February 28, 2017

Choosing Quilting Designs on Fresh Quilting!

I'm back from QuiltCon! I had a great time, and even met Sarah from Confessions of a Fabric Addict, whom I've known for years online. She is wonderful! Quilters are wonderful! I connected with a lot of kind and energetic folks and saw so many interesting quilts and shared a thousand hugs. It was very rewarding, and last night I found myself sketching quilts I'd like to make. I haven't done that for over a year; what a great feeling!

Today I'm happy to share my segment on the brand new show, Fresh Quilting. They asked me to talk about choosing quilting designs and I think the episode turned out great. And I'm blushing that they made me the very first segment of the very first show! It's like I launched the series! Where's the bottle of champagne to smash against...my computer? Never mind. No smashing. We'll drink it instead. 


This show is airing on PBS in several locations, and over the next few months it will get filtered into the lineup in other areas as well, so take a look at your local listings! If it's not in your area yet you can see a new episode each week at freshquilting.com. Or search Fresh Quilting on YouTube to find the segments they've posted! I've got another one coming up and I can't wait to share that one too!

To everyone who said hi or shared a moment at QuiltCon, thank you for filling my cup, it was exactly what I needed to feel back in my quilter-shoes. 


February 21, 2017

Wild Quilting thing...

...I think I love you.

In the year since my class  Wild Quilting launched on Craftsy, I haven't given you any updates, so this catching up is long overdue. Today I want to share the jaw-dropping-gorgeous work students are doing in the class.

By Brenda P
 This class is all about taking off the training wheels in your free-motion quilting and combining motifs like a boss. There are five distinct ways to do this, and then once you've learned them all you can use them individually or start combining them.

By aubu

By cottabehr4575512
By Cassandra Sharkey
I'm teaching Wild Quilting in person this weekend at QuiltCon and can't wait to have a whole room full of FMQ lovers bring out their unique quilting style using these techniques!

by klynsis

by Marla Silbernagel

by mlhoffa
 All of these are photos that students posted publicly on Craftsy's projects page or in the class comments. Quilters you inspire me! You make it so fun to teach when you take the concepts from my class and start to fly with them!!

by pamspaintbox

by SabineR

by vschlim

Thanks for the warm welcome back to blogging. You readers filled my heart and fortified my spirit with all the loving, kind, and positive comments that found my inbox following my last post. For each one of you who was moved to comment or email, thank goodness for you. Thank you, always.

I'll check back in again after QuiltCon. If you're not going to QuiltCon here's a link to get the Wild Quilting class on Craftsy. Wherever you are this week I hope it's a great one!


February 15, 2017

With her own wings



A lot has changed since I last blogged. It took a while to feel ready to come back here and speak about it frankly, with honesty but without rage. I'm divorced now, a choice I made following a time of great confusion and hurt. I made the feather above from a chunk cut from my wedding dress; a little artistic vision that wouldn't leave me alone. When I see it I think "alis volat propriis", the motto of my state, Oregon, which, translated in the feminine means "she flies with her own wings".

So. It was rough. The last years of my marriage were a tangle of lies. It may, in fact, be that the lying started before the marriage itself, I acknowledge that I have no way to know. Realizing you don't even know what the truth was, when the lies started, is terribly disorienting.  I read an article recently that spoke to this. The liar knows the truth, even if they don't share it, and there are no holes missing from their story.  If you're the one lied to, however, how do you even begin to reconstruct your story? How do you learn from it when you're not even sure what actually happened?

The most important thing I've learned is that it doesn't hurt some people to lie. For some people it's simply a tool. They can lie to friends and counselors, they can lie with tears running down their face, they can lie while pretending to confess.

I've learned never to ignore my gut. Even, no, especially, if the person it's telling me to get away from seems to be suffering.  "But I love you so much" will never, ever, be a reason for me to go against my own wise instincts again. Because while people lie, my gut seems to be pretty good at her job.

I've also learned that there is normal hard for marriage, hard where the natural incompatibilities and misunderstandings and developments that happen between two individuals need caring for, and there is improbably hard. Improbably hard is where there are endless no-win situations created. Where problems are discussed and agreements found but nothing feels better. That kind of hard is the kind of hard that I had and I didn't understand. Now I understand. If a person has done immoral things but wants to see themselves as a good person, they will need for their spouse to be their enemy.  And no marriage can succeed where one person secretly treats the other as their enemy.

I wish someone had laid this out for me. All the marriage advice I took to heart was the stuff about  patience, accepting your spouse the way they are, and not harboring resentment. That only works, though, if both partners are doing it. If your marriage feels improbably hard, take stock of your situation.  Get an individual counselor (in my experience marriage counselors aren't great at detecting lies either) to give you some perspective. And if there is ever a whiff of infidelity, even if it was "only a kiss" (ask me how I know) get the savviest kind of help. For me, I found a lot of good advice at www.chumplady.com. She showed me, systematically, what I was dealing with and helped me move away from it with grace and certainty, so I didn't need to waste any more years than I already had.


It took so much energy to go through that process. And all the dominoes that fall after it: the legal stuff, the money stuff, the kids hurting as their world splinters in two. Life even gave me a few extra dominoes (like my car getting totaled) allowing me to see without a doubt that I've got this. Well, got this with the help of family and friends who I will never be able to repay for being there with humor and compassion and downright hands on help when the chips were down. And thanks go also to you lovely quilters for all the words of encouragement you gave me way back when. You have no idea how often I re-read your kind thoughts.

So, things are better. I'm getting back to living my life. The kids are bringing their bravery and big hearts to adapting to living in two houses. I just finished writing my third book. I feel like I've put myself back together pretty well overall, but... I haven't regained my center as an artist. It's intriguing to me that that's the tenderest spot left. I'm ready to nurture it, and to share with you the fruit of the few seeds I managed to plant during the last year. I'm relieved that I can be honest about my world here again, in the way that I used to treasure. So that's where I've been, and where I am. Thanks for letting me catch you up on the story, and I'll see you soon!