"VISITING" FRIENDS & MEMORIES, IN SOUTH CAROLINA (Cheri)

The world seemed quite small to me this Thursday.

I was at a quilt show in South Carolina; I didn't expect to see a quilt made by someone who lives in Washington State and ran around as a child while I attended school on the Monterey Bay in the 1980's.

Marlene Oddie is the daughter of two beloved Monterey Bay Academy teachers, Bob and Betty Baerg.  Looking at the quilt, it's not surprising that they were mathematics and science teachers!

And the creator of this quilt, Robin Thomas, is a friend from a Zoom-based quilting bee.

This one is entitled Road to Acadia.  Robin also had two literal quilts in the show.  Of this one, she said "See what you will but I see my epic experience exploring New England."

I started to say that I can just hear her say that in her North Carolina accent, but she wasn't born here.  Tennessee?  Accents vary so much, even in-State.

The artist who created this quilt, Laurie Mutalipassi, said "The Monterey Bay in California is one of the most beautiful bays of the Pacific Ocean."

Yeah, I don't always want to be reminded!

Some quilts from people I don't know, and not about places I've lived, before I circle back to that topic . . .

I really liked Carrots, by Mary Bajcz, which hits somewhere between literal and purely interpretative:

This quilt caught my eye:

I think it was both the color combination and the purely-applique' approach.  I don't always read artists' statements, but I'm definitely glad I read this one.

Does anyone know if "Lee Wards" was a precursor to "Montgomery Wards"?

Diamond Fishing, by Jaylyn Rollins, would be impressive for its accuracy:

even if you didn't know just how tiny it is:

So, closing with a story from another major quilt show.  It's not profound, but it's the friendships that grow when you share interests.

I left the Pacific International Quilt Festival, held in Santa Clara, CA at the end of a long day last fall, and noticed several pieces of personal identification had fallen between my car and a car that had been parked there earlier.  I could see that the person was from the Hollister area, and I was meeting someone near there, in San Juan Bautista, in a few days.

When I walked into the quilt store in San Juan Bautista, there were a lot of happily chatting quilters.  They were loud, so after waiting a little bit, I called out "Does anyone here know Dorian?"

"We all do!" they said.  It turns out she was the president of a local quilt guild.  I left the identification at the store and sent her a message through Facebook telling her where to find it.

Dorian friended me on Facebook, and made me grin when I saw her great post yesterday, showing two teenagers sync-dancing to Lynyrd Skynyrd.