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A Little Bit of Maine in Texas

At LAST we can share.….the long skinny box has arrived in Dallas at Deborah’s house (you know her from her wonderful blog)! In January of 2005 (gee….only last year?) Deborah B., Kate C., Kathy D. (of Studio in the Woods blog) got together and formed a group and decided to call ourselves the Frayed Edges…

Then towards Fall came the news that Deborah would be moving to…gulp….Texas! Just as she was getting ready to move, she met Hannah B. and introduced her to us, and the Frayed Edges became five! Of course, our mantra from day one has been “no stress.” We wanted to make Deborah a farewell gift, but with the holidays just before her move mid-February, it didn’t happen. In March, we met at my house in Camden, (we had always met at D’s because of her little one, who is nearly our mascot!) and planned out what to do: four journal-sized-ish pieces with a common horizon line running through them all, and a “Maine” subject.

In April we met at Kate’s house in Bowdoinham and discovered to our great surprise and pleasure that they all worked together and that the white in my piece and Kate’s (the first and fourth) framed the piece nicely. From left to right the quilts are by me (Sarah), Kathy, Hannah and Kate. And here are close ups first of the two on the left (mine and Kath’s)–mine is of the Marshall Point Light at Port Clyde, both because it is quintessential Maine and because I so clearly recall Deb and Kate talking about letterboxing there! Kathy’s is of the glorious fiddlehead fern that unfurls in May and is a delicacy in quiche, salads and other local foods.

and the two on the right are Hannah’s and Kate’s. Hannah did a sunrise, because the sun first rises on the United States right here, and Kate did a winter scene of smelt shacks on a lake (ice fishing is a favorite pasttime here).

We talked about hanging the four, and talked about branches or sticks. Kate happened to have a “found” oar and two likely pieces of driftwood, one of which won out. Better yet, Kate had jute exactly the color of driftwood!

By June we had our pieces done when we met at Hannah’s house and played stamping and making screen prints in her basement, and I took the pieces home and bound them with the same yarn I couched to the outside edge of my piece.

In July, at Kathy’s house in China we put everything together and started to hang the quiltlets from the driftwood, but it needed more time and precision, so I brought the whole shebang home, tied them mostly evenly (unlike in this photo!) I hope, and made a box to send to Deborah!

We MISS YOU Deborah, and even though you’re half a continent away, we are still the five Frayed Edges! And by the way…any chance we might get you to lend it back to us for our group show at the Camden Public Library next summer for the 2007 Maine Year of Fiber Arts???

4 Responses to “A Little Bit of Maine in Texas”

  1. Deborah Says:

    I am so so so blessed. Thank you all so much.

    (Of course, I’ll send it back for the show! In fact, I’ll stash the box for safe keeping.)

  2. Deb R Says:

    Lucky Deborah! That’s a beautiful collection of quilty Maine!

  3. Gerrie Says:

    What a wonderful gift. In 1976, when we moved from Schenectady NY to San Jose, CA, four of my friends made me a wall hanging – the same landscape in 4 seasons. I still treasure it.

  4. marisa Says:

    Ciao, I’m italian quilter, my name is Marisa. Visit my blog. Bye
    My english is no good, sorry.