What a week!

Yesterday, I left the backwoods of Alabama.  The Alabama Folk School session ended at noon on Thursday with a concert and art show.  All of us in the Gee's Bend quilting class had our pieces hanging in the windows of our classroom. We had cleared our  tables and pushed them to the walls so that the Bluegrass classes could come in and give us a concert.
I had a wonderful and freeing time in this class. The big surprise for me was that I was not the only man in the class. Charlie and his wife, Nancy, were there sharing an antique machine.

Isn't that the coolest machine?  I wish I had taken a picture of the bobbins - they are not at all like the bobbins we use every day. 

I think both of them were new to quilting, but they did great.  Charlie is a retired surgeon and a darn good "old time" singer. This lovely couple performs together and they are both good musicians.  For one of our concerts they sang a song called "Seeing Nellie Home."  The chorus has the line "It was from Aunt Dinah's quilting party, I was seeing Nellie home."  They were a lot of fun and very creative.  Charlie also happens to be on the board of the Folk School.

The instructors for the class were China and Mary Ann Pettway. They frequently sang during classes - sometimes I could not resist joining in. And of course I had to have my picture made with them.  Mary Ann is on the left and China is on the right. We were laughing a lot so I did not get a "perfect" picture of the three of us. China has a funny look on her face in this one.  The hot Alabama sun was shining through the windows and my hair looks even thinner than it is. But, who cares.  We had a great time.

I promised to show some of my work, so here is a picture of my window area display.

The sun was so bright that parts of it washed out in the picture. I will be posting more pictures in the coming days.  Also I had one piece that didn't make to the display before I took this picture.  I will add a picture of that also.
Here is a better picture of the pieces on the left. (ignore the little man on the right of the picture.

I made many new friends, both quilters and musicians.  One of the mandolin students also had a penny whistle.  We went to the chapel and played a couple of tunes together.  The acoustics there were amazing.

When I got in late yesterday  I was exhausted.  However, my creative muse is pushing me to get back into the process of creating some more pieces to go with these.  I hope to get more made today and perhaps built on these.
I have so many more things to tell you about this class. Please,  come back tomorrow visit with me again.