Hand-Stitched Favorites from the 2013 North Carolina Quilt Symposium

Detail of a Quilt by Anne Francis

Anne Francis had some beautiful work in the North Carolina Quilt Symposium show, last weekend in Fayetteville,  including the penguin quilt shown here.  This quilt is covered with hundreds and hundreds of hand stitched French knot "snowflakes" that also secure the three layers of the quilt in lieu of traditional quilting stitches.    Spectacular!  I'm afraid I could not find a label near this one, so I don't know the title.


Another of Anne Francis's quilts that I enjoyed was A Harry Potter Story, made with the author's permission.  I made sure to get lots of pictures of this one for my Harry Potter aficionado sons. 


A Harry Potter Story, by Anne Francis

Look at the detail on Harry, with his embroidered lightning bolt scar, "Nimbus 2000" inscribed on his broomstick, and the fancifully hand embroidered Golden Snitch!

Detail of A Harry Potter Story, Entirely Handmade by Anne Francis

Harry Potter, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and the Hogwarts Castle were all carefully rendered by hand in applique and embroidery on this hand-pieced quilt.  Not a single machine stitch in the entire quilt. 

Dumbledore Detail from A Harry Potter Story, by Anne Francis

Isn't that amazing?  I was surprised to see so much hand work in this show, since most of the classes offered at this year's Symposium were geared toward machine quilting.  On the show floor, I saw quilt after quilt that had been hand pieced, appliqued, and hand quilted, in every style from traditional to contemporary to whimsical.  It's so interesting to see how artists working in the same medium (textiles and thread) and using the same techniques can create such completely different quilts.  I suppose I was mostly drawn to the appliqued quilts this time around since I'm immersed in my own first applique project. 



Detail of Papa's Album, by Sandra Russell

Look at the detail of hand applique with hand embroidered details and thousands of tiny, perfect hand quilting stitches in the Baltimore Album quilt pictured at left, which won first place for Best Hand Quilting.  Just marking the straight, parallel lines for the diagonal grid quilting would have been a challenge for me!

Papa's Album, by Sandra Russell

There were some beautiful machine quilts as well, and I'll show those to you tomorrow.  Or the next day.  Or when I get around to it...  ;-)

Only SEVEN more days of school before summer vacation!



Happy Halloween 2010

Every year, we hurry through dinner on Halloween, then the kids frantically scramble into their costumes as the doorbell starts going bananas with the early crowd of trick-or-treaters.  I'm dashing to the door to hand out candy with a camera around my neck, imploring my restless cowboys to hold still for a picture as they duck out the door and into the night.

But THIS year, we had tickets to the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra's Lollipops children's concert series, so we got the boys in costume on Saturday morning for the Thrills and Chills Halloween Spooktacular concert at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center.  It was a chance to test out the lipliner "scar" on Lars-as-Harry-Potter's forehead, as well as the orange spray powder for the hair of Anders-as-Ron-Weasley.  The concert was lots of fun, and I got my photo ops in afterward before the security guard came and scolded us for taking pictures.  Apparently there is no photography allowed in the skywalk between the Bank of America building and the Belk -- who knew?

 Bernie and the boys carved their pumpkins outside by the fire pit on Saturday night.  Anders drew his face and Bernie carved his pumpkin, but this was the first year that Lars got to do his own carving.  He enjoyed it A LOT!

 Then on Sunday, after church, all the kids changed into costume and went out "trick-or-treating" in the early afternoon to collect groceries for the local Loaves and Fishes food pantry, followed by a Halloween party at the youth choir director's home (we love you, Glenda!).  I got this group photo of all the kids before they left the church:

It was about 3:30 when we got the kids home from the party, and then we watched It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Hulu...

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, 1966

...followed by an old VHS tape of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Not sure what that had to do with Halloween, but the boys enjoyed the ferocious rabbit with pointy teeth and the Knights Who Say Nih!

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975

My husband cooked a delicious dinner of pork loin with sweet potatoes, then donned a purple-and-black witch's wig and black cloak before taking my little wizards trick-or-treating while I stayed behind to pass out candy.  All in all, it was a pretty good Halloween.