LOVE WHAT YOU DO AND DO WHAT YOU LOVE

 By the end of class people have their drawings done and their border blocks pretty much completed. Our goal is to make enough blocks to create a quilt canvas and to put our story on top and going into the borders to make a whole piece instead of a quilt and a border. We want to make our pieces unpredictable and to use concepts that artists who paint use. This way we end up with a quilt that has great color, scale and a memory that will last and tell people who and what we love! These pieces create lasting memorials of US and in 80 years when people look at the thousands of paintings made today they will know something about the story quilters as we leave a trace or traces of who we are. It is such fun and by the time our class is over, we know each other and become good friends. What was most delightful this year at Enpty Spools was the upbeat happy girls that we had in our class and NO downer people who influenced our cohesive and happy group. It was pure pleasure and fun! The food was very good this past session too which was lovely. We had 19 great students and many girls who came to hang out and share at night. great for me.
Remember "Mood is contagious-either way the mood goes" so I like it alot when the mood is happy and we don't have someone who twists the mood to the dark side.
Isn't it more fun to be happy and to use that happiness for invention and sharing? I think so!

I often do a cutting excercize to prove that many artists can cut better than they can draw...it is lots of fun and I make these ladies all believers on how talented they are and they didn't even know just how talented...I love this!

So I have been on the road a couple of weeks and I am tired but oh so happy with the wonderful women I have met, the stories I have heard and the invention, creativity and fun I have experienced with girls who now have new friends for life. One of the parts of our classes and certianly here at Asilomar is sharing stories and memories that pop into your head as we share each day and create. This year we spent a week in Scripops creating fun memory quilts and using colorful fabrics we learned how to make our stash better and the tips to getting color and scale to work better for you as you add light to your quilts like artists add light to the paintings they do. This is one of the secrets to making a better quilt.

I have taught at Empty Spools for Years and the majority of the years, I taught twice a year. I have so many fun things to share and I want to mix the art lessons I learned early on in art school and the quilting ideas and invention I came up with later on....it is fun sharing and watching things grow and progress and happiness fill the room....I think this is good for your health. It is certainly good for mine.
Stay tuned for more quilts and things from Asilomar and go to my other blog for photos and a little bit about my retreat that just ended in Idaho...it was awesome! Mary Lou and Cherry Too- if it isn't it yet, it is because I am writing it tonight when I have a little more energy! Thank you girls from my class-didn't we have fun? And now we are forever friends!