Home is best

Off hand, I can't remember the quote so well - east, west, home is best?   But it sure is good to be home in peaceful, green Vermont although we enjoy visiting Mom and sister Jenny in Colorado.  Saturday was Mom's 104th birthday, and we celebrated with two online video chats.  My brother took a screen shot.  It's difficult to see anyone, but the upper right has Mom, my son Chris, me, Jenny, and Paul.

Later in the day we had another video chat with my nieces in Los Angeles and Queensland, New Zealand.  It was good to see them both.

The day before we had a visit from my second cousin, twice removed, Joice, her husband Bob, and one of her sons and his family.  Mom hadn't seen Joice and Bob for 60 years.  The last time was when she gave them baby furniture, and now her son has grown up with kids of his own.

Joice lives in Pennsylvania, and we last saw her and Bob a couple of years ago when we were traveling through on our way home from the south.  We hope to see them again this spring.

Our visit included a lot of "mom care," taking her to appointments, helping her navigate the oxygen tubes, and just helping her in general.  I did a little cooking but also discovered delicious pizza already made at Whole Foods.  Wish we had one!  We browsed around Barnes and Noble, stopped at Starbucks, and generally enjoyed life in suburban America. 

A trip to Colorado is never complete without a trip to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum.  This time, there was a fabulous exhibit of medallion quilts by Cindy Vermillion Hamilton.  All were hand sewn, hand appliqued, and hand quilted.  Very impressive!  

The blue and white quilt is about the plainest one in the exhibit, but one I think I could actually do.  It gave me the idea that I could surround the map of the Netherlands I made last winter with a border of appliqued melons.   

The red background with bright blue on this quilt is stunning, my favorite of them all.  It was Cindy's wedding quilt and reflects her and her husband's Native American heritages.  

We've been home a few days, and laundry, grocery shopping and other household chores have been done.  I think I'll get a chance to quilt today before going over to Pam's with lunch and gossip.  She had a stroke about a month ago and needs a little pick-me-up.

Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum

We are already back home after a nice week in Golden, Colorado, visiting my mom and sister.  Mom will be 103 on June 27, and we in the family are spreading her birthday out so we can all enjoy each other to the fullest.  We took Mom out to breakfast at Denny's one morning - that's her favorite place to go with us.  Another morning was spent at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, just a few miles from Mom's house.   There are usually two exhibits going on, and this time there was large selection of modern quilts and a smaller room of sampler quilts by Japanese-American women.  Here are a few of the contemporary ones.

First is one with a pieced background, topped with applique and embellishments.  The "grass" is a grayish silk thread.

This is a fairly traditional string quilt made of 16 blocks, half cream and half strings in mostly blues and greens.  What was interesting is that it was closely quilted with a serpentine stitch.

I liked the blend of colors and the quilting of this beach scene.  It's hard to tell, but the waves include small stitches made with white perle cotton.

This was Paul's favorite.  "The End of the Rainbow" shows an appliqued trout colored with fabric pens or pencils.  Out of its tail are gold beads pouring into or out of a pot of gold.  There's lots of texture created by machine quilting in the background.

The museum shop is slated for expansion so it's bursting at the seams.  There doesn't appear to be a quilt shop in the area, so this may be the only in-person source for local quilters.  I love to look at the related items, and because there was a gallery with Japanese-related quilts, there was a nice selection of sashiko kits.  

I would like to do more sashiko but instead decided to buy this panel which was designed especially for the museum by David Taylor.    I don't usually buy panels, but this one called to me, especially with the sun and trees.  It will make a nice throw.  The picture shows a wide border, but the panel really stops before the thin brown border, which is fine with me.