Mayday, Mayday, Mayday

Oh shucks, it's May already.

Today we headed south out of Georgia and into Alabama. First stop the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts.  Unfortunately the only quilts on show were in a loan collection and could not be photographed.

The bonus was that they were mostly Gee's Bend Quilts, so exciting anyway. In the 1960s the ladies of Gee's Bend (Boyton) did,piece sewing for Sears Roebuck, making pillows/cushion covers using corduroys. The bits that were leftover where taken home to be used in quilts. We saw a few examples of these at the museum. One, in rich greens and ruby reds was just simple strips and a few triangles. Very strong and lovely. Boy how we would have loved to touch.

One collection that we could photograph was an exhibition of children's art that was being installed ready for the being of the Art Festival on Saturday. These were my favourites.

Outside kids of all ages were working on Chalk Art, with each group, from toddlers to teenagers, having a packing space to fill with art. These were some that I liked.

This tile installation is very patchwork, isn't it?

Then we had a two hour drive to Gee's Bend, including passing through Selma where Civil Rights Movement worked hard for non-segregation and equal rights.

The area now begins to look a bit more like the south. Air plants hanging from the trees, big wide porches, lots and lots of Baptist churches and big cemeteries.

These houses look like they're transportable, but don't think they're going anywhere.

Then we arrived in Gee's Bend. Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. Mary Ann welcome me,with a big hug and introductions were made to Florine and Miss Nancy.

This unassuming trio are part of the Collective and were just lovely. This is Mary Ann quilting. She measures off a l-o-n-g length of thread and starting at the edge starts quilting. When she gets to the edge of her wooden floor frame she measures off another length and does a parallel line until that reaches the wooden edge too. And so she goes across the width of the quilt, leaving the long tails,to,hag, but it means no joins on a row. Look carefully and you might see the buch of threads on the right side of this photo.

Mary Ann had fixed us a cake. yummo! Enlarge this to see the recipe.

This quilt was just "made with the mind" according to Florine, the maker.

Florine. Oh how impish you could have heard that woman sing. The ladies asked would,we,like them to sing. "Yes please"! What fabulous harmony the three of them made, but Florine.... well,she just had an amazing volume. It was goose bump stuff.

The Collective Building.

Our driver Smitty is a retire fire fighter, so I think he enjoyed being parked next door to the FiremStation, especially when the driver got the old engine out of the shed.

Boys and their toys.