The city of Eagle Lake is having a celebration Friday evening, June 2, "Eagle Lake Alive". Streets downtown will be blocked off and we'll have musicians, a couple of food trucks, and a tour of the historic buildings in the downtown square. I am exhibiting six quilts in a "gallery under construction" on Main Street. Gil James, the owner, bought the former Western Auto store and has been restoring it for several years. It's still a work in progress. There is a spacious area for display, however, and Gil is eager to have people think of his gallery when they want to show artwork. There aren't many places in town with room to display fairly large pieces, so I'm happy to have the work up, well spaced and nicely lit. We hung the quilts Wednesday. The photo above shows some of the quilts; there's another view below featuring "Traditions Encircled" which I wrote about several posts ago.
Oh, and we're supposed to be in costume for this--I gave up my hoopskirts when I moved here, but retained one frontier-style outfit, so I'm well equipped. If asked, I explain my very short hair by telling people, "They had to cut off my hair when I had a high fever. Just like Mary in Little House on the Prairie."
I have started hand quilting the king-sized piece for my great-niece and her husband. It needs stitch in the ditch quilting with many changes of direction, something that would not be fun to do on the Sweet Sixteen. Wrestling a large piece around the machine is hard physical labor, especially when there are few continuous lines. So this will take a while; it has the advantage of letting me sit, quilt and watch TV when my hip is hurting (and that's one reason I started, planning for convalescence from hip replacement later this summer). It is called "Yard Sale Labyrinth"--all the top fabrics in blues and browns were gleaned from yard and garage sales. I now have to figure out where to put the remnants.
In and around quilt construction I have been dealing with the death of the dishwasher, delivery of the replacement, and the disquieting discovery that while the new machine has the same front measurements as the old one, it would not fit into the allotted space. Two visits from my favorite contractor/builder, Wayne, were required before the installer could shove the new machine into place. But it's in now, and I can replace all the cleaning supplies under the sink and get back to normal. The best thing about having a dishwasher is that there's a place to hide the dirty dishes until I need to wash them. They're not sitting sulkily on the counter glowering at me.