Shortly after we married, Mary became interested in quilting. Well, to be more accurate, the summer after we married, which would be the summer of 1970, Mary took a course through the Napa Recreation Department on macramé. I think it was so she could use some of the "stuff" for her 2nd grade class. The following summers (and I can’t remember the order) there was Origami, crocheting Afghan blocks, cross-stitch, rock painting, gourd art, needlepoint, and more, but it’s too mind-boggling to try and remember. Anyway, one summer in 1983… along came quilting. Little did I know at the time that quilting would not be just another summer fling or a passing fancy.

After a few practice attempts she decided to tackle an honest to goodness wall hanging type of a quilt. Her goal was to enter it in the Solano County Fair the following summer. She decided to try her hand at a "Lone Star" quilt and set off to a myriad of fabric stores to select the colors for the project. At the time, I had no clue as to how much quilt stores and quilt shows, would be interwoven into my life. (They used to be called fabric stores until quilting became a billion-dollar hobby.) Her quilt was nervously entered into the fair, and during the week of July 20th we made the trip to Vallejo from Suisun City, where we were living at that time, to see if the quilt was good enough to be shown. When we entered the building that housed the quilt entries we quickly scanned the area but did not find her quilt hanging. Because she had fretted all the way down to the fair that her quilt might not be good enough to be displayed, I knew that her stomach was in knots and she was feeling disappointment… although she was trying not to give any outward sign of frustration. We again circled the interior of the building looking more carefully this time. Nope! Her quilt was among the missing. I was trying to find the right words of comfort as we left, but knew that no matter what I said the words would be inadequate. Then just inside the entry we saw the quilt. It was hanging all by itself on a piece of wooden lattice with a blue ribbon and a huge purple ribbon that read "Best of Show"! I think at that moment she was firmly hooked on quilting, but I don’t know who was prouder.

Ever since 1983 I don’t think I have had a vacation that has not involved stopping by quilt shows and quilt stores. For those of you that wondered why Mary might have chosen Redmond, Oregon, to live - let me point out one fact. In the late 1980’s we started vacationing in Clark Fork, Idaho, so that I could go fishing with my good friend Virgil Berry. Virgil & Pam had been going there for 25 years or so and one year they invited us to spend some time with them. Virgil and I would go fish for kokanee and Mary and Pam would… wait! Did I mention that Pam is also a quilter? Anyway, Mary always seemed to schedule my fishing trip so that we would be in Bend, OR, on the night before the 2nd Saturday in July. That date might not mean much to you until you learn that Sisters, OR, is about 14 miles west from Bend. The town of Sisters holds the world’s largest outdoor quilt show on the 2nd Saturday of July every year. If you drew an equilateral triangle with Bend on one corner and Sisters on another corner, Redmond would be at the third corner. It's exactly 15.1 miles from our house to The Stitching Post quilt store that started the quilt show... ‘nuff said? I even dropped in at a quilt store in Skagway, Alaska and a quilt show in Valdez, Alaska in 2003 when I was on a 28-day camping trip with my brothers Bill & Lloyd in British Columbia, The Yukon Territory, Northwest Territory, and Alaska. Now keep in mind… Mary was not along. It was just out of habit!

Take a look at the quilt photos. The Lone Star quilt is there along with some of her other quilts. I’ll mention just a couple of them here. She was inspired by a picture of Lake McDonald in Glacier National Park to try her hand at a "landscape" quilt. There is a picture of Lake McDonald and the quilt that she made. That was another Best of Show and it was entered into the BOS category in the California State Fair representing Solano County. It placed 2nd at the State Fair. There is also one called "Mountain Abstract", but it isn't one of my favotites. In fact I don't understand a lot of her abstract quilts. (If it doesn't look like an apple...) There is also one called "Slash & Burn" I named that one. Mary calls it "Slice & Dice". It was kind of a "group effort". The object was for each of the ladies to start out with a fat quarter of cloth. They would pass it to another quilter (I think of them as standing in a circle and passing them to the right.) The ladies would then take the cloth home, cut a the quilt vertically & horizontally and add 6" to the quilt at both cuts. (Essentially the cloth grew 6" n both directions.) Then the following week they would pass it to the person on the right and repeat the process. I think there were 7 ladies, and I have included all 7 pictures of the progression of Mary's fabric. When you get to the last one... see if you can recognise where her cloth pieces are. It should all be there someplace because another rule was that you couldn't take anything out without replacing it. "Slash & Burn" along with a lot of her projects really amounted to exercises of techniques of quilting. (i.e. the curve & diamond piecing quilts.)

At some point Mary got involved in a quilt group with some very talented ladies that did a lot of other art work as well as quilts. They decided to take on a group project. Using a poster from a Napa Valley wine festival, they divided it into 9 squares (tic-tac-toe style). Each of them was instructed to pick a square, enlarge it (considerably), and build a quilt square. The ladies were then allowed to bring their patterns back to the next meeting and make sure that the corners lined up and that lines would match-up. Then off they went and manufactured their squares with no rules about color, texture, style, or anything. When they completed their squares they finally laid them out during a meeting to see what it looked like. Then two of the ladies were chosen to piece the squares together and complete the quilt. A picture of the poster and the finished quilt is shown at the top of this page. If you look carefully you will find that the bottle is actually in six of the nine blocks. I cut and pasted the quilt along side of a picture of the poster. (The quilt itself really doesn’t have the words at the bottom as shown.) Pretty cool quilt... right? Oh, by the way, Mary's block is the one at the lower left corner.