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Close to Nowhere
By Linda Jones Quilted out? My
boon friend and traveling companion Jane and I headed out to Jackson,
Tenn., last Friday for an all day class with Kaye England. Kaye is a superstar in the quilt world, even though you probably don’t recognize her name. Genell,
from our quilt guild in Oxford, discovered the class at Sew Many Ideas,
a quilt store in Jackson, and she, along with a couple of her friends,
met us there. It was such a good day! Kaye talked and taught us all about precision piecing. Yes,
she had some rulers for sale, but you didn’t have to buy them for the
class -- and yes, we all bought some! But they’re great rulers! And
proceeds went to Kaye’s “part” of breast cancer research -- a subject
near and dear to her, after her mom died of breast cancer. Being
a fabriholic, it was almost impossible not to buy fabric at the store.
But Kaye kept us busy most of the day and by 5 p.m., we were mostly too
tired to shop for fabric. (And that’s tired for a quilter!) The following Saturday, Genell, who lives in Sardis, was teaching her own quilting class at our guild. She’s
a world class paper piecer and our class was on the “New York Beauty”
quilt pattern, which has lots of points -- which are almost impossible
if you’re not paper piecing. Since I’d only recently discovered paper piecing, I was really excited about the class. Margie
Jones, of Holly Springs, also a member of the guild in Oxford, had a
program several months ago on paper piecing. She highly recommended
these “add-a-quarter” rulers. Yes, I bought some! But she explained the
paper piecing so well (she is a world class quilter!) that I thought “I
can do that!” And you know what? After a Thursday
morning session at the “Loose Threads” sewing day where Margie came and
walked me (very patiently I might add) through the ins and outs of
paper piecing, I was ready for Genell’s class! Margie
and Mimi Alef, an award-winning world class quilter from our guild,
were at Genell’s class Saturday, to help us out and prop Genell up --
she’d never taught a quilting class before. It was the best day! And I spent all day Sunday making New York Beauty blocks! I might actually finish a lap quilt! •
If you remember Jason Maddox, former news reporter for The South
Reporter -- Genell is his aunt. Jason and Sally are happily married and
he’s working at The Panolian in Batesville.
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