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Kathy's quilt, "Audubon's Christmas," won 1st place and Viewer's Choice at AQS Paducah 2012.

Star Members can watch Kathy in Show 1802: Fearless Quilting and Fabulous Results.

AudubonsChristmasbyKathyMcNeil - 36 Pieces Non-Rotating

AudubonsChristmasbyKathyMcNeil - 100 Pieces Non-Rotating

AudubonsChristmasbyKathyMcNeil - 300 Pieces Non-Rotating

AudubonsChristmasbyKathyMcNeil - 100 Pieces Rotating

AudubonsChristmasbyKathyMcNeil - 300 Pieces Rotating

Original Photograph by Gregory Case

 

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Ann Harwell creates precision cut and pieced masterworks, inspired by nature and images from the Hubble telescope.

Star Members can learn more about Ann in Show 1802: Fearless Quilting and Fabulous Results.

Look below to see more information about each quilt.

Click to play this Smilebox slideshow

1,2. Climate Change, 57w38h

            I had been thinking of doing this piece after looking at a series of tiny black and white photos that my Grandmother Ward had in one of her boxes that I inherited. When I magnified the photos I found that Family members were running in the church yard and one of the car doors had been left open! Not really knowing why, I started to imagine that a terrible storm was coming.

3,4. From Whence Heaven, 57w48h

            NGC3603 as imagined over Chestnut Cove overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway.

5,6. Heaven on Earth, 61w43h

            The Milky Way as imagined from Moore Cove Falls. We really did not have a fire in the cavern.

7,8. Yes, Money Does Grow on Trees, 56w44h

            While thinking about how much damage the sequester is doing taking away funds from the beleaguered national parks, I imagined the trees beginning to take over Linn Cove Viaduct, and fleeing homeless campers trying to find a place to live.

9,10. Church in the Wildwood, 65w71h

            This quilt is a childhood dream. It combines my feelings of worshipful awe in these forests, with resonant feelings in places of worship built by human hands. Inspired by Looking Glass Rock Trail from the Blue Ridge Parkway and Lake Junaluska Chapel.

11. Granddaddy and the Music Homeplace, 73w54h

            My Grandaddy, Robert E. Lee Ward, was a Methodist Minister in Western N.C. in the first half of the 20th Century. I knew him as the most patient person, observant of every detail. He was able to climb trees (even in his eighties!) and he would mow the lawn in his “old” morning suit.

12. Governor’s Mansion, 71w37h     

            Two enormous stately trees, an oak and a magnolia, drape themselves protectively in the front lawn of the Executive Residence of North Carolina (the proper title).

13. Cradle of Creation, 55w66h

            This young star cluster, NGC602 lies 200,000 light years distant in our neighboring galaxy, the Small Magellanic Cloud.

14. Colliding Mice Galaxies, 62w38h

            These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as “The Mice” because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other.

15. Empyrean, 72w76h

            The highest reaches of heaven, believed by the ancients to be a realm of pure fire and by early Christians to be the abode of God and the angels. This continues the Looking for Heaven series with the Crab Nebula as envisioned in the upper reaches of Duke Chapel.

16. Light Echoes, 57w45h

            Artwork created for my son and daughter-in-law, on the occasion of their wedding.

17. Colliding Spiral Galaxies, 65w36h

            Billions of years from now, NGC 2207 and IC 2163 will slowly pull each other apart, creating tides of matter, sheets of shocked gas, lanes of dark dust, bursts of star formation, and streams of cast-away stars.

18. Eagle Nebula, 37w79h

            Appearing like a winged fairy-tale creature poised on a pedestal, this object is actually a billowing tower of cold gas and dust rising from a stellar nursery called the Eagle Nebula.

19. Elephant’s Trunk Nebula, 50w52h

            The Elephant’s eye is an energetic young star which is eating away the dust of a dark cometary globule.

20. Butterfly Nebula, 60w59h

            Why does this nebula have such an unusual shape? The light year long structure is shaped like an butterfly but should be round.

21.Cliffs of the Comet, 37w52h

            The Comet is moving 83,885mph with a rotation period of 12.4 hours. Launched in March 2004, Rosetta caught it August 2014 and put the Philae lander on the surface.

22. Bubble Nebula, 51w53h 

            The Bubble Nebula is being pushed out by the stellar wind of massive star BD+602522. It’s actually the smallest of three bubbles and part of a much larger complex of shells and stars.

23. Overreaching for the Stars, 56w39h

            Spiral Galaxy as imagined through the bare branches of a winter tree.

24. Cora Louise Peony, 34w39h

            The name of this Peony is the same as the name of my little Great-Niece, so for irony’s sake I had to make a Peony, Cora Louise!

25. Moth Orchid, 33w34h

            These orchids are in my studio. The early morning light shining through the petals is startling.

26. Orchid with Volunteer Fern, 27w43h

            This quilt won “Best Needlework in Show” at the National Orchid Society Art Show that happens every year on Columbus day weekend at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

27. Paphiopedilum, 27w39h

            This quilt was displayed at Blue Spiral 1 Gallery’s “Back to the Garden” show in Asheville, NC Spring 2006.

28. Gloriosa Daisy, 22w30h

            The Gloriosa Daisy is probably better known as the Black-eyed Susan.

29. Cannas, 37w56h

            My Husband planted these cannas in our field and the leaves were extraordinary with the sun shining through all the varied stripes!! Then three different colors of blooms appeared!!

30. Peppermint Camellia, 34w24h

            Inspired after a walk in the graveyard at Dorothea Dix Hospital. The fate of this property is still being debated.

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TQS is always encouraging you to make small projects to practice techniques and inspire your creative juices. Here is some of what Jane Sassaman has been doing to show you the way.

Jane grabbed shapes from her "Orphan" collection, spools of Superior Thread, and a some fancy stitches on her BERNINA 880 to put together two spectacular "little" quilts.  Are you inspired to dig through your UFOs?

Click here to see the quilts and learn more about Jane's process.

Star Members can watch more with Jane in Show 301.

Click here to visit Jane's website.

 

 

 

 

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May 1st Deadline is approaching...

 

A contest for all quilters – The Quilt Alliance encourages everyone who makes quilts to enter their annual contest regardless of your style (traditional, modern, art) or technique (longarm, hand quilting, appliqué, pieced...) -- all are welcomed and valued! This year’s theme is “Playing Favorites” and they encourage entrants to work deep inside their comfort zone and happy place.

To enter, make a 16” by 16” wall quilt showcasing your very favorite pattern or technique. Whether it's double wedding ring or hexies, crazy quilting, textile art or modern, make your quilt about whatever you love most in quilting right now. The Alliance is interested in documenting the state of quilting in 2016—let your favorites be included.

Find inspiration in these projects:
Inspiration is always right around the corner for your next quilt, whether it's found in a quilt shared through the Quilt Alliance’s Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories (Q.S.O.S.) oral history collection (including more than 1,000 interviews with quiltmakers), or spotted in The Quilt Index, an online collection of more than 75,000 quilts. The Quilt Index, a partner project of Michigan State University Museum, MATRIX at MSU, and the Quilt Alliance, contains records and images of historical and contemporary quilts contributed by museums, documentation projects, historical societies, guilds and private collectors from the U.S. and around the world.

Click on LEARN MORE for information on entering the contest, including deadlines, fees, and PRIZES!

 
 

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The Lost Quilt Come Home website is dedicated to displaying lost and stolen quilts and to providing information on protecting quilts.  If your quilt has gone missing or if you would like to help others find theirs, click here.

Here's an example of an entry regarding a quilt that is currently missing.

 
 
 
 
 

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You've heard the expression, "Measure Twice, Cut Once?"  Now it's available as a cute, free embroidery download from Embroidery Online - (Only available until February 9, 2016.) Once you've embroidered it, grab your crayons and start coloring. (Note: "Tattoo" is just a title for the embroidery)

 
 
 
 
 
 

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Melissa Sobotka has won Best of Show again. Melissa won Best of Show in Houston 2013 and has now won Best of Show at Road to California 2016.

We are still having trouble realizing this is a quilt and not a picture. Great work and Congratulations to Melissa. To see more of her work, click on the button below.

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Ever wonder how the professionals deal with  starts and stops when they are quilting, avoiding rat's nests and lost stitches?  Kathy McNeil shows you how simple it is to stop and start when using her technique.

Click here to visit Kathy's Website.

Star Members can get more great tips from Kathy in Show 1802: Fearless Quilting and Fabulous Results.

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(photo: Gregory Case)
 

To Thank You.

You have been lifesavers to my family and me.

As I sit down to write this note the tears are already filling my eyes which is a sign that I made a better decision to write to you than to video this message as I had originally planned. You have been lifesavers to my family and me.

 

A week after I was released from the hospital in December, my dear friend Liza Roos Lucy (loaded with several variations of her homemade chicken soup recipes filling a 60 pound bag) came to visit me at Pickle Road. Liza brought a surprise along with her, our dear, dear friend Meg Cox. Other than Mr. Electric and the gazillion doctors and nurses, Liza and Meg were the only two human faces that I saw and had the opportunity to speak with face-to-face since being admitted to the St. Barnabas Transplant Unit in mid-October as I was in isolation due to ‘white blood cell minus’ and was in tremendously vulnerable to any bacteria or virus.

 

After a few much-needed laughs and catching up, the conversation became very serious. Liza and Meg had discussed the financial burden of being hospitalized for almost 3 months. I had been so ill, even thinking about finances never even entered my head.  Yes, I do have medical insurance through Mr. Electric’s job, but Meg and Liza assured me that even with good insurance the co-pays for specialist after specialist, operations, medications, etc. would be astronomical. With me not being able to work and even contribute to just buying food at this point, they worried whether we would lose our house.

 

One of my personality defects is that I can be very prideful and have, throughout my life, refused to accept anything from anybody. It’s difficult for me to even ask someone for or accept a simple favor. Maybe it’s growing up in the Rust Belt? Maybe it’s because I started working at a very young age? Maybe it’s because I’m so darned independent, what Liza and Meg had been planning, then proposed, literally stopped me in my tracks and made me face my worst nightmare–I had little to no control of my health, my ability to make a living, and and how I might pay these exorbitant bills. I was embarrassed. Meg and Liza wanted to start a GoFundMe Mark Lipinski's Recovery Fund campaign to help us out. After much stomach churning and a lump in my throat I acquiesced.

 

Mr. Electric, protecting me from stress and to help me heal, did not want me to worry about the money and wouldn’t share with me any of the bills that were from oncologists to surgeons to medications. One day, I opened one of the many bills that I found in a pile on the kitchen table – – just my room and board was well over $100,000 more than what we paid for our house! Liza and Meg were right. The bills, huge bills, keep rolling in.

 

It was hard for me to imagine and difficult for me to swallow that anyone would want to, but did, contribute generously to the GoFundMe Mark Lipinski's Recovery Fund . This has been an important lesson in accepting help and gratitude. It has also taught me a lot about my own spirit of giving.

 

Many of the donations were given anonymously on the page while several others sent checks. I don’t know who you are, yet you contributed to my well-being. How do you even begin to thank the myriad of strangers, friends, current and former co-workers, former students, organizations, fellow teachers and fiber artists, and Facebook friends for this kind of generosity? And the comments . . .

 

I have tried many times to read the comments that were left with the donations, and I can’t get through the first couple of pages without great emotion. I will read all of them, I promise, as soon as I can.

 

I am so grateful to those of you who were able to give with an open heart. I can’t tell you how much that means on both an emotional and practical level.  Just know that all of the "Thank You’s” in the world will never be enough. So I will end this note, with great humility and love, as I began it:

 

You have been lifesavers to my family and me. xoxom

 

-----------------

If you'd like to help Mark,

And, don't forget to share with your friends in social media.

 

 

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How cool would it be if we could do this with our quilts? If you can figure it out, please let us know!