Foothills Quilters Guild

About two weeks ago, I spoke to the Foothills Quilters Guild of Shelby, North Carolina (a wonderful, friendly group, by the way), and I started out by telling this story:

I was going in to do a presentation at a guild meeting, and overheard two women having a conversation that went like this:

"Do you know who the speaker is tonight?"
"No, I didn't look."
"I hope it's not one of those art quilters again!"
"Me, too..."

I explained that I hoped that no one at this meeting felt that way, and assured them that I loved traditional quilts AND art quilts, and that I made a lot of traditional quilt patterns. After the meeting, a woman named Leah Day came up and introduced herself. Leah is an internet marketer as well as a quilter and pattern designer and teacher. I later discovered that she had posted about me on her blog (and you can read her comments about my presentation and her thoughts on art quilt/traditional quilt issues here).

I also met Harriette Grigg, who showed me a photo of her art quilt, "Baskets – Two" and told me that it was going to be displayed at the Asheville Quilt Show. It was gorgeous, and I told her that I thought she would win a ribbon. Sure enough, when I went to the show on Saturday, her quilt had a blue ribbon on it, a first place prize in the "Art Quilt, Established" category. Hoooray for Harriette!

Here's a photo of her winning quilt: