

It was a cute little shop.. and I emphasize little. But, they had a porch swing which I sat on while I waited for the girls, and then they had this brick path with stars. I guess there was a place in town that used to make them, but you can't get them anymore.. they are all over the place.

We had a great time. There was a new quilt shop in town. They hadn't quite opened, but, we were able to visit. I think when it is finished, they will have a great place. I didn't take a picture of anything but the ceiling. It is high and long, and has these great original tiles.

It was in a town called Nelsonville. If you are ever there, don't forget to put money in the meter.. because they have these guys just walking through town ticketing everyone.

We don't have meters anywhere near us. towns around us want the tourists, and look at ticketing people who park to shop as an unfriendly gesture. I guess the good people of Nelsonville haven't gotten that memo. Athens is about 3 or more hours from our house. We spent the night in a motel that had 3 queen size beds. The six of us were up until late laughing and talking. It was so much fun! On the way home we stopped at a big store to look for the new ziplock super bags which are big enough to hold a quilt. They only had two boxes left, and I got one of them. I wish they would get them by me, I haven't seen them anywhere. While walking through the store, I came across this rack of children's books . Only in America....