Mary from Texas and me...from Jersey!
the hamster wheel that has been life for the past few weeks, and hopefully things will quiet down now! One of the highlights of my Lancaster trip was a visit to the Ephrata Cloister in Ephrata, PA. It is the home of one of the earliest religious communities in the country, established by German Settlers. The state of PA acquired the remains of the cloister in the 1940s and began a restoration of the remaining buildings.
The grounds were beautiful and I could understand the feeling of peace and the closeness to God that these settlers must have felt when on this land. It was breathtaking.
Back in Intercourse where I was staying, the People's Place Quilt Museum was featuring quilts from Fons and Porter. Seeing the contemporary quilts after seeing all the Amish quilts was almost jarring. The techniques were so different, but each type of quilting is beautiful in its own way.
It was a wonderfully relaxing trip which was good, because the time since I came home has been insanely busy. Between working and quilting for customers, we had a few events come up unexpectedly.
On Wednesday morning, my son participated in a forum discussing the Amethyst Initiative at Rowan University. Two students were chosen to discuss the pros and cons of the Initiative and Andrew was on the pro side, arguing that there should be a discussion on whether the drinking age should be lowered. I was incredibly proud of him as he was the only speaker with a dissenting view and the other speakers were rough on him. He was fully prepared with statistics supporting his view and all of the other speakers congratulated him on his strong argument and his willingness to be the lone supporter. He did a great job.
Another unplanned surprise came in the form of a desperate call (while we were at Andrew's forum) from Ellen saying she was horribly homesick and could she PLEASE come home for the weekend. So Thursday afternoon I was heading to the Philadelphia airport to pick her up. It was wonderful to have her home and she looked so much happier when I dropped her off at the airport this afternoon. And I had one more fun event this weekend...but that will be in my next post!
The museum is housed in an old bank building, so it was a beautiful place to display the quilts...
A few of my favorites...(and yes I did realize that my reflection is in most of the pictures. A photographer I am not!)
After spending some time in the museum, I drove to the Rockvale outlets. After coming out of them empty handed, I found a Starbucks so I could refuel, then headed to Intercourse and my hotel room above Village Quilts at Kitchen Kettle Village. This is a relatively new place...the room I stayed in has only been used for about a year. If you ever come to the Lancaster area, I'd highly recommend staying in one of the Kitchen Kettle Villages Lodgings. They are comfortable, beautifully appointed and reasonable. They also give you metal travel mugs, free breakfast at the Kling House restaurant, which was delicious, a little basket of crackers, jams and chocolate, coffee, tea...everything you need to enjoy your stay.
There are handmade quilts on every bed...
Did I mention how relaxing this trip was? More tomorrow...
The pyres you see in this photo are for WaterFire, which is a unique event in Providence. These pyres are up and down the canal and are lit at night, while music is playing. I've never seen anything quite like it! It draws huge crowds and since Saturday night was the last WaterFire of the season and was a breast cancer fundraiser, they expected about 100,000 people to attend. It was beautiful.
One of the highlights of the trip was meeting Ellen's boyfriend. He's a great guy and I really enjoyed spending time with him. He was game for anything...wandering around the art museum, walking miles through the city, keeping me company while Ellen and Grace ran to Old Navy for a sweatshirt. It was a pleasure to meet him.
On Sunday morning, Ellen met us at the hotel and we wandered down to The Cheesecake Factory for breakfast. It was another gorgeous day and we sat outside and enjoyed the weather and the company for a long time. But then it was time to head back to Jersey, so we dropped Ellen at her dorm and stopped long enough for one last picture...
It was a great weekend!
and I'll be making a piano key border from my scraps. I'll probably piece a back for it as well and it will become a donation quilt for my Caps and Laps group at church.
This winter he'll be as warm as an alpaca.
Sam was a pain in the neck most of the time...he had to relearn a lot of things that he had forgotten with his previous owners. Important things like how to go to the bathroom outside and how not to steal food. He did pretty well with the first, but not so great with the second. But, we loved him anyway and he became a part of the family.
Over the past few days, we'd seen a serious decline in his health. He had developed tremors, which were getting worse. He had a cancerous tumor on his face, which had broken through the skin and was getting larger. He developed a horrible cough and couldn't keep food down. So, once again the decision had to be made. He was in pain and suffering, so I took him this morning to be put to sleep.
Sam, thanks for being part of our lives for the past three years...we're going to miss you.
It reminds me a mosaic tile floor...just beautiful! I wish I had the patience to make a quilt like this!
