I Survived!

Hi Everyone,

If you remember, on Tuesday night my friend Janice and I were to give the program at our night guild meeting.  I'm here writing to you all that I survived!  I was afraid that I would get really nervous, but in the end, my fears were my only problem.  I slept fine the night before and when I woke on Tuesday morning, my stomach was not full of butterflies.  Janice came to my house a bit before 5 so we could talk through everything one more time and make sure that we had everything that we needed.  We did that, packed it up and went to dinner.

We stopped at an Italian restaurant and ordered.  We were talking about quilting, the Olympics, the color her daughter wanted to paint the kitchen, chocolate,  and all sorts of things.  We realized after a bit that it seemed to be taking a long time to get our food.  Finally, they brought my calzone and a few minutes later, they brought her pizza.  They had made the pizza incorrectly.  After we had mostly finished, I checked the time.  It was 6:00!  Guild starts at 7, but we needed to be there by 6:30 and it was across town.  We paid as fast as they could ring us up and headed out.  We got onto the freeway and promptly got stuck in a huge traffic jam!  Janice drove like a star, and we were those drivers that make everyone mad by flying down the open lane and then budging our way across the jammed up lanes.  It worked, though, and we made it in time!

Our program was about some of those "quick trick" blocks like Exploding Pineapple, Anita's Arrowhead, Disappearing Nine Patch, Disappearing Four Patch, Disappearing 16 Patch, Disappearing Pinwheel (this was those fun pinwheel churndash blocks) Disappearing Half Square Triangle, etc.  We showed samples and provided a list of links to the original sources.  Some of us who are "computer quilters" are already familiar with many of these, but there are many people who don't use the computer much.  Anyway, it was really well received.  We had many complimentary comments, so we felt pretty good.  My favorite moment was arriving a bit late, but seeing two good friends from our Bee who came to support us, even though they don't normally go to night guild!

Since I was sitting in the front row, and remembered my camera (!) I took some pictures of the show and tell to share with you.  We all love quilt eye-candy, right?

This is an antique quilt that someone found in a box in her in-law's garage!

There seemed to be quite a few art quilts this time, including this cat.

Do you know the term "Contraband" soldier?  It was given to slaves who escaped to Union holdings during the Civil War.  Fort Monroe (just recently closed) here in Hampton Roads, VA was one place that attracted former slaves.  This piece is called "Contraband Man" and features the Fort Monroe lighthouse.

Yes, this is a quilt!!!  It is all thread painting on black fabric.  Perhaps you recognize Harriet Tubman?  The artist had another piece that was a portrait of John Lennon, but my photo was blurry.

A One-Block Wonder.  The fabric had frogs on it.

A Wedding Quilt

"Under the Apple Tree"

Janice and I took all of our samples on many of the design boards that I made and blogged about before.  During the program, I also told how to make them.  I gave 4 of them as door prizes, and they proved to be pretty popular!

It was a great evening, but I'm really relieved that it is over!  Have a great day!
JoAnne