NEW THOUGHTS

CONSCIOUSLY CREATIVE
By Phillips

New book on creativity i'm reading that really speaks to me.   I read so many books and enjoy books that inspire me to get up and do.   But many of them do not inspire that way, so when I find an author who seems to talk my talk,  or connect with my mind in a way I can use their advice, it fills my heart with joy.  Phillipa does that!

"I also always carry a pencil or pen around because inspiration very often takes us by surprise and your usual workbook may not be immediately to hand. You could create a collection of what I call sketchbook threads: a combination of both digital and physical work that all weaves together, but that maybe doesn’t all live together. If you use this method, it will be useful just to make a list of all the places you are storing work, for example, blue notebook, Instagram, pink memory stick and so on, so that it feels that you have at least created dedicated work spaces."

2018--November 16------I am Grateful

I am grateful that I've worked all week on Quilting projects---i.e.  Stitcher' "African" Garden,  a daughter's portrait,  and Christmas tablecloth ( from Christmas fabric crumbs)

To make my world a happier place through the next week, I'm intending to  (1) get my house spiffy (company's coming for Thanksgiving)  (2)  work on Christmas tablecloth, and cards, and gifts for my quilting group members.

I reaffirm that I have the time I need for all I do!

Three amazing things that occurred this past week:
        1.  I finally finished fusing all the flowers for the SAG to the quilted backgrounds and now I have 19 blocks  left to embellish and add border sashings to.
          2.  Watched as week went by, BP and FBG numbers go down to normal levels.
           3.  Started meditating again.

What would have made my week even happier:  To have cleaned house thoroughly by now.

Finishing up:  Two pieces of Huntington series.
This first one is titled, "Once there was a bridge"

And the second one is , "Churches of Huntington"

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

October 31- November 8.

I am grateful that I've almost completed the blocks for my African version of Stitcher's Garden.,--and for time to work on it freely this past week...and for the portrait workshop going well.

Today would be great if I finished the Stitcher's Garden blocks, and made time to work on the Christmas table covering I've started also from scraps, and tidied up mystudio a bit..

I have the time I need for all I do!  ( the week's affirmation)

3 Really bright spots this past week:

           The portrait workshop I gave to the Innovative Fabric Artist Network (IFAN) went really well.
            I started a portrait of my daughter <----her christmas="" nbsp="" p="" present="">          
<----her christmas="" nbsp="" p="" present="">             Here's the current update of the (African) Stitcher's Garden.    

• Seeing my friend Lynn at church bazaar; she looked happy, healthy, and well.
• Finished getting basement organized and tidied up.   YEaaaaaaaa!

It might have been a better week if I'd met all my intentions for it.  Will try again this week to finish up blocks for ASG, with borders and make progress too on Christmas tablecloth, and Adrianne's (my DD =darling daughter) portrait.

Wishing you all a happy and progressive week!

The 5-Minute Journal

      I learned of the 5-Minute Journal from Adam Brown's Bright Spots and & Landmines (he got it from Tim Ferris's intelligentchange.com  I found it very adaptable for my Bullet Journal that I keep these days.  It is a sort of shortcut journaling of a day and it seems well suited for my thoughts and reflections on quilting on this blog.  One of the reasons I'd given up blogging here was because I seemed not to have much to say, or I had too much text.  The 5-minute journal offers me a way to review my work and reflect on the process and progress of it.  So I'll try at least a weekly entry for a month or so and see if it works for me.
      The journal is really guided by 5 questions:

I am grateful for:
1._______________________________________________________________
2._______________________________________________________________
3.________________________________________________________________

What would make today (this week) great?
1._______________________________________________________________
2._______________________________________________________________
3.________________________________________________________________

Daily (Weekly) Affirmation:

1._______________________________________________________________
2._______________________________________________________________
3.________________________________________________________________

Three Amazing things that happened this week:

1._______________________________________________________________
2._______________________________________________________________
3.________________________________________________________________

How might I have made this week better?

AND  that is all there is to it.  I just want to focus on quilting and the many projects I have going. And it will help so much seeing things in a capsule form. I'm thinking it'll help me keep things in  a right perspective and organize my work too So here goes....


This week October 14-20, I'm so thankful for getting my project sheets set up for completing the Stitcher's garden.  And for cutting out Christmas Pillow cases for my grandboys, and working on Christmas table cloth, using the crumb chaos method.

II.  For the coming week ( Oct. 21-28)  I plan to get the rest of the flowers onto the backgrounds.

III.  Affirmation for the week: I choose to see everylbody and everything with joy, love and tenderness.  ( I've been so negative about Donald Trump.  I get so angry about things he's done and all his bragging about what he wishes he'd done.)
 
IV.  Three amazing things that happened this week were (1) I completed two more of the 25 blocks required for SG. And I cut out pillow cases and worked on crumb quilt tablecloth as stated above ( more than I'd accomplished in past month)  Oh and I prepared materials sheet for workshop on making fabric portraits for Nov. 3.

V.  this week I plan to to work toward completing all the background quilting and fuse flowers on each block, then I can begin embellishing  and framing (putting on borders).
photo pending.

Quilting Conference

1st National African American Quilting Conference

Art Quilting-Protest

Upon Listenting to Jimi Hendrix Play "the Star Spangled Banner"

2016----------------------------------------2017

Art Quilting

Challenge Quilt

I Love a Tree

St. Peter Claver Piecemakers' 2017 Challenge (Holiday) Quilt winner

Honorable Mention

In June of 2016 I entered "Snowy Night at Peace Cottage" in the annual Quilt Exhibit of WV Quilters and received an honorable mention ribbon.   Yeaaaaa.

'Tis the Season

It's been a year since I posted anything here.   What a year!   In many ways..
Last January I had a shoulder replacement and that kept me from doing many things I love to do---i.e. Quilting, driving, traveling, lifting, moving freely in general for about 5 months.  However, the right shoulder is 95% better----3 fingers are still numb on right hand, but I'm hoping that soon that will be gone.  The numbness feels funny, but the fingers work well.

So '"Tis the Season' and you know I love making Christmas cards.    I began making cards, and decided to expand my repertoire beyond Christmas to all occasions.  Above you see some of my wicked cat cards and a birthday card.

Hmmmm.   I wanted to post some other pieces I've worked on over the past few months, but this was the only one from recent photos ( I have hundreds).

SPC PIECEMAKERS 8th Annual Show

Ruth Elizabeth at 89 was ACCEPTED for the WV Cultural Center Quilt Exhibit.   ALLELUIA!

In the meantime I was busy busy busy completing several projects for the ST. Peter Claver 8th Annual Quilt Exhibit.   Here are my entries for this year:

Crazy Patch placemats and coasters were made for doorprizes for annual show.

"JOE ARTIST"  another finally finished quilt that has languished  on and off my machine for past two years.  It was originally for my grandson Jordan 's graduation from HS.   He'll be graduating from college in another year.

"Scrappy Lap" Quilt

"NASSAU NICE"  was what I named the mystery quilt we did at retreat this year because of the island colors.

DIVERSE DIVA was submitted for our BW Challenge this year.

Ruth Elizabeth at 89

         It is done finally.   I'm not the world's best photographer and I'm definitely not a fan of the new Photos appplication.   With IPhoto I had a tilt option to fix  things like the above, not so with Photos.   I think Photos is a step backwards instead of forwards---don't know why apple changed.  The editing tools were better on IPhoto too in my opinion.
      The portrait quilt sits on another quilt which frames it.(not crookedly either), a technique I learned from Jean Wells ( Winter 2010-2011 International lQuilt Festival: Quilt Scene).  I've submitted it for an upcoming show.  Should hear something soon.

A pic of final piece and frame, but though I edited out surrounding stuff, it still shows here.

Back to BLOG

Getting ready for 2nd Annual Quilt Retreat in 100+ year old house in Tazwell, VA.  Childhood home of Helen Galligan. 

Last year was the SPC Piecemaker's first retreat.   We had so much fun and this year the plans are underway for another fabulous time of shopping at local quilt stores in the surrounding counties, mystery quilt making, food and fun.

I thought the hiatus was over back in December or early January, but it wasn't.

      It's not that I haven't been working, I have.    But I've sort of flitted from this project to that one, not finishing anything.

I made an affirmation to proclaim every day to help me get going:   I have abundant time, energy, creativity, and love to plan, process through and complete what I need to do.

As if to support my creative needs now, I picked up a Science of Mind magazine and read  in the affirmations for the month of February 2015 this:   There is always enough talent, time and resources to succeed in all that I do.  I  looked around me to see who wrote that?

Woo  woo or no woo woo I felt spoken to.   So I began writing out a day by day progress report  to see where my time was going and what i was doing when i was doing.

one day. i worked on a BOM, for one of the quilt guilds i belong to;  another day i spent cutting out blocks for a give away quilt; another day was given to gathering fabrics for redoing the face of a portrait  i'm working on; one whole very cold day i made valentine cards from scraps of fabric; every Thursday i meet with an embroidery  group of four or five machine embroidery quilters;  and every Sunday, our Piecemakers group meets at the church and  we quilt. And I do have a life beyond my quilting studio that places many demands upon me.  So I begin to see why I'm feeling frustrated--why I have allowed the UFOs to grow up around me.  someitimes I feel like I'm in a horror movie and the unfinishsed pile takes on life and begins to tighten and swirl around me while laughing evilly.

Today, I received a newsletter in my email from Dena Cranes' QuiltEd Online.   Somehow, I'd missed a few copies of this newsletter, because she'd written a series of 7 articles so far titled "Time saving tips for Quilters." 

It was something I needed to hear.   Again I thought the universe was blessing me.  So here I am at this blog writing tonight , after such a long hiatus, feeling as though the ground is shifting under my feet again and I'm finding the road back to my beloved work.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN? NOWHERE. WHAT HAVE I DONE? NOTHING

Well that's not technically true, but it feels true, emotionally.  

Creative Quilters Annual Retreat

Piecemakers 1st Annual Retreat

 I attended some retreats with fellow quilters from my community.

    

Paducah--saw Eleanor Burns                         

Attended SAQA--and met new AA quilters  

TWO NATIONAL QUILT CONFERENCES (see above    

Trip to Nassau

Where I was inspired to make notecards of days and nights in Nassau

And I made these blocks which are stackked neatly in my studio waiting for me to get back to them.

and finished this Biblical Sampler

And with four other quilters made this donation quilt for local  theater group

And started this portrait of my friend ( 90 years young)

But I haven't finished much of anything.

Out of the Desert

That's what it feels like ---like I'm coming out of the desert.  Not that I have not been busy, but as for publishing things and sharing what I'm doing, it's been a dry spell.   BUT I did come to my blog and look at what other quilters I follow are doing, even though it seemed that I had nothing to say.   I've done a little here and a little there, but I've accumulated more WIPs than finished products.   So unlike me.

So to share some of what 's been going on I just sat down today and decided to start.

Before Decluttering and Organizing

After decluttering my studio

This took me the whole month of January and part of February.   I picked up a book from the crafts section of  One Hundred Zeroes which list free and inexpensive books for Kindle; it was titled Declutter Your Life. Since then I've read at least 20 books about decluttering your life and have begun a transformation on my whole house.  (hmmmm maybe that's why I haven't finished much).   It's made a difference though and amazingly I can find things now.   Alleluia!

QAYG CHRISTMAS TABLE RUNNER

START AT BOTTOM.     FOR SOME REASON I COULD NOT  PLACE IMAGES IN CORRECT ORDER.

Added a backing to top and flipped, then hemmed opening. VOILA!

Quilted the top and batting of each block  and joined them at seams

Chose some gold metallic fabric and some stars from Christmas fabric.

                                                       

Found some old Christmas circular blocks .

Christmas Cards 2013

Could not find Angel fabric this year

Card stock frames need another type glue.

South Africa cards

Thank-You Cards to South African Friends and Companions

Close up of one card

DHS-HHS Reunion

Douglass-Huntington High Reunion Raffle Quilt -2013

HOLY ENCOUNTER QUILT ENTRY

Sacred Threads Exhibition 2013

"Holy Encounter" Triptych entered in Sacred Threads exhibit 2013