Mt. Airy, North Carolina

This morning started out as a very relaxing, quiet morning. I poured myself a cup of coffee, read some blogs and sent a rather long note to my friend Darlene. Then I sat in the sunshine coming through my glass door and did some handquilting. Ahhhh...nothing like a nice peaceful Sunday morning.

Then....my husband gets up. He is looking up family history on the computer and notes that his great x5 grandfather is buried in Mt. Airy, NC and he sure would like to go up there and get a picture of the tombstone (its a genealogical thing - kind of like our collecting fat quarters). So considering that starting tomorrow he has to work 6 days a week, 56 hours - and knowing this is his last day in probably two months that he will feel like getting out of town...I innocently respond, why don't we go up there today. Man, I didn't know he could move that fast. He was up, getting dressed and had his camera and stuff ready to go before I knew what was happening.

I have been working a lot of long hours of late too, so this was a good break for me. I gathered up my hand quilting and my book, my camera and my phone and off we go.

We found the church (Flat Rock Baptist) with no problem and the cemetery, but alas no greatx5 grandfather tombstone. I did get a picture of this one that I thought was very interesting. This guy founded the church and was a Civil War Veteran. While my husband scoured the remainder of the cemetery, I found a bench under a shade tree and worked on my hand quilting.

But, something kept tickling my brain about Mt. Airy..what is it...then I remembered! Andy Griffith and Mayberry. This town is the inspiration for the Andy Griffith show! So after the disappointment of not finding Grandpa, we headed downtown to the historic area - which of course is all about Mayberry and the Andy Griffith show. It was so much fun. We never did find the police station, but we did find Floyd's Barber shop and Andy Griffith's home place.

As famous as Andy Griffith is, that is not all that Mt. Airy is famous for - also located here is the NC Granite Corporation. This is the largest granite quarry in the world according to the lady at the visitor's center. All I know is it was very impressive.

Those of you that are Andy Griffith show followers, no doubt have heard Barney talk about Mt. Pilot. I am not sure if there is a Mt. Pilot or not, but there is a Pilot Mountain and we met some folks from Pennsylvania who were visiting Mt. Airy and they told us about it. Now isn't that something - they had to come all the way from Pa to tell us about something in the Carolinas. It is only 14 miles from Mt. Airy - so off we go, to see this mountain. Here is a picture from a distance and then one from on top of the mountain.

There is a quilt shop and a fabric shop both on Main Street in Mt. Airy and both closed on Sundays. We had a great day, the weather was perfect and as always, it was fun to find a gem in our own back yard.

Redwork Block of the Month

I have been playing around with my EQ6 and have learned how to import pictures and then place them in the quilt layout. So easy once you take the time to read the help instructions. I have finished all my redwork blocks and wanted a unique layout for them, just to make my quilt different in some aspect from all the others that are being made from the design the quilt shop put out.

Remember this pattern that I found in the "yard sale" quilt book? I modified it a little, putting the blocks straight rather than on point, and came up with a fun layout for my quilt. So what do you think? And on a side note...Houston, we have a problem!!!! I finished my log cabin stars table runner and very excitedly put the borders on, rather late at night. The next morning, I put the runner up on my design wall, just to see how lovely it looks, and OH NOOOOOOOOO...my borders are waving in the wind!!! I must have been really tired to not have noticed that before. Guess I will be rippin those out tonight.

Hope you had a wonderful Memorial Day. I had to work, but I sure had a great weekend. Saturday, we celebrated my, my daughter-in-laws and my granddaughter's birthdays, our 35 wedding anniversary and Memorial Day with a big family picnic! It was a fantastic day and hopefully I will have some pictures to share soon.

God is good and life is blessed!

Some yard sale finds.....

My church has a yard sale on Saturday, with the proceeds benefitting the children's

program. Here are a few of the things that came home with me.

I have a collection of these blue and white dishes that all began with some really pretty coffee cups that I purchased at Cracker Barrell resturants. Then my friends started giving me pieces and now I plan to use them in my dining room when I get the redo done in there. The beautiful crochet mat they are sitting on I picked up for 50 cents!
The books were purchased for a bargain as well, and the quilting one is pretty old - no rotary cut pieces in there.

It has some terrific patterns though, and this one I especially like. I already have plans for this pattern, but I need to draw it out in EQ6 as the blocks I want to use it with are not on point. I am so excited about this quilt now - but need a couple of days before I can show you the plan. Don't you just love that flying geese border! So stay tuned...I will be showing more about this in the next few days.

And not to worry - my husband also made a great purchase. A basketball goal with backboard and huge steel pole to put it on. No picture yet, but will show once we get it up in the back yard and have some action pictures to show.

Log Cabin Stars

This past Saturday, my club met and we worked on kits I had put together for a Log Cabin Stars table runner that hopefully we will all finish in time to use this July 4th. I designed the pattern in EQ6 and used the Dimples fabrics by Andover to make up the kits. Found these really cute tubs at the Dollar Store and my daughter wrote everyone's name on a tub. She is such a sweetie to help me out, cause she knows I can't write that pretty. Linda...we missed you at the meeting!

Here are my pieces assembled, but not yet sewn together - just on my design wall. Hmmm...seems that I have a missing sashing piece - ok ladies, check your tubs and report in. Who has my missing sashing piece??? Linda D...I am not buying that fabric nabber from outer space story again. Anyway, we had fun making the kits up and rearranging the log cabin blocks. Next month everyone will have a chance to show how they finished theirs - it will be interesting to see the different arrangments of the blocks.

And here is Pumpkin ( or affectionally known as Stinky ) resting among the monkey grass. Think maybe he is dreaming of being the mighty Lion in the jungle?

April Friendship Blocks

We are a little late this time swapping our friendship blocks for April. Yesterday we met at the White Horse Resturant for lunch and swapped our blocks - good food, good friends, good conversation and good blocks make for some good times! So, here they are.......

First we have Carol's Easter Bunny looking quite lovely in this floral blue. Carol's applique is just beautiful!

Cheryl is just sailing right along in her perfect strawberry sailboat. Over this year of swapping, she has become the accomplished paper piecer!

And last is my little blue bird of happiness. I just love blue birds and this one makes me think of the bird which sits in the tree outside my window at work and sings me a happy song just about every day, ALL day long.

May will be our last month to swap blocks. This has been so much fun each month and we get so excited to give our blocks to each other.

Timber.................

I have been doing some sewing, but nothing much to report on. Almost finished the quilting on my French braid, almost done with my redwork block, almost done with my Fall handquilting, and almost done with preparing kits for my club meeting on Saturday. But I will tell you what is done - that's the life of this beautiful maple tree. I was so sorry to see it go down, but its roots invaded our drain line and we had to do something or we were going to have a swamp in the back yard. So timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....down she goes. Timothy had a ring side seat from the upstairs porch - he was so excited about the bull dozier.