March is National Quilting Month, so I'm going to try to post something about quilts with photos throughout the month.
Last year, one of the quilt guilds that I belong to had three generations of the Yoder Amish family come give a lecture & a "Show & Tell" program, as well as vend some of their products that they sell in their store, the Lone Star Quilt Shop.
(sorry, there are no online sales by them)
They were delightful women & we had a million questions for them about their religion, their dress & customs, which they graciously & patiently answered.
Later the same Amish family sponsored a dinner & trunk show by Jodi Barrows, author of the Square in a Square method of cutting/quilting. (follow that link to check out her website)
She, too, was delightful with her wonderful sense of humor, tons of useful information & a HUGE stack of quilts...I loved every minute of it.
First off, we were treated to a true "family style" Amish dinner with big platters of fried chicken, heavy bowls of REAL mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans & ham PLUS scrumptious BIG homemade PIE slices already in place at every person's setting.
You should have seen us jockeying our seats so we could sit in front of our favorite flavors. (you KNOW I found a lemon meringue one, don't ya?!)
We were then treated to a fabulous trunk show & lecture by Jodi. I took photos of almost every single quilt that she showed us.
Jodi is a very entertaining speaker who clearly explained her techniques used in each quilt block as well as
showing them with various poster board demonstrations.
She is a very skilled educator, able to convey her instructions & methods both clearly & concisely
This little Amish girl, with her beautiful long hair in a braid,
sat directly in front of me, so her pretty hair is in many of my shots.
No matter how much I leaned either way, I could not photograph around her.
I hope she didn't mind me including her in these photos, as I know they don't
like to have their photos taken. The fact that her face isn't visible should make it okay.
Don't you ♥♥♥ Jodi's HOT PINK NAILS?
Notice the different hands holding this tiny little mini quilt below?
That is her husband, who helped to hold up Jodi's numerous, lovely quilts.
He also ran the cash register, which was really humming afterwards. We all bought her books & rulers, she was such a great salesperson!
They travel during the hot TX months, with a camper trailer so she can teach in various states all over the country.
I was in the Lone Star Quilt Shop when she dropped off one of her own quilts to be hand quilted.
I got to speak to her for a little bit & she was just a sweet as can be!
I'll try to stop talking now & just let you scroll down through the huge variety of wonderful quilts that Jodi brought to share.
I think these RED & GREEN & WHITE ones were my most favorites...I do love RED & WHITE quilts!
Although, the BLUE & WHITE ones were beautiful, too!
Jodi spoke lovingly about the generations of incredible women in her family & the hardships they endured while traveling to TX to escape the Civil War.
She comes from a loooong line of quilters & has written two novels, using her family member's & their history as the backdrops for Threads of Love & Threads of Change.
I think she may have another book in the works, too. I came home & immediately requested both from my library & read them from beginning to end, enjoying every minute. I hated for them to end, which is always the sign of a good book!
Ooops, here is another favorite one of mine with RED!!!
I hope to share some things I recently learned about the making of *rouge d'Andrinople* in my next post.
The trunk show lasted for hours!
If you ever get a chance to see & hear Jodi, don't miss it.
I promise you will be incredibly entertained & come away very inspired.
She also has a few videos on her website that lets you see & hear her explain several different kinds of blocks.
I especially enjoyed the "Ohio Star" instructions. ~~big grin~~
Click HERE to view a list of the videos.
March 17th is also National Quilting DAY, but you & I know there will be other GREEN things going on then! *wink*
March 16th is Cuisine Kathleen's St. Patrick's Day Annual Blog Crawl. The house will be decorated to the hilt in GREEN again this year for that one!
Thanks for stopping by The Gazebo House. I hope you enjoyed Jodi's quilt show & will check out her website as well as stop back here for more calorie free eye candy soon.
