Maureen Widder sent me this. Too cute! Maureen reports that the quilts that she made for her daughters were fun to sew. I would have to agree :-).
Maureen Widder’s Completely Dotty quilt.
The foundation paper pieced blocks are from our Completely Dotty pattern.
Jan Hirth finished her Honey Beez quilt. Isn’t it happy! I love this pattern… it is simple and complex at the same time. And while I’m not going to make a 2nd one, I think it would be great fun enlarged (maybe a lot) and made into a bed quilt!
Thank you, Jan, for sharing the finished photos!
Jan Hirth’s HoneyBeez quilt.
Did you notice the large red circle in the top outer ring? That’s a nice touch, Jan.
Jan Hirth’s HoneyBeez quilt, detail.
I usually hand applique for 2 to 2 1/2 hours each night in my chair with my feet up and my light in the correct spot (over my left shoulder because I am right-handed). For the last few weeks I’ve added a few hours of applique in the afternoon and I’ve noticed that my neck is sore. Darn it! I know it’s because I’m holding my (heavy) head in the wrong place instead of keeping it centered over my body. I also know that I’ve gotten posture-lazy in the last year.
It is really easy to ignore your posture, letting your head drop and shoulders round forward—gravity is working against us. There are, however, easy exercises that we can do to combat this problem. I know because I googled ‘neck and shoulder exercises’ and found this video.
As I watched the video, I was reminded that this is exactly what my physical therapist recommended when I was first diagnosed with bone density issues. Doing this for 40 seconds, 6 times a day, is not that hard!
However, the warning at the front of the video is true—only do these if your body is up for it. If you are unsure, consult your physician. FYI: I’m not necessarily a fan of chiropractic bending and popping, so please don’t consider this an endorsement of that.
PS: If you are like me, you thought it was funny when he said “if you have trouble finding a corner…”. How hard could that be? And then I had trouble finding a corner in my own house :-).
Mr. Boyce wrote that he took off about 5 weeks off from his regular job and set out in his truck with no particular destination in mind—but with the intention to produce timelapse sequences. This entire timelapse sequence, titled Edge of Stability, was recorded between May and June of 2015.
Isn’t it wonderful to be consumed by a creative venture! To learn as much as you can, to experiment, to work hard to fulfill your vision—whether you use a camera or fabric.
I hope you can join me February 29-March 5, 2016, at the Academy of Applique in Williamsburg, VA. Registration for classes will open at noon today—click here for registration instructions.
I am just one of a dandy roster of teachers. Between us, we are teaching a variety of applique classes. Click here to open the interactive class schedule.
I hope to see you there!
Those middle-of-the-night thoughts…
I sometimes wake up at night, thinking and/or worrying. Do most women do that? For me it’s not an every-night occurrence—it happens in spurts.
When Steve and I were younger and made a lot less, I woke up worrying about money. Steve never did, and he thought I was crazy to lose sleep worrying about problems that would work themselves out. (It takes a lot to make him wake up worrying.) He was right; those worries tended to dissipate with time.
These days I am more likely to wake up thinking about how I’ve managed to do or say something stupid the day before, the week before, or farther back. I wish I could say that I always say and do the right thing. I try, but I fail often enough to wake me up—thankfully, not every night.
What gets me back to sleep is the thought that where there is life, there is hope. Every day really is a new day, with a chance to do better. Goodness knows, I keep trying and maybe someday I’ll be like those people who always seem to know the right thing to say or not say, at exactly the right time. If you do this too, take heart in the fact that you are not alone. We are each of us a work in progress :-).
Creative thoughts…
Then there are the times I wake up with creative ideas. I like this a whole lot better, even if I do lose sleep, which brings me back to the topic at hand… deep thoughts.
Most of us don’t create in a vacuum—our creativity is fed by that of others. So it makes sense to be open to new ideas, new ways of seeing and interpreting the world around us. With that in mind, I’d like to direct you to this post by Pam Holland. I especially enjoyed the video she posted. Pam is a beautiful photographer and her images do flutter around in my head. Thank you, Pam, for posting them!
I also very much enjoyed the TED talk by Béatrice Coron, a papercutter artist whose work I had not seen until I found this video (bottom of post). Her work is inspiring, beautiful, and thought-provoking. FYI: I found this talk by going to TED and searching for ‘creativity’. I’ll bet searching for ‘inspiration’ would yield wonderful results as well.
I am currently feeling my way toward new ideas, even as I work on quilts that are stylistically similar to those I’ve made in the past. Once these are complete, I can turn my attention to quilts that are, I hope, completely different for me. Until then, ideas are constantly swirling around in my head, and I’m enjoying the thinking process.
In closing, let’s all sleep well, turn off the worries, trust in a new day, and think about being creative!
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