The 'No Special Event' Quilt'

The making of quilts probably started out as primarily a way of filling a practical, everyday need. It surely migrated to a way to add color and beauty to one's life and a way to share that love with others by giving of quilts to a friend.

That's what this 'everyday' quilt is. Just a gift from one friend to another; no special occasion, no birthday, no early 'Christmas present'. But it is the true expression of love and friendship to be able to share fabric, texture and color with someone else. Karen made this quilt for her friend and brought it to us to finish for her using our longarm APQS Millennium machine.

But just because it is a 'no special occasion' quilt does not take away from it's attractiveness nor the precision and care Karen put into it. Look closely at the detailed picture. See how she carefully aligned the directional fabrics. See the precision of her matching seams. And in the background, see the quilting we put into it - simple watery designs in the center of the quilt and angular designs in the border.

I'm sure this 'simple' quilt will be loved by the recipient and held in great esteem as if it were a $1,000,000 masterpiece, which it will be, to her!

International Quilt Festival and its Effects

The International Quilt Festival, held in Houston TX, has become an annual event for my two sisters and our Mom. Every year, we gather from where ever we live (TX and NY) and spend some wonderful 'girl-time' together. We giggle a lot, share family stories and revel in the joy of just being together in an incredibly creative environment.

Every year we come back inspired to achieve new heights with our business and crafts. And every year we usually fail to accomplish all that we were inspired to do.

This year my sister Mary Ellen, the one on the right, found this wonderful article that can be used by all of us when we return from a life-changing event. And make no mistake, this yearly quilt show is a Life-Changing Event for us all. I know this article helped me continue the joy and creativity of the Festival.

Read the following article, published by ©2009 Vicky White, The Feng Shui and Raw Food Coach. Get Vicky White’s FREE “5 Biggest Attraction Mistakes ” report and her FREE articles to boost your passion, purpose and creativity at: : www.LifeDesignStrategies.com

Article: Essential Feng Shui strategies to ensure you're not a three-day wonder!

When they take a drug addict into detox they know better than to put him back in the same environment - same colored walls, same friends, same room.

Have you ever been to a workshop or a personal growth event and felt your life had changed? You're away from home, away from distractions, surrounded by others who are going for it. As you drive down your street to go home everything looks different.

How do you ensure your changes are not just a two or three day wonder - you know what that's like: come home on a high with notes and information and all kinds of good intentions for BEING different and creating different results? If you live with others, more than likely you don't make a lot of sense when you try to explain what you got of out the event, or how you've evolved. They might even feel threatened by you sweeping in with all your enthusiasm for the changes you want to make NOW.

You look around your home and all kinds of things seem out of place or no longer a good fit. I feel compelled to declutter my books and rearrange them right now! The reason for this compulsion to declutter is that your environment represents who you are - or in this case, who you were. Before you left home your environment and your own energy were a pretty good match.

When you make shifts within, if the energy of your environment doesn't change, it will pull you back into your old patterns. It will be a challenge to really anchor your shifts and move forward as the new you.

8 Tips to Anchor your Shifts and Changes so they don't disappear.

1. Hear the urge to declutter, to clean out your closet, or repaint your office, on returning from a life changing experience? It's your spirit calling for the energy in your home to step up into a higher vibration. If you don't feel the urge, take a look around and feel the energy - what's not a good match for the new you? The sooner you can let go of what no longer fits (and there will be things!), the faster you can integrate your changes.

2. Move the furniture around - furniture that stays in the same place starts to create stagnant energy. Even moving it a few inches will shake up the energy in your environment and energize your space. And energized space supports an energized YOU!

3. Put your travel things away - you're staying, right? This new you is staying too. It used to be that I'd empty my suitcase onto the floor and from there start to put things away - who knows why? It would take me days to put everything away. Now I do the 'one touch' thing - I grab 'like' things from my case and take them directly to where they need to be. Unpacking is way faster. Feels great!

4. What's incomplete? This might well be a different list from one you would have made before you left - remember, you're seeing your environment through new eyes. On my latest trip, having made prosperity shifts, it didn't surprise me to come up with a list of about 10 money incompletions on returning home. Took me about 2 hours to address the lot.

5. What needs cleaning up? Autumn leaves, the last of your summer flowers, inside plants given some attention? It's good to put energy into your home - it's a sort of nesting, a transition between the old and new.

6. Take time to go through your notes, read any materials you were given at your event and create a one page list of actions you commit to implementing, based on specific strategies or awarenesses you gained. Find a home for materials you returned with.

7. Create an environment that inspires you, reminds you of the shifts you've made and anchors these changes in your body. This is the enhancement part of Feng Shui and needs to come after the clearing away of what is no longer a good fit. I've just returned from a retreat and a marketing event. I hung the vision board I made at the retreat in my bedroom. I hung the marketing strategies poster on my wall right in front of my computer so I see it all the time.

8. Enhance the Knowledge & Self-Cultivation area of the Bagua in your office, bedroom and home: this is the area specifically related to learning, personal growth and your inner self. The most powerful enhancements are always ones personal to you - a great place to put your vision board. That's where mine is: in the K&SC area of my bedroom. Other things you can use in this area: books/DVDs/CDs related to your inner growth or what you're learning, anything that reminds you of inner wisdom or contemplation, quotes and inspirational sayings, and pictures of mountains. You can also enhance other specific areas - for example my marketing strategies poster I returned with is now in the Wealth & Prosperity area of my office!

For more information on the Bagua and where the different Guas are, see: Bagua Map

If your physical environment doesn't change you'll be pulled back into who you used to be because that's the energy you're most familiar with. It's a big thing to have travelled to a workshop, spent a few days soaking up a new way of being, hanging out with others who are on a similar path. It's a huge commitment to yourself and who you're being in the world.

You may not have even travelled to a workshop - you have the potential to make shifts within yourself at any time and the same principles apply - you can raise the energy in your home to support a change you wish to make, or you can raise the energy in your home to be a closer match with the person you now are and where you're going!

What a waste for it to be but a three-day wonder as you slip back into the person you used to be - wonderful as that person was!

Clear out what is no longer a good fit for you, and surround yourself with items that reflect where you're going. That's how to have your environment support you rather than working against you - and all it takes is intention and consciousness.

Raffle Quilt for UT Chi Omega Sorority

Just a few weeks ago we were approached by a lovely young woman from the Chi Omega sorority at the University of Texas at Austin Texas. She wanted us to make a quilt from her organization's T-shirts to be used as a raffle quilt for their chosen charity, Make A Wish Foundation.

As a way of keeping costs low, we asked Sallie to prepare the shirts by cutting, stabilizing and sizing them which she skillfully did by spending a few Friday mornings working with us in our Studio. We then completed the piecing of it for her and of course, did the quilting of it on our APQS Millennium machine.

Sallie had the quilt in time for the raffle which brought in a decent amount of money that went directly to the support of their wonderful chosen charity.

Do any of your supported organizations have a raffle coming up? Consider this very creative, useful, warm and profitable idea - make a quilt from your old T-shirts!

Deeply Felt Memorial Quilts

The power of quilts can evoke the deepest and sweetest memories, especially those that come from clothing that has been incorporated into a Memorial Quilt.

Amber asked us to make these two very simply designed but heartfelt quilts for herself and one of her relatives. She so wanted to capture her Mom's spirit and courage as she battled a long and painful illness. Amber knew the power of fabric turned into a quilt. Amber spoke to us of her Mom's joy in sewing - many of the fabrics in this quilt had been destined for articles of clothing for Amber and she spent many minutes remembering the joy of the planning, the sadness of the unfulfilled promises and finally, the peace of seeing these pieces turned into something she can wrap around herself and remember the love of her Mom.

These quilts are made of just 25 simple squares created from her Mom's clothes and extra fabric. So simple, yet so deeply poignant and satisfying to Amber.

The VERY Messy Studio

As promised, here is a video of our studio at not quite the height of its disorder, but close! We have at least six projects spread across 2 rooms, all due in the near future. Its a challenge to keep order so although most of the time I work hard at picking up the mess, this time you caught me with a rare 'devil may care' attitude.

Well, I failed. I cannot seem to get the video to load onto the blog. So you will just have to look at some pictures although these were taken today after a bit of cleanup.

Check out this magazine so you can possibly avoid getting your work space into such a mess too.

Our Messy and Expanding Studio

Watch this space because on Friday, I will post a short video taken this morning of our studio at the height of it's messiness. We seem to have organically grown from one working surface to another, adding sewing machines as we've gone along, from one closet to three, from one very large room into two others, from boxes and boxes of projects to more! All this to handle our expanding longarm quilting business.

Maybe we need to read this magazine to get our studio lives back in order. http://www.interweavestore.com/Mixed-Media/Magazines/Studios-Fall-2009.html.?a=qa090928

The Excitement of a First Quilt

This vibrant quilt is the very first for a lovely young woman who has recently fallen in love with our passion for quilting.

Katie came to us to have the quilt completed but the visit turned into so much more than that. We tweaked her top just a little to get better proportions for the border. We chose a bright green thread to complement the vivid colors of her design - and we talked and talked and talked about her excitement as a new quilter! Her developing love of fabric, pattern and design are so fresh and new and exciting to someone like me who has been doing this for over 30 years.

To top it all off, Katie sent us a hand written thank you note! Her words bear repeating here.

Thank you so much for turning my first quilt into something beautiful. It's a great inspiration to begin a new quilt...I can't wait to being back another quilt.

It was a real pleasure, in so many dimensions, to work with Katie!

The 80th Birthday Quilt Journey

Look at that smile! This is what the receipt of a surprise birthday quilt made by everyone in your family does.

Laurel came to us in March asking advice on involving her family in the creation of personal blocks for an 80th birthday quilt for her Mom. We prepared blank muslin squares for her, gave instrucitons on how to get the family to use them (stay within the 1/4 inch margins; use Pigma Pens for ink permanency etc.), and waited. In July, when the blocks had all been collected, wow, were we surprised at the creativity, talent and love we saw within each of the blocks!

Working with Laurel, we chose complementary fabric which would please her Mom and designed an unusual setting for the block layout. Then we assembled and quilted it in time for the surprise party.

Here is what Laurel wrote to us after the party - She was thrilled and touched with the quilt and everyone was pleased with how it turned out. Mom felt the love that went into the project and I appreciate the care you took putting it all together into something beautiful and meaningful for us all. It was fun watching her fold over the first corner, then opening it up more as she realized what it was and what it meant to her. There were tears, all of them good, and lots of smiles and story-telling as she talked about each square with those who created them.

Thank you again for all your work, your ideas, and for putting our individual efforts together into a beautiful piece of living art that shows our love for Mom/Mimi. You do good work.

Smiles such as on the face of Laurel's Mom make this job one of the best in the world!

A happy baby quilt

Being in the longarm quilting business, we rarely have time to make quilts for our own use or to give to our friends and family as gifts. But when one of my longest and closest college friend announced a baby shower for her first grandbaby, I knew I had to find a way of getting a quilt made. Michael and Annie are expecting their first baby (a boy!) at the end of September. Michael's Mom, my dear friend Joanie, lives near sandy beaches on NY's Long Island. So I had to make a simple baby quilt in bright primary colors with a beach motif. I found fabric with lighthouses, beach pails and sail boats.

Hopefully, the new baby will have the opportunity to enjoy the beach as he grows up visiting his new Grandma.