Our book tree

Visions of a holiday book tree have been dancing in our collective heads this year ...

Sylvie, a fellow Friend of the Library, started it. She saw a book tree, recruited several friends to help create it, and started saving books from our reject pile.

Her husband Glenn wisely devised a different way to stack the books so the tree could be transported. He was the main creator behind this tree - the rest of us helped apply some paint, hang lights, cover the base ...

The books are also cleverly arranged by title, so they make little stories, like this:

You can view this and many other beautiful holiday trees this week at the Festival of the Trees, a benefit for our community Shelter.

It's at Liberty Hall in downtown Lawrence. The trees will be auctioned tonight, but will remain on display through Thursday. 

Quilt Sale at Final Friday

Big Lettuce, inspired by a Ruth McDowell workshop

Save some shopping money for the upcoming Final Friday art walk in downtown Lawrence!

Our esteemed Georgann Eglinski is divesting herself of a backlog of her quilts. She is a prolific and enormously talented quilter. She does not keep track of the many quilts she makes, but there are few more productive quilters than Georgann. Her work has appeared in numerous galleries and books over the years. It is one of Lawrence's best kept secrets. Best of all - she almost single-handedly funds several worthy organizations in Lawrence with the proceeds.

At Last a Lotus, pattern by Miriam Nathan Roberts

So be there on Friday November 30, 5-9 p.m. You'll find her a collection of her small quilt "Soft Art" work at the Art Party in the Hobbs-Taylor Loft space in the 700 block of New Hampshire.

Small quilts make excellent holiday presents and all these are one-of-a-kind quilts. Complete originals!

African Market II. a large version of this is in Carol Jones' and Bobbie Finley's new book, Fresh Perspectives.

Ah, garage sales!

Friday finds - pre washing

I love garage sales, estate sales, and thrift shops. I know many of you do too.

There was a wonderful piece in the New York Times about a super garage sale in New York City last weekend at the Museum of Modern Art. It would have been wonderful to see. I loved how Randy Kennedy described Martha Rosler, the creator and proprietor of the garage sale:

Her fascination with garage sales — as portraits, through possessions, of the people who hold them; as economic end runs engineered mostly by women; as suburban sacrament and social gathering — goes back to seeing them for the first time after moving to California in the 1970s. 

“I grew up in Crown Heights, and nobody would have ever thought of putting their things in front of their houses to sell,” said Ms. Rosler, 69. “Your neighbors would have thought you were crazy. It would have been deeply embarrassing.” Stoop sales, now common in New York, are what she calls a “back-formation.”

So! Another good thing left by the recession, thrift continues to be IN.

I had a wonderful day Friday, hitting my favorite thrift shop in Kansas City (Grandview) and an estate sale here in Lawrence. I picked up a box all wrapped in saran wrap. Masking tape on the top said $1.50. Inside were:
4 silk scarves, 2 penguin dishtowels, a very goofy bit of trim, 2 odd textiles from Romania, and these beautiful placemats. WOW.

Box contents

I also got the Indian textile pictured above and a wonderful men's shirt. A note: I take a deep breath and toss them all in the washer. If they are going to fall apart, it might as well be now. I can happily report they all came out intact, ready to wear and use.

If you're in Lawrence today or tomorrow, be sure to stop by our guild's annual garage sale, tonight at 7 and tomorrow morning at 9:30. Guild members have tables full of goods at bargain prices. We all sell and buy and hope we bring home less than we brought in. It's a fun event - at Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont. See you there!

Sunflower Rug

We belong to a group that tours modern style homes. Last weekend, we toured a beautiful modern home - and look what I found in the downstairs kitchen.

It's a polyester sunflower rug in the pine-burr style we've all been admiring. That is my shadow in the lower left corner, it's in lovely shape.

The owner, Sue Givens, said she bought it in northern Iowa. There is a gift shop upstairs in the Welcome Center just before you leave the state heading north on I-35. She said 15 years ago, she found one-of-a-kind rugs in this style there. One of a kind because you can only find so much polyester fabric like this, right? Sue says it seems that local craft folk of this area are quite active with many nice things brought in on consignment.  Quilted items too!  So if you're traveling north on I-35, you really will want to plan a stop there.

The rug measures about 30" round. You'll notice the maker pinked all the polyester edges very nicely.

This shot of the rug back helps us see how it was constructed too. It seems to me that the maker used triangles of fabric, not squares like many pine-burrs we have seen.

It is a wonderful rug. Maybe someone will know the name of the person who made this a few years back ... I suspect this rug will never wear out. Thank you, Sue for letting us all admire your rug.

A Quilt for Torin

Maybe you do this too. I LOVE to start quilts. I started this one more than a year ago, to celebrate the birth of our friends' first grandchild, Torin. He was born on November 6, 2011. Isn't he cute?

Luckily, we get to see him for his first birthday this week. Sometimes things work out: this year my life is much more calm and I finished the quilt. Here it is. It measures 34" x 48". It's machine stitched and quilted so it will hopefully hold up for many washings over the years.

It's made of blues and greens and shirtings I had on hand. 

I gave a presentation about quilt labels this week, which got me thinking about how to label this quilt. I decided to cut out the number 1 shape and sign that. I stitched it on by machine too. I think I'll go over it again to darken up the words...

Pine Burr Style Rug

Eagle-eyed Maggie Bonanomi spotted this rug at market.

It was in an antique booth - Cindy's Antique Quilts of Clinton, OK. Cindy was kind enough to let me photograph it.

It's made in a reverse kind of pine-burr style - it is worked from the outside to the center. The final raw edges in the center are covered with some piecing. Cindy thought it dated to the 1920s, although some of the fabrics are older than that. You can see from the detail that some wonderful quirky fabrics were used - shirtings, plaids, clarets, indigos ... you name it. It is in pristine, gorgeous condition. I didn't measure it but I'd guess it is about 2' x 4'.

The back is original. It's rough burlap with black stitching showing through.







Cindy is online at www.cindysantiquequilts.com.

Someone should buy this!! Someone who loves pine burrs!!

More Market

A few more shots of things I liked:

I love the name of this quilt: What's for Breakfast by Karen Anderson-Abraham. Karen is influenced by modernist painters of the 20th century, most specifically the Bauhaus movement.

This one has a wonderful name too: The 48 Pound Quilt by Tanya Finken. There are 42 pound symbols on the front, six more hiding on the back!

Pojagi-influenced Hearths Aglow by Katrina Walker is absolutely beautiful.

Amy's Barickman's outfit - love the fabric.

 

Victoria's Quilt with Friends: Exquisite Journey. Six friends made panels that link with a road, foreground and sky elements...the artists are Leslie Rucker Jenison, Frances Holliday Alford, Kathy York, Victoria Findlay Wolfe, Michele Muska and Hoodie Crescent.