Knk05_Travelogue

The rich and fertile land of northern Illinois is home to the Kankakee Quilt Makers Guild. Nearly 18 months earlier they invited me to their guild for a workshop and lecture. The days finally rolled around for this event and I drove six hours to a large group of avid quilters who were a warm and friendly group. Later into the evening they said they liked my slide lecture and that I reminded them of Garrison Keillor with my many and long stories of childhood and growing up in southern Indiana, and how my quilts are representative of all this. The stories ended with my favorite: the one about being Sylbie's grandfather. The next morning came very soon, and 18 quilt students each painted two yards of fabrics that became the material for their beautiful work. Both days of the workshop were hard to top. The quilters were a talented bunch of folks, their work says this is a fact, and twelve noon on both days was a lunch buffet fit for the queen, herself. But the queen never showed up for lunch. They laid out all kinds of salads, fresh vegetables and dips, fresh fruits including three kinds of melons, cooked pasta salads, deli sandwiches that were too attractive to eat, cookies, cakes, and more cookies. And, by the way, we ate the deli sandwiches, anyway. As you stroll through the gallery of their work, remember that they did all this in two days. They painted two yards of fabrics each, they worked many hours with paper patterns, they cut out miles of fabric pieces to make up their designs, they composed their own designs on background fabrics, layered all this with a backside fabric and batting, pinned the layers together, and machine quilted!! That's right, I said two days of what they called "Phil Beaver's Boot Camp." You may enlarge each photo for a better view of this exceptional work. Phil Beaver
	Dee	Kathy	Jerry	Rhonda
Bonnie	Roberta	Karen	Karen	Sharon
	Linda	Birdie	Sherry