As I walked through the doors to the Maury Quilters’ Guild meeting last Wednesday,  my jaw dropped open and I don’t think it closed until time to eat lunch.

We had a guest speaker, Jean Shaw, a well-known quilter and lecturer in the Tennessee area and probably outside of Tennessee.  She is a fourth generation quilter, raised on a farm and taught by her mother and grandmother.  She reminisced about using what ever fabrics were available during that time.  Her favorite thing to do was go with her father to the feed and grain store so she could pick out the sacks they came in.  She knew these would be turned into clothes and eventually into quilts.

She has an accounting and math background and talked about how that affects her planning and construction of quilts.  Her precision and color choices are breathtaking as well as jaw dropping.   Take a look!!!

Another amazing creation…..

For those of you who don’t quilt, paper piecing uses a paper template for each element in one block of a quilt.  In this case for example, each one of the points that makes up the starburst is on a template of paper and a piece of fabric is sewn onto to it and then the next adjoining fabric and so on to create one block.  This helps create the perfect points and really works well to create curves as in the circle of fabrics surrounding the starburst.  Paper piecing is probably my favorite method of piecing a quilt top.

Here’s another…..

The next few quilts are all made from 30’s reproduction fabrics.  These along with batiks and brights are my very favorite fabrics.  The 30’s bring back memories of  my grandmother’s quilts.

These next few are called “scrappy quilts”.  Now when you think of the word scrappy you probably think this can’t be good.  Scrappy means left over and throw away.  Not for quilters.  This is a chance to use those left over fabrics in your stash from other projects and create something like this…..

Aren’t all of these just excellent?  I obviously didn’t show the entire quilt of some because you couldn’t see the patterns and fabric unless I did a close up.  There are so many more that she brought to share but I would be on this post for days if I showed them all.

Someone asked her how many quilts she actually had and she couldn’t give us a number.  She said she decided one day to count them and quit after one closet because had 114 in that closet alone.   Most of them she has made over the years but some (which she doesn’t travel with) were from her mother and grandmother. 

If you ever get a chance to attend a quilt show or go to the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY, take time to GO!!  You won’t be disappointed I promise.  Each and every quilt is a work of art in color and craftmanship.

For those of you who sew or even those who would like to learn,  if you haven’t attempted a quilt, you should.  It doesn’t have to be a large quilt.  It can be a miniature, crib or lap size.  Think you can’t do it, take a lesson. 

Now that I’ve shared all of this with you I will SHUT MY MOUTH….