Quilt Exhibit

My crazy quilt, "Crazy Diamonds" is on exhibit at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY from 24 Sept - 31 Dec in the "Unfolding Stories" exhibit. Every stitch in Crazy Diamonds is by hand. It has won blue ribbons at the American Quilters' Society, Empire State Quilt Festival, Bennington Quilt Festival, Vermont Quilt Festival, and New York State of Mind Quilt Contest and has also won several Viewer's Choice and Vendor's Choice ribbons.

As I was completing it in April of 2009, my daughter went into labor. I quickly gathered up the bits and pieces of the quilt and drove to her house and started talking to my as-yet-unborn grandson through her belly. I asked him, "Baby, please wait just a bit for Granny to finish this quilt!" And you know, he did! A few days later the quilt was finished and Raffaele was born. My daughter has not forgiven me. :-)

Hurricanes Irene and lee

On August 28, we were hit fairly hard by Irene. This is not a creek or river. This is part of the garden by the road. At the base of the tree is a 3 foot slope. The waters were flowing quite quickly across the entire 5 acres of our property. Just a week or so later, we were hit by Lee. Not as bad as Irene, but most of the property had flowing flood waters. Our basement was flooded to 4 feet, destroying the sump pump, new boiler system, water softener and damaging water pipes and oil tank. We lost power for 6 days. Had power surges from generator which played havoc with computers and burnt out our stand-up freezer filled with organic food. We lost a lot of our business packaging and raw materials. There was 2 feet of water in the barn and garage. It's been over 4 weeks and we still have no hot water or heat.

However, the surrounding area fared much, much worse! Entire houses were destroyed. Businesses and homes had extensive flood damage. Roads and bridges were washed away. In villages, there were gas and oil spills, sewage problems, etc. They are calling this event a 500-year flood. Let's hope so. Middleburgh School just opened for the year yesterday. There is still extensive damage, but work goes on while students adjust to all.