Laurie Hill Gibb

At the Denver Quilt Show we met Laurie Hill Gibb who was exhibiting her quilted VW camper "Turtle".  I had read an article about Laurie in The Quilt Life, so it was fun to meet her in person.
After retirement, Laurie decided to take a year and travel around the U.S.A. and Canada.  She calls it Journey 65, because she was 65 years old when she made the trek.  She "quilted" Turtle the van when she got home - she didn't drive it around the country quilted :)

The quilts on the van tell the story of her journey, part of which includes:
65 year old single female
11 year old van
37 states
12 months
20,000 miles
6000 photos
59 museums
Hundreds of galleries
Three artists' residencies

25 National Parks and Monuments
Hundreds of state parks and national forests
30 yards of dyed and painted fabric
1 set of tires


(This information is taken partly from her website and partly from a postcard she gave me.  A link to her website is at the end of this post.)

She even showed us her "Man in a Bag".  She said she was a little concerned about traveling alone, so when she stopped at camping areas for the night she would place a man's shoes outside the van or a man's hat in the van window, to make it look like she had a male with her and wasn't a female traveling alone.  She said after awhile she quit worrying about it so much and felt quite safe.

Besides the van, Laurie also had an exhibit of art quilts at the show.  This one is called:
Last Garden Peek (Blue Ridge Georgia) and the one below is Eventually the Sea (Pacific Coast).

It is quite an interesting adventure!  You can read more about Laurie at:
http://www.lauriehillgibb.com/