Finding myself..

on other people's blogs today!  Thanks you guys!

Shannon (who quilted three of the quilts in the book) wrote a blog post on my book this morning and shares some details on how she helped with the project.  Read her post here.

And Jo at Sewing is for girls did up a real nice review of the book (full of photos and information) in a blog post last week.  (Oh, the things you find when you Google yourself..)  You can read it here.

I'm going to enter one of the book quilts in the Bloggers' Quilt Festival later this week, as soon as I can get some decent photos.  So pop back later for that, ok?

Blogger's Quilt Festival

Whew~
I made it!  With only 8 hours left in the quilt festival, I managed to finish my quilt and blog about it.  Now let's hope that some people start browsing the festival links from the bottom of the list...

Today I'm happy to show off my little owl miniquilt.  This project was underway for a long time.. I bought the owl panel at Yuzawaya in Tokyo in 2007, when C and I were desperate for kids but devastated by infertility.  I was sure one day I'd have a little family, and I'm very very happy that my dreams came true.

For some reason he thinks you have to close your eyes when you say "cheese!"

I started the miniquilt when I was getting ready to try for baby #2, thinking, "OMG, I have to use this awesome panel before we have 2 little owls!" and worried how I was going to applique the next kid's owl on there.  Haha.  well, let me just tell you, getting pregnant isn't as easy as they told you it would be in high school..
The quilt sat, basted, with a couple lines of quilting in it for over a year as other projects kept bumping it out of the way.  I picked it up in September and vowed to finish it and get it on the wall, so we could enjoy it, and be reminded to enjoy our little family as it is now.

It was made to coordinate with this quilt, which is on our bed most of the year, and I used a few left over blocks for the back.  I quilted in perle cotton #8 and as I worked I remembered how much I love hand quilting (of course, today as I rushed to finish the last few lengths of thread, I also remembered how sore your fingers get from hand quilting, and that you really can't rush it). 

Hand quilting gives you lots of time to think.. so I thought about owls, and how they were so trendy, then came out with avengance and got too trendy, and now it feels people are ready to move on to a new cute animal.  For me though, I still like them.

I found these on my desk at work in the summer of 2007.  A co-worker's grandma made them.

Have you seen the Owl Art Calendar?  I just came across it last week, totally cool, and free too!

I also thought about blogging and deadlines, and the pressure to make things just to show them online.  That pressure has been weighing a little hard on me lately.  Once again I'm starting to feel that I've gotten sucked in, that I want to make things because other people are making them, and not spending the time to make the quilts I want to make.  The quilt blog community is moving so fast, with a constant pressure to make, buy, show off, participate.. Some days I love it, it's a great and creative community.  But other days it makes me feel guilty and stressed out.  This miniquilt is mine.  My idea from my experiences.  My time, my family.  It's a good reminder that you don't have to have or do everything out there,  What really matters are the things that make life more full and balanced.  I hope seeing this quilt on my wall will keep me centered, positive, and grateful for what life has brought me.

Embrace what you have

And love where you are in life.
I had a very wonderful day yesterday doing all sorts of things I love and as we drove home (singing along to the radio) I realized there's no place in the world I'd rather be than here, nothing else I need in my life than what I have around me.  I haven't felt so peaceful and satisfied in a long time. 

But there's more.  It's about embracing what you have.  Using the things and fabrics you love.
I had the chance to sew with Victoria for a few hours after our meeting yesterday and I limited myself by only bringing an armload (I was going to say "handful" but that's a lie) of fabrics and working from there.  I didn't know what I was making, I just pulled and cut from these fabrics that I had been hoarding.  fabrics that I feel capture my personality, express where I am now, and really represent me as a quilter.  Some of these precious fabrics have been holed up in the closet for years.. enough.  When I look at the quilts on our beds I think what I love about them is the fabrics.  So the quilts I want to be making have to be made of something I already treasure, treasure so much that I am willing to take time to transform it into something useful, something new to have and hold. 

I don't know where this piece is going, and it probably won't go anywhere for a while (I really need to buckle down with that school work..) but I'm glad I had a chance to spend time, sit and get to know another quilter a little better.  There's an awful lot behind the quilts, behind the blogs, that can't be gained without real interaction.  I have felt puzzled lately about the role the internet is playing in society these days, and on a personal level, the ways in which it has shaped my life over the last 10 years  (college reunion coming up.. is this why I'm all the sudden so reflective?).  Of course it is a way to connect with people-- new friends and old, but so many of those "connections" are just superficial.  It really takes effort to push beyond that, building friendship still takes time.  I think the internet, the sheer vastness of it, enables people to spread themselves too thin.  To try everything, to read every blog.. what are we left with?  To many ideas and a stiff neck.  I feel better since I've pulled back in the last 6 months, selectively reading and participating (in quilt blogland mainly, and other social networking as well).  Trying to find focus that makes my time online more meaningful to me.  It's nice when someone mentions drama in the online quilting community and I'm completely oblivious.  (Yay~ I didn't waste my time with that headache!) but I digress..

When you spend time with people and learn what is important to them, it gives you a lens through which you can take another glance at your own situation.  A guild meeting and a few hours spent with V, and I have gained a new appreciation for all the mundane things that my life is made up of.  Thanks guys.

Retreat

re·treat n.
1. a. The act or process of withdrawing, especially from something hazardous, formidable, or unpleasant.   (read: Real Life)
    b. The process of going backward or receding from a position or condition gained. (As in, forgetting all my quilting hang-ups, opening my eyes to new ways of doing things)
2. A place affording peace, quiet, privacy, or security.
3. a. A period of seclusion, retirement, or solitude.
    b. A period of group withdrawal for prayer, meditation, or study: a religious retreat.
 
(taken from thefreedictionary.com)
 
 
On Saturday, I spend the day at the home of a very thoughtful and generous friend.  8 of us gathered to sew with Victoria, in an amazing space decked out with tables, chairs, ironing boards, cutting mats, hot tea and homemade caramels.  At one point or another throughout the day it fit each of the definitions for "retreat" above. Peaceful, secure, withdrawal for meditation, contemplation.  I was only part of the retreat for less than 10 hours, but it really gave me a chance to think about things differently and appreciate things in a new way.
Some photos:

Mosaic Geese in Flight, 1890-1910
Folk Art Museum, maker unknown.



L>R: Me, Bonnie, Kim, Helen



V, taking the best photos.



Andrea



The sweatshop setup

 

Radiating Squares ready to go.

and look who we found in the scrap bin!

 Some realizations:

• Scrappy quilts don't have to be made with scraps.
• it's better to think less and sew more.
• women need other women.  (I knew this one, but had forgotten.)
• the AccuQuilt Go may well be a wise investment..
• I ♥ New York.

I'd love to expand on any of these ideas in their own posts if I find the time.  We'll see.

I'm still collecting my thoughts after the experience but I can tell you that my creative energy has been renewed and new ideas are flowing faster than I can jot them down.  The suitcase isn't unpacked yet though so I have nothing to show just yet.  Hopefully soon.  I have a lot of playing to do.

notes on blogland

So with Bloglines disappearing in a couple of days, I've been slowly going through all my saved posts over the last 4(!) years to download my favorite inspiration pics and revisit links to good information one last time before they're tossed out into the internet again. A librarian once told me (in 1999) that the internet is like a great big library where all the books are scattered on the floor. I agree, and bloglines was a really excellent tool to help me organize the masses of inspiration and information that quilt-blogland provides. But my trip down memory lane had other effects as well, and I started thinking about how quilt blogland has changed in the last few years..
First off, there are so many more blogs out there! True Up entered the scene, then there was the Modern Quilt movement, Spoonflower, the Blogger's Quilt Festival, online bees, and the bizarre shift to "follow my blog and I'll give you fabric" and what seemed like a runaway obsession with giveaways. I think I passively witnessed the birth of the one-designer-only trend and as I've mentioned before, that's getting a bit old. Of the blogs I've read, many seem to be more focused on showing finished quilts with only a hint of the story and construction, but well recorded details of the designer fabrics used and the online shop she purchased them from.

When I started blogging there was a trend that if you had a quilt/craft blog, you must also sell your "stuff" on etsy. Then there was a movement to Use What You Have (I really liked that trend, btw). At some point I started following more quilt focused blogs and less crafty ones. For a while there was a "community" of people blogging about quilting and I felt I knew or had at least heard of everyone. Then overnight there were all these new quilt bloggers, and they were selling patterns, offering tutorials, and actively shaping the Modern Quilt movement. I was like, "who are these people?!?" and felt a little bit left back in their dust. There seemed to be a split between "people who quilt and blog about it" and "people who write quilt blogs and quilt because of it." The former group (to which I belong) included people working full time and stay at home moms, people quilting because they loved quilting, blogging included or not. These people would post when they had something to share and you could really get a glimpse of their lives. The other group seems to be driven by some unseen force, posting 3-4 times a week if not daily, spitting out patterns, tutorials, sponsored giveaways, and offering up advice that they don't always have the experience or "internet cred" to back-up. (no offense, just an observation)
I admire the ambition (and envy the free time) of these bloggers, but more than once in the past year I've read something and caught myself saying, "Is she serious? How can she write that? Doesn't she know about X, Y, or Z (i.e. famous quilter, well known technique, etc)?" Or I feel like I'm being talked down to, marginalized, or somehow left out of the "in" crowd. Now I don't mean to be that one quilter in your class who thinks she knows more than the teacher, but I find that this type of blog is not worth my time to read. BUT, you almost have to in order to know what's going on in quiltland (internet based and IRL). Somehow these people (and their followers?) are shaping the community to which I belong and I can't say I'm always happy with the shape it's taking..
So back to the point of my post. I'm going to try to resist following all of the quilt blogs in Google Reader. In fact, I'm going to try really hard not to sign into Google Reader at all. I have pasted a list of my favorite quilt bloggers on my sidebar and I've switched to "following" other blogspot blogs through blogger.com. I do want to know what's going on out there, but I need to be more selective and not get swept up in the drama and the urge to leave a comment just incase I might get lucky and win that jelly roll!
I am going to quilt, whether there's a quilt-blogland or not.  I really do enjoy sharing my efforts and getting feedback or making connections with other women who love to stitch and are also part of the online quilt community.  I feel I need this online community to back me up a bit when I walk into a real life quilt guild meeting, still usually 20+ years younger than everyone else, and try to hold my ground with the quilt police or as I try to make a name for myself in that community.  I value the vast resources available to quilters on the internet and want to thank everyone who has taken the time to write a thoughtful post or share a quilt or inspiration source.  Thank you again if you take the time to read my blog and comment once in a while.  I think the support of blogland has helped me focus my creative energy and become a productive, happy quilter.  I am curious to see where the current trends will lead and what the future of quilting will look like.