After a long, hectic and sometimes dramatic summer, life has blissfully resumed a little bit of normalcy, and some of the best of it is the Frayed Edges. We were only three today; Deborah is, of course, in Texas (the link to her blog is on the left, but I know many of you know her and her blog!), and Hannah was home with her girls today. They are finally in their new house in Harpswell, where we’ll meet next month.

So today, Kate, Kathy and I met at the new Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor. Maine is made up of many, many peninsulas, harbors and bays carved by the receding glaciers, resulting in lots of rocky, forested coastline. These Gardens opened to the public this year, but clearly have been years in the making. The picture above is of the visitors center, with an arbor on the left. The more formal gardens are near the center, becoming more “wild” with distance, with lots of cool sculptures throughout.

First we got together for a brief chat in the cafe (inside the curved walled part of the center), then went for a long walk/stroll, while Kate and Kathy letterboxed (you’ll have to ask them about that…). There were SO MANY wonderful shots, that I have photos for many blogs, so am going to skip most of the photos today. One I’ll share here is looking up through the center of the arbor… I love all those angles!

And here are Kate and Kathy in the Meditating Garden.

I don’t do that… I’m always too busy and life is too crazy for me to manage to sit still long enough, and I’m glad to say I’m not alone… Kate too is living life on “more than full”. The hardscape in this place is amazing!

Kathy’s birthday is in late August, so we had gifts and lunch in the cafe. Here’s the birthday girl enjoying Hannah’s gift (books about decorating, since Kath and hubby will be…yipppeeee lucky me!… moving down near me in a few years):

And here she is opening mine (more about what that is during another post later this week):

And instead of delectable pastry treats, I said I’d make a little cake instead, so Kathy who loves the sea got a little Maine Seascape of a cake:

And in a small miracle, Kate took a picture in which both Kathy (who always looks good in photos) and I (who almost always look awful in pictures) both look good! It must be the wonderful company:

And finally, a bag of fingerling potatoes –grown by Kate in her own garden and joyously shared with her Frayed friends… and potatoes may be one of my favorite foods on earth, even more than…well no…. not quite…. but nearly as good as chocolate!

And oh yeah…the beautiful details extend even to the Ladies’ Room, which had two of these lovely little moss-scapes:

On a glorious Saturday afternoon in Maine, we had our artists’ reception at the Camden Public Library. The room was colorful, even more so because of the gorgeous flowers Kate brought, some from her garden (sigh…someday I will have a garden that has SUN).

Kate also had the brilliant idea to put out some “Quilt Show” signs to alert passersby, and it worked! Unfortunately, I didn’t get pics of those, but I can tell you Kate made up the “flags” at home, then she and Kathy cut out the fused letters and ironed them on while camping at Mount Battie here in Camden, using the electricity in the bathroom. Now that’s dedication!

Just above, you can see Hannah, her oldest daughter, Kathy, a friend of Kathy’s and the “kitchen” end of the room (the kitchenette is behind the folding doors), with our refreshments table in the center with Kate’s beautiful batik cloth. Our grid piece is on the right.

Here is my dear friend Betty Johnson who came with her daughter Karen Martin. Both are mainstays in the Coastal Quilters, and I’m so glad they are both there. Betty is an amazing art quilter with an unerring eye, and Karen does the most perfect piecing I think I’ve ever seen…lots of detailed paper piecing too! Gorgeous! Betty is looking at our 5×5 / Five Artists, Five Views piece where each of us interpreted the same photo (each column), and where each row shows a single artist’s variation on the five photos.

Betty also surprised me with this little “Inchie and three quarters”… I had bid on her small art quilt at our Coastal Quilters fundraiser but got outbid, but she remembered and made me a “congrats” on the show and my Quilting Arts article with her bunny fabric (I have a thing for bunnies). I may make this into a pin or necklace!

Here’s a closer look at the items in the display case and above it (from left to right on the wall, Kathy’s birches, Sarah’s Autumn on the Village Green, and Kate’s interpretation of http://www.esteritaaustin.com/s pattern of a stone-flanked doorway):

Here is another view, this time of the corner opposite the kitchenette, with my Koi on the far wall (the wall you see as you look through the doors into the Picker Room) and Deborah’s “Anthony Avenue” anchoring the wall on the right.

I am still trying to catch up on lost sleep from all those hospital nights, but life is good. The show was fun, there are many wonderful comments in our guest show book (another one of Kate’s grand ideas!), Joshua is eating more, and getting more like his usual (sometimes teen-attitude) self, which means he is healing, his skin grafts look better (ok, less bad!) every day, and nighttime temps are ever-so-slightly beginning to drop. The first green acorns are already dotting the driveway, and school starts in 24 days. Not that I’m counting… GRIN! Now, to get to work on the book….

The Frayed Edges Show at the Camden Public Library (Maine) is up and open for public viewing! And, thanks to sending out press releases, we have coverage in print and online from The Village Soup (Knox County edition) and The Camden Herald, which has a picture, too! The show is in the Jean Picker Room, on the lower level. If you enter from Atlantic street, pass the check-out desk and bear left past the “new books” and card catalog computers to the room. Here’s the view as you walk into the Picker Room, which holds a new show of various art media every month; the director for these programs popped in as we were hanging, and said again that his favorites are the quilt shows…yeah!

On Thursday morning, which was sunny, warm and sticky, Kate Cutko brought up her pieces and Hannah’s from the Bowdoinham area. Deborah has shipped hers from Dallas, and Kathy–who lives in China Village–had dropped hers off at my house earlier in the week since she had to work that day. Thank heavens Kate was there, as I was all butterfingers from so many nights and days at the hospital…I think she hung two pieces for every one I managed to get up! AND, we got all but one piece displayed! Then we trotted over to Rockport Blueprint, because she realized we ought to have a guest book, and bought one!

The day began with a wondrous gathering…the first time we were able to assemble our “grid” pieces! This was an idea I had to have each of us provide a photo, then all five of us interpret the photo in something small…the pieces are all 7 inches tall. The verticals are 5″ wide by 7″ tall, the horizontals are 10″ wide by 7″ tall (size was dicated by the space available between the chair rail and maximum upper viewing level!). They are arranged so that each artist has a row for their work, and each column is five variations of one photo. Then Kathy made a great poster (and labels for all our pieces) with the five original photos from which we drew our inspiration. Here’s Kate setting them out:

As you walk into the Picker room, you can see the grid on the center of the left wall:

This shot is from the grid, around the corner to the far wall (with all our junk on the table…the room looks better when we’re not in the middle of setting up…grin!), with my Koi quilt:

Then, turn the corner to the right wall, which has a collage of various works by four of us, Deborah’s “Anthony Avenue” piece anchoring that wall, two cool pieces (Kate’s nest on top, Deborah’s Encrusted Cairn on the bottom), Kathy’s pink flowers/trees/wonderfulness, then Hannah’s two pieces, and my Flying Toast about Gramma’s kitchen.

Here’s the corner next to the doors, with Flying Toast again and a small piece which I forgot to tell Kathy about (actually forgot I had it!) called Essence of Summer Rose, a mixed media…quilt on painted canvas.

Just to the left of the doors is a large display case with our group round-robin books, some of Deborah’s small pieces (we’re going to work on the display of those!), will add some of Kate’s Adoption Day cards (her website is here), and a few more items. Our binder with information about the show, a picture of all of us,the Winter 2006 Quilting Arts article about us, and artists’ statements is on to, along with the guest book and our cards. Above the case is Kathy’s birches and my Autumn on the Village Green.

MANY of these pieces are for sale…if you are interested in any of them, just drop me a line and I’ll get back to you! Because Joshua is still in the hospital, it may take a couple of days, but I promise I’ll return e-mails as soon as I can.  More about Joshua soon.

We hope you’ll be able to come visit, and if you do please leave us a note in the guestbook on the display case.  AND if you’d like to be on our mailing list, or on my newsletter, please leave an e-mail address!

Here’s a press release I sent out for our group show this August. Thought I’d insert a little quilty content into the medical reports. Joshua continues to improve, albeit slowly. He had another unit of blood today to combat the anemia, but he is getting stronger every day. Today he ate more than he has, tho not enough. One day at a time. And thanks again for ALL the many good wishes.

The Frayed Edges will have a show of textile and mixed media art at the Jean Picker Room of the Camden Public Library from August 2 through 29, located at Main Street and Atlantic Avenue in downtown Camden, Maine. Meet the artists at a reception on Saturday, August 11th, from 1 to 4 pm, in the Picker Room. For library hours and directions, visit the library website here .

The show will feature a selection of works on the theme of “Home,” a collaborative piece entitled “Five Artists-Five Views”, and selected other works. For the collaborative piece, each artist contributed a photo, then all five artists made a small piece based on that photograph. The resulting twenty-five small works are displayed in a unified grid. This piece illustrates for the viewer how each artist’s style reveals itself through five different interpretations, and how differently each person can “see” a single photo. Here’s the poster Deborah did up for us:

The Frayed Edges are a group of five women who live (or lived) in Maine and met through Art Quilts Maine, a part of the statewide Pine Tree Quilt Guild (www.mainequilts.org): Hannah Beattie of Brunswick, Deborah Boschert of Dallas, Texas (formerly of Topsham), Kate Cutko of Bowdoinham, Kathy Daniels of China Village, and Sarah Ann Smith of Camden. They are professional artists who sell their work from their websites, have won awards and been juried into national level shows, have been published as a group in the top art quilting magazine, Quilting Arts, and have projects in the forthcoming Quilting with Beads by Lark Books.

Some of the work in this show is available for purchase; please contact the artists directly. For questions, please contact Sarah at sarah@sarahannsmith.com .