A Visit With the Mary's River Quilt Guild

One of the very best things about traveling for my "quilt life" is getting to meet the extremely nice people in the guilds where I teach or lecture.  This week I was down in Philomath, Oregon, near Corvallis addressing the April meeting of the Mary's River Quilt Guild at the Benton County Historical Museum.

It was a great venue for giving my talk!  You can see a slide show of the evening here...

Thanks to  LuAnn Kessi for the photos!

As my lecture didn't end until around 9:30 p.m. and it is a 2 hour drive from Philomath to Washougal, it was arranged that I spend the night at a guild member's home.

Sharon and Lyle Fries gave me such a warm welcome and made me so comfortable.  By the time I left we had become good friends.

Lyle had been a software engineer for HP for over 40 years before retiring...and one of the things he does now is exquisite cross stitching.  I just have to share the fabulous Christmas stocking Lyle made for his wife Sharon...

It was his first ever project, and that is the truth!
Here are some detail shots...

He listens to audio books while he stitches.
I find this absolutely extraordinary and so wonderful!  I was very privileged to be their guest, and appreciated their kindness so much. Thank you, Lyle and Sharon!

One of the guild members also shared some great stitching work with me.  Her name is Linda Brown, and she makes wedding dresses and other fine clothes...which translates into her quilt work.  She had bought my book and was inspired by the flat doll project to make her very own take on it, creating a CQ bodice with full skirt....I just love what she did with it...

Complete with tiny handbag with teenier tassle!
Linda made me so happy, creating something original and her own from her experience perusing my book.  A quilt author could ask for nothing more...

Thanks to everyone at the guild in Philomath for making my experience there very special..  ;-)