Friendship Orchard Quilt added to UHQT

Faith n Grace, LLC, has joined the Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail. The Open Air Farm Market is located on Route 76 in Long Creek. Partners Joan Facey and Dick Cawood named their company Faith n Grace because she is Faithful and he is Gracious. Dick is originally from York, England and his grandfather was the head gardener for the Duke of Norfolk. It is believed that he inherited his love of the land from his grandfather. Joan has a strong Scottish background, a deep love of the land, including natural organic products, going as far back as her childhood days in rural New Jersey. The quilt block includes four different patterns – Apple Tree gleaned from Maggie Malone’s ‘5,500 Quilt Block Designs’; Scottish Cross, Link of Friendship, and Virginia Star from the ‘Quilters Album of Patchwork Patterns’ by Jinny Beyer. The original quilt, called “Friendship Orchard” was created by Virginia Cawood to signify the main elements of the Cawood-Facey partnership. The Scottish Cross was used to acknowledge the Scottish ties of both families, while the Friendship Knot and Apple Tree symbolize the friendship and apples grown. The Virginia Star is for the quilter. Dick and Virginia (Gini) spent more than 20 years living in Africa, where Gini joined a craft group and first started to quilt. She had sewn many items of clothing while growing up in Pennsylvania and liked the tradition of creating baby quilts. Gini has, over the years, participated in many crafts but when she moved to the Clayton, Ga area she found the camaraderie of the quilting community there was what she needed to happily settle just over the South Carolina border. Gini has belonged to the Mountain Laurel Quilters Guild, Clarkesville, GA, since 2007, and served as an officer or chairperson for 6 years. She has learned many skills and made many friends as a member of the guild’s smaller sub-groups. Her philosophy for participation in the quilting world is many faceted. The friendship and support of other members combined with the valuable education gained from those friends, is her main reason for quilting. She likes to approach each quilt as if it were a puzzle – satisfying her creative side and keeping the brain cells bouncing! Sissy Anderson, a local quilter, teacher and friend, quilted the quilt. Faith n Grace purchased the Crooked Oak Orchard that was first established in 1960. They have spent the last six years rejuvenating it and are proud to say that it is again beautiful and producing apples. Crooked Oak is a strange name for a property that had up to 4,000 apple trees, but only one oak! The Cawood family has a farm almost across the street from the orchard with horses, the neighbor’s cattle and a Leyland Cyprus nursery. The children and grandchildren play and swim in the rivers nearby, ride dirt bikes and target practice on the farm they all refer to as their ‘Happy Place.’ The Open Air Market opened in 2014 to sell apples from Crooked Oak and canned goods from Chattooga Belle Farm. The Cawood and Facey families have ancestral ties to Scotland. Among other things, Dick Cawood has been building picture frames for more than 30 years both as a hobby and as a living. His wife, Virginia (Gini), is a member of the Mountain Laurel Quilters Guild, serving as both an officer and chairman for the last 7 years.