Six Degrees of Separation

I had a mini reunion with some friends the other day; it was wonderful to see them again and do some major catching up. The whole time I'm thinking this reminds me of that movie - "Six Degrees of Separation" where someone knows someone who knows someone else. I'm standing on the right, next to me is my friend - Cindy from very long ago. She was my very first quilting teaching in Florida! She was a wonderful teacher who has been teaching nationally a long time. She had a great influence on my love of quilting and of course she knows my friend Mary from the teaching world (lower left). My friend Vita from my Marietta days (sitting in front of me) and whom I've know for around 15 years+ moved to Maryville WHERE she met Cindy (who also lives in Maryville). Are you still with me confused yet? Well we all wound up together for a reunion and it was great seeing them again and the beautiful work they're doing.

Mary is our resident beader  and deserves to be so. She often works on hand dyed wool which she dyes herself - all the edges are her own design.

I love this new piece with hand dyed felt and gauze. The gauze is doubled and fused to itself for strength and then scalloped, held in place with a bead!
Cindy does beautiful hand piecing. This project is for a retreat that Cindy offers every year. Students will piece a block and also learn all the embroidery for the second block

She is also a fabulous knitter - a skill I've never mastered. Making a scarf with knit and purl is the hardest thing I've done. This beautiful shawl featured lots of different kinds of stitches.
Vita is also an accomplished knitter; this is a project she is working on.
Vita is known for her wonderful "Barn Doors". She has traveled many "off the beaten track" roads, camera in hand, photographing barns and their surroundings. She then paints canvas and stitches to recreate a "piece of Americana" in fiber. They are absolutely wonderful in person. It's hard to grasp that these are fabric, they look so much like the real thing.
Her attention to detail is amazing these are all thread - Incredible, wouldn't you say!

When people ask how she starts a piece, she shows them her label on the back. It's a blank piece of canvas - that is her starting point.
Vita is also doing smaller pieces using windows as a main theme and all machine embroidered.

What a great day, so much beautiful work to see, good catch-up talk - getting together with old friends is the best.