studioQ August meeting

 I've been very negligent in posting about my favorite group of fiber artists! We have been meeting once a month for over eight years now! We have so much fun together and learn so much from each other! We are about to wrap up our last challenge ...our color chip challenge. I am going to post both #8 and #9 as I am pretty sure I did not post about our July meeting!

We have done 9...one more to go!

Wendy's choice...#8-Top row-my fabrics/bottom row-Wendy's paint chips.Wendy had chosen her colors from a painting by Arthur Dove which I could not find to post!

Beth-#8 (done in paper)

My #8 

Wendy #8

Heather #8 

Rhonda #8 

#8-All together!

Kay's #8 (she missed the July Meeting)

Then for our August meeting Heather had presented us with paint chips inspired by the following picture.

Heather's inspiration for Challenge #9

Bottom row-Heather's paint chips/Top row-my fabric choices

And here are the blocks created by those who participated for our August meeting.

Rhonda's #9 

Kay's #9

Heather's #9

My #9-in progress...I am debating between these two to finish...

My other # 9 in progress...opinions???

Memory Mondays #70

     The end of summer is approaching...I have been working at the swimming pool, dating the love of my life, having fun with my friends....and getting ready for college!  My mom....the mother lion, you know....is determined that I get the best out of it that I can!  And I don't just mean education-wise!  My mom never had the opportunity to go to college.  Both of her best friends were from more affluent families than she was and did attend college so she was exposed to the various aspects vicariously.
     My mom had it in her head that to succeed in college, one needed to be in a sorority! Now, I will have to say, until that summer, I had no idea what a sorority was!  In fact, I did not know the difference between a fraternity and a sorority!!  But my mom gathered all the information about Rush at the University of Missouri...better known as Mizzou from this post on.

     Rush back in the '50's was held the week before school began.  Probably not a whole week, but certainly several days.  So all the girls who were attending Rush were there early.  My  assigned roommate was not going through Rush so she didn't come until the following week. (Much more to come of Mary Jane, my roommate and continued friend for over 50 years!)
      So a few days before leaving for college, my mom and a cousin of mine who was closer in my mom in age and who lived with us some of the time, were busy getting all my clothes and stuff together.  My mom had read all the suggestions of how to send off a child to college and one of the things she really took to heart was labeling all my belongings.  My name was stitched into EVERY article of clothing I possessed!!! We are talking every blouse, skirt, dress, bra, panties....my name was even written on the soles of my nylon hose in pen!!!!

Memory Monday # 69

     Graduation!  May, 1958....we are the third class to graduate from the "new" high school, Pittsfield High School....now called Pike County High School or something like that.  At that time, when the school was built, one of the small towns near us in the same county had to close their high school and become a part of the one in Pittsfield.
      Graduation took place in the high school gymnasium...chairs were placed on the floor for the graduates and the audience sat on chairs to the side of the graduates and in the bleachers.  There were exactly 100 hundred in my class; we marched in in pairs to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance"!

Marching in for graduation

Crossing the stage to receive diploma

Graduation Day/ Dress under gown.

    After graduation, I continued with the tradition my sister had set and hosted the class to a party at my parents' house.  Of course, not everyone came...and many did who were not in our class!  And all my parents' friends who had kids graduating with me helped with the food.  And the guy I was dating at the time had a "garage band"...in the style of Elvis Presley...so they played at the party!  I am sure my parents had to make a lot of good deeds to our neighbors!  But most were very understanding as this was not an every day occasion!

      The last summer before going to college!  I was in love, of course, and although I wanted to go to college, I didn't want to leave the nest!  But it was a magical summer...that feeling of being on the threshold of something big!!

Memory Monday # 68

       Senior Year!  Best year ever!  The fun of being a Senior...the excitement of the future...the apprehension of leaving home!  Neither of my parents had attended college...growing up in the Depression and having to work early in their adulthood did not make it possible.  We, my sister and I, were always brought up to the thinking of "Not IF you were going to college, but WHERE you were going to go".  So this was the year of SAT tests (or the equivelant) and checking out college campuses.
      My sister, graduating two years before me, had the  disadvantage/advantage of having gone through the process before me.  She was always the better student; I was the   "good enough to get by" student!  It was always a shock to our teachers (being from a small town, we had the same teachers all the time!) when I followed in Judy's footsteps and was so different...in all ways! She was painfully shy; I was a talker...she was concentious; I was a goof off! But I did manage to do well enough to get accepted in a few colleges!
      At the time in the 1950's only about 10% of a graduating class would attend college. Of my close friends (a gang of eight girls) only three of us were going to  go on to "higher education". Both of the other two were going to go "out of state"...that was a status symbol at that time...to not go to a "State" School!  My best buddy, Barbee was going to a small private school in Florida; and Peggy was going to the University of Arizona...so I too wanted to go out of state, but I didn't want to go too far from home!  Out of state tuitition was not nearly as expensive then as it is now.
    My home town in Illinois was near the Mississippi River on the West and the Illinois River on the East...rich farm land!  And across the Mississippi River, only 20 miles away, was the state of Missouri....and only 150 miles away into Missouri was Columbia, home of the University of Missouri...Mizzou!! So after visiting the beautiful campus, there was where I was to spend three of the four following years...with some fabulous memories I can bore you with for many weeks to come!

Seal of the University of Missouri

Memory Monday # 67

      One of the final memories I have of NYC was the opportunity to see a live television show!  Television in the 1950's was just coming into its own.  Color television was yet to become a household item...if even invented yet!  Many shows, game shows, some dramas were televised live....and viewed live!
     On the last day before we were to board the train and return to Illinois, we had the option of going to Coney Island or a live television show.  Coney Island at that time was something we landlocked Illinoisans had only heard about...no sand beaches and giant roller coasters in our Midwest world!

And the beaches and waves!

The largest roller coaster in the world!!! (at least that is what they said!)

This was where all of NYC went for pleasure...rides and waves!  Well, being the cowardly lion that I was....and hating any kind of rides...I opt for the television show!  There was only one other person who did not go to Coney Island...my friend, Peggy!  I really never knew whether she gave up Coney Island because she wanted to go to the television studio, or whether she knew I was terrified of the whole idea of Coney Island...but whatever her reason...we had a memorable visit to the live production of an early Johnny Carson show!!

"Do You Trust Your Wife?"

   The show we saw was when Carson hosted a game show in the afternoons called "Do You Trust Your Wife?" I found a 1958 copy of one of the shows on YouTube...and I have created a link for you if you would like to see a very young, skinny looking Johnny Carson!!  I couldn't say if this is the one we saw, but it sure is very much like it!  This taping is in two parts...I have linked to part I.

Art Quilters Around the World

    Every other month,  a blog that I have joined, Art Quilters Around the World, has a challenge given by various members.  The latest Challenge, which was due to be posted on July 31, is titled "Reuse, Recycle, Reduce".  One stipulation was to use only materials which we already had....no purchasing of anything new!! So one day when my daughter who is also a member of the AQATW was over, we were talking about what we were going to do. We went through a bunch of stuff I had leftover from other projects. And with her encouragement, I decided what I wanted to do.
      I used a block made for an exercise on color my studioQ group did a few years back, where we created a paper sketch then made a block of fabric from our sketch.  Then I had this big pile of fabric flowers I made for something else and had a whole bunch left over....combining the two I made my challenge quilt for the 3 R's!  For more great quilts made by my fellow art quilters around the world...click on the above link!
       

Paper sketch 

Block made from sketch

A pile of fabric flowers 

Start of my block for the 3 R's Challenge 

My final quilt for the Challenge- 3R's