Campbell Class

This is Anita's work space. You can see the photograph she is using for her inspiration.

Campbell Class

Lynda Doll hard at work on her piece.

The Fiber Art Studio at Campbell is such a wonderful place to be creative. It's large has plenty of natural as well as mechanical lighting. Lots of electrical outlets that come down from the ceiling, design walls for each student but most of all lots of SPACE.

Anniversary Quilt

I thought that last nights post would be my last until I return from Campbell this weekend but this dreary day has prompted me to spend my time on the computer. Hope you enjoy this story.

I never know when I start a series of post whether to start at the beginning or the end. Today I chose the beginning.

In January 2009, I took a class from Mary Lou Weidman at J. C. Campbell Folk School. The class was how to build a story quilt, folk style. With our fifty year anniversary looming in 2010 I wanted to make a quilt representing those 50 years for our family.

Mary Lou's class could help me accomplish that. The following post will take you from the beginning to the near end of this project. Unfortunately, I don't have a photo of the quilt before I started adding images. Mary Lou, suggest that you make a canvas of your quilt. This means making a boarder and enclosing a blank center as your canvas.

Before I went to the class I had decided that I wanted to have photo of our family in the boarder blocks. Also since our house is a log house I wanted to use whacky log cabin blocks. I added a few of Mary Lou's blocks for interest.

The quilt is now at the quilter's, she just called and said it should be ready Sunday. That's good because our anniversary is next Sat. I have many hours of hand embellishment and the binding yet to come.

Our family and a few good friends are coming next weekend to help us celebrate. I will post the quilt when finished and tell you a little about the story.

Anniversary Quilt

In 1999 we purchased a lot on Lake Keowee near Seneca, SC. We decided that we wanted to build a log home. We found the logs we wanted and worked with the company to design a house for us. Met a young man who convinced us that he was an experienced builder.

He was a good builder but not a good contractor and he put us on a back burner. We eventually fired him and took over the contracting and actual finishing of the interior of the home ourselves.

We are proud of this house, it was built with our actual blood, sweat and tears. We could hardly wait for the weekend to come so we could go to the lake. When my husband retired at the year of 2004 we sold our home in Greenville, SC and moved to the lake. Never once regretted that decision.

Anniversary Quilt

The design for this quilt calls for my husband and I to be standing in an archway. Even though Mary Lou emphasized with our class that white stuck out like a sore thumb, I used it anyway. Frankly I had forgotten her comment.

She was teaching at Campbell again this January. I drove up one day to ask her advice on some problems I was having. Guess what her first comments were? Yep! "That archway really stands our".

I decided not to remove it but added a little watered down yellow paint. It will be heavily embellished so I'm hoping that will tone it down a lot.

Anniversary Quilt

Added under the archway is Kermit and Marilyn. I had a great amount of trouble with the hair. I'm not sure this photo shows what I ended up with or if this is an earlier photo. I also had lots of trouble with depicting us holding hands. All of the detail will be done after the quilt is quilted.

Anniversary Quilt

I struggled for weeks trying to figure out how to add each member of our family. We have four children, two in-laws and five grand children. Every year when the family visits in the summer we take a family photograph. I decided that I would draw the family in a group and dress them like paper dolls. The area they are located on the quilt is a pathway to the lake. One, son Michael, is missing from this photo.

Anniversary Quilt

Here I've added some things that are special around our house and to us. My husband is a bee keeper, thus the bee hive. We live on a lake and have lots of animals, thus the turtle. Our dog Holly has been a part of our lives for 18 years and our house is surrounded by Southern dog wood trees.

Anniversary Quilt

Not happy with the way FIFTY looks on the arch in this photo so I have changed it. The piece totally finished with embellishments will be coming soon, I hope. Fellow quilter and guild member Sue Hunston is quilting this for me and she has it as we speak. If I get it back this weekend it will give me a week to put the boarder on and embellish the whole thing. It will have lots and lots of embellishment.

Teaching at J C Campbell

We have had a very BAD BUG at our house for the past two weeks. That is one reason my post have been few and far between. We are finally on the mend and just in time. I teach this weekend at J. C. Campbell Folk School. The class is one titled "Mini Nature".

We will be constructing small quilts using our own photographs as inspiration. I like to mat and frame these small pieces as I think it gives them more presence on the wall.

Campbell is always such a great place to teach. Creativity abounds there. I hope to take lots of photos and will share next week.