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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Meet Me In St Louis!

But you'll have to be quick about it, because I'm leaving in about an hour! :c)

I've had a great time with the Decatur Quilters Guild of Decatur IL! I love learning things about different areas I visit. For instance, did you know that Decatur IL is the SOY BEAN CAPITAL of the US? Maybe the world...but I know my shuttle van driver said it was the SOY BEAN CAPITAL of somewhere. :c)

I get so excited to see landmarks like this!

This pic was taken as I rode shot-gun in the front of the shuttle van from St Louis TO Decatur last Monday. The van guy was really nice and invited me to sit up front and of course I took him up on it. I could see the arch come closer and closer as we drove toward it....it was SO GREAT to come so close to it that I could get a good pic! The last time we were in St Louis was Thanksgiving of 2000.....and we watched my son Jason play in his high school marching band in the Macy's Parade in NYC from the living room of our friend's house......that is....until the tv station pre-empted the NY parade in favor of a local one and we lost coverage!

He remembers vividly that road trip, and how he got to tour the twin towers. Little did we know at the time that less than 10 months later they would be gone.....

Our Pineapple blossom class on Tuesday went really well....we had an experience with the "body bags" of quilts, though. I had fed-exed them from Lawrence because I wasn't going to be able to take them on Delta Airlines (My bags fly free on United, but not on Delta and these are over sized $$$$) and I couldn't take up ALL the luggage space for the other passengers on the shuttle, so we mailed them.

They arrived WET. At least one bag was anyway....like they had sat it in a puddle or something. Now I mailed these last THurs and they arrived Friday...and sat damp until I unlocked them on Tuesday..so you can imagine how they smell faintly like a load of laundry that has sat in the washing machine forgotten for a few days. Phehhhewww!!

At this point I realized that I was really REALLY glad that I make bed quilts, quilts to cover people, quilts that are meant to be washed. I can't imagine what I would do if these were "art" type quilts, or the kind of prize winning quilts with $9,000.00 worth of crystals sewn to them.

We draped the quilts out to dry! By the time evening rolled around for the evening guild lecture, most of them more more dry than damp. After the lecture we spread them out again, and by morning, all was dry. I'm still going to have to do some washing to get some of the musties out though. I'm going to have to rethink how I ship body bags if I ever do this again!

One of my favorite things about visiting other people's guild meetings is the show and tell! I have to show you this lovely. If I remember the story correctly, it was pieced by the grandmother and aunt (or further back) of the owner, the lady shown here in the black blouse:

What a lovely 30's postage stamp variation! I really love how the print postage stamps are separated by the rows of white and blue squares. Again, it's a great use of solids to give boundary to the busy-ness of prints. I love antiques that mix the two, prints and solids, together. And this blue is just great into the border too..

It was a great quilt for studying up close...all those wonderful old prints..you just wonder about the story behind them and where the scraps came from. Were they dresses? Aprons? Skirts? Blouses? All of the above? We may never know..but these kinds of scrappy quilts are the ones that make my heart leap for joy!

I have more I want to share with you, but I've gotta go stand in line and get my seat assignment for this flight. Another reason I don't like Delta..they wouldn't let me make my seat selection online!! Grrrr! And....even at the gate here, they can't assign the seat for my connecting flight either..I've gotta do that at the next gate. I'm a United Girl...all the way!!

12 comments:

  1. Bonnie,
    I flew out of St Louis yesterday! If I had only known....
    Kathie

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  2. Thanks for sharing. That is a delectable quilt! What an industry we are in. Quilters are the most sharing people out there!

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  3. What a sinking feeling that must have been to discover wet quilts!! I love the postage stamp quilt you shared; the blue and white fabrics make the scrappy quilt very special, don't they. Your travels around tutoring help this New Zealander get to know your country a little better,, and I get quite excited when you visit places my daughter visited when she went to Summer Camp, then travelled, a few years ago. Thanks for all your sharing!!

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  4. Bonnie, Use an old Boy Scout trick - they know you can do anything with a plastic bag and duck tape. Get the really large heavy duty ones (try Lowe's or Home Depot for the contractor ones)and put your quilts inside them, duck tape them shut, and put them inside your 'body bags'. That should do the trick. And shouldn't add much weight either.

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  5. Well darn it!!!!!!!!!! I would have driven over there and said Hi!!!!!
    I'm glad you had a good time. It would have been better if you would have seen me. lolol

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  6. Love the quilt show!
    I didn't realize Decatur was the capital of the soybean world. I thought it would be capital of the Corn Syrup World! When I was a kid, we sold our corn to Staley in Decatur for several years. As a thank you, they always provided us with a couple of cases of corn syrup! Eeeeoooo! No wonder I'm violently allergic to corn products today.

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  7. That postage stamp quilt gives me some design ideas for a quilt I am dissassembling and then reassembling that my great grandmother made. Thanks for sharing! That's too bad about the wet body bag - sheesh! You'd think they'd take better care of your stuff!

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  8. There are gigantic zip lock bags. We used one for a queen sized silk comforter and we squeezed the air out. Similiar to the TV advertised bags but with the ziplock name. They came 3 to a box. We have also stored in giant reinforced drum liners so there was a "tail" of bag to use rubber bands on.

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  9. Glad you were able to salvage the wet quilts. What a predicament. Have never had the seating issues with Delta...always able to choose my seats ahead unless buying too close to departure date. I'm heading to the midwest in a couple weeks....gotta love those soybeans!

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  10. Bonnie,
    When I ship a quilt I always put it in a spacebag-travel. they stay dry and you don't need a vac to get the excess air out. I don't squeeze them flat like a wrinkled pancake, just enough that there are no air pockets. You might need to use the cube ones or extra large. there are also other brands, not picky about that.

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  11. Whenever I mail a quilt I put it inside a plastic bag first just in case it gets wet! So glad they are ok now.....

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  12. Wet quilts--bummer! Thank goodness they could be washed, I agree.

    My sister lives in St Louis and her employer's building is right downtown near the arch. We even went up in the tiny cage contraptions to the top of the arch the first time I visited her years ago (not for claustrophobics, but I was fine). I've been to that airport a number of times :)

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