THE FREDDY STORY STEP BY STEP

First - After four years of quilting, I saw Freddy Moran's "Phil and Phoebe" quilt at a shop in Walnut Creek, CA and was zinged with happy energy that THIS was the kind of quilt I wanted to create.

Second - I was delighted to take three different Freddy classes at Aunt Mary's Quilt Shop.

Third - When I shared, during a class, that my in-laws lived in the next town over from her, Freddy invited me to visit. She graciously showed me and my mother-in-law around for over an hour! If only I could sew in her studio with her!

Fourth - Sue saw Freddy at this past summer's quilt show in Sisters, Oregon where the following conversation (or close to it) took place:

Sue - I would love to come visit and sew with you.

Freddy - So come.

Sue - Really?

Freddy - Of course.

Sue - Stephanie is going to be so jealous.

Freddy - If you and Stephanie can share a bed, you both can come visit and stay in my guest room.

Sue - Really?

Freddy - YES!

Sue - OK!

Fifth - Sue and I left last Thursday spent a most marvelously inspirational, over the top creative, and magically peaceFULL weekend with THE Freddy Moran! 

Oh my goodness! Me sewing and Freddy working.

Her self portrait quilt is hanging in the background. 

Sue sewing in front of only part of Freddy's stash!

Freddy shared fabric and parts from her parts department in Sue's quilt...

and mine.

In the first class I took with Freddy she shared a story that changed my life. It has had a trickle effect in all decisions to satisfy my creative self. 

Freddy's husband Neil wanted to go to the British Open. For years he repeated the same thing, "I want to go to the British Open. I wish I could go. Wouldn't it be nice to go?" One day Freddy had had enough. She told Neil that if he was waiting for the phone to ring and someone to tell him that today was the day he should go to the British Open - it was never going to happen. If he wanted to go, he should go. Neil started planning that day, they went, it was perfect. 

Then Freddy told the class, if you want to do something... 

DO IT! 

Don't wait for outside permission, it is never going to come.

Her house, as depicted in her book Freddy's House,  is spectacular with her yellow walled cheery studio oozing with great fabric. 

But it was her spirit and her wisdom and her realness that enthralled us. What a beautiful woman inside and out! 

GETTING READY FOR A FUN ADVENTURE

Sue and I will soon be off for another quilty adventure! I won't share the where yet, but a clue is that I HOPE to see Freddy Moran!!!!

I am starting to pack...

I found these perfect pajama bottoms at Target!

and

While I can make my own purse, sometimes it's fun to have someone else make them for you.

I ordered matching purses for Sue and I from the most fabulous quilter and purse designer Krista from http://kristahandbags.com/ (please check out her site...see how beautiful she is...Krista is absolutely charged with positive energy and great style!) I gave her some of the precious "pure color" fabric Freddy Moran designed for Quilters Only and look what happened...

outside

inside

I also picked up the quilt I made focusing on healing my little girl self using fun pink girly fabric.

fabric is fun

What else is fun?

traveling

matching pajamas

Krista's purses

spending time with Sue

all things Freddy

quilting (especially in the tree house)

?

MORE LOVE

Thinking about love

Thinking and thinking and thinking about love

Enjoying reading Lovingkindness by Sharon Salzberg

Turns out that somewhere on this journey I forgot/never learned to love myself (felt I wasn't worthy?)

Sharon quotes Buddha: "You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more desrving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection."

All this thinking about love because..."Love for others without the foundation of love for ourselves becomes a loss of boudaries, codependency, and a fruitless search for intimacy. But when we contact, through meditaion, our true nature, we can allow others to also find theirs."

Ahhhhhhhhhh......quilting as a type of a Western beginner's meditation.

Here's my gigantic Freddy heart quilt made with all Freddy Moran fabric - a line called Pure Color that she designed for Quilters Only many years ago. I smile inside and out when I am with this quilt. LOVE IT!

And here's the pillow that I worked on the last two days. BE LOVE in bee fabric (just in case I didn't quite get the message!) from Timeless Treasure bordered with old fabric from my stash along with a few bee buttons and pom poms.

Pom poms are soooo happy!

Quilting therapy...in the warm breezy gift of late summer...in the magically creative space of the treehouse...helping me to focus on love...for me...nice!

Sometimes I really enjoy large swaths of favorite fabrics sewn together in a mish mash way

like this hoppy frog quilt

and this bright and happy quilt I made for me with my then all time favorites - pure color by Freddy Moran, chickens, and the fresh paint line.

This past week I worked on a sweet pink quilt with a Mary Lou style cow (don't forget to leave a comment on the last posting to win some Mary Lou fabric) for my niece Sarah. It's a no stress and fun way to piece and enjoy large chunks of favorite fabric! Time to start on a quilt for Sarah's sister who likes purple...hmmm....

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FREDDY

This quilt was inspired by the fabulous Freddy Moran's quilts in her book Freddy's House. I first saw a Freddy quilt in the quilt shop in Walnut Creek, CA. THAT was the kind of quilt I wanted to make. An explosion of color. Totally happy.

I finally took a class with her at Aunt Mary's Quilt Shop and fell head over heels in love with Freddy. Besides being a genius quilt designer, she is the most elegant and gracious woman I have met. She is filled with genuine joie-de-vivre and makes you believe in all the sublime possibilities of life.

Several years before I knew Freddy, she designed some simply vibrant dot fabric

My dear friend Sue and I became a little obsessed hunting on the internet for the no-longer-in-stores fabric, ultimately accumulating more than fifty yards!

one of my favorites

Despite all the yardage we have, we laugh as we have spent the last two years not cutting into any of it, continuing to use only close lookalike fabric like the bottom dots.

Until this week, when I knew just how to use it...focusing on all the sublime possibilities...just like Freddy!

 If you are interested, join the Freddy Moran Brown Nose Fan Club I created on Facebook!!

WORKING WITH SELVEDGES

selvedge: (from german) self + edge. The point of where one's own welfare is likely to begin

I used the selvedge from Freddy Moran's fabric for this tote bag

and in this, my favorite, tote bag

but I never thought about ONLY using selvedges for a quilt until Judy http://wildirishrowsquilting.blogspot.com/  starting collecting them and I thought, why not? 

This weekend, as I sewed with different groups,  I made ten of these blocks and LOVE THEM!

Simple, pure, fun.

One gal commented that she couldn't believe I had nothing else to do except this.

THIS? 

Really? (hee-hee)

 As a matter of fact, yes, I do have other projects, but this weekend I needed to do THIS, work with selvedges and contemplate being on the edge...on the verge of a more authentic self.

HOPE + OPEN = "HOPEN" - A NEW WORD FOR A NEW YEAR

                                           Ahhh....a gorgeous sunset on this first day of 2011. 

I sense lots of possibilities in this new year. According to Webster, a definition of the word new is, "being other than the former." I like that. I am other than my former 2010 self.

I am open and I am full of hope, hence the word "hopen". My friend Opal asked me to pick a word for the year to ponder and use as an inspiration for a creative journey. She picked "savor". Perhaps "savor" life?! My thoughts immediately went to "open", but then the word "hope" had been nudging me and I just didn't feel I could ignore it, so I am officially "open" to "hope" or "hopen".  Hopen. Hopen feels great!!!!! It makes me smile. Of the many possibilities, I am hopen to smiling more this year.

My dear bassett hound Don Frederico aka Fred is smiling!

Kaffe Fassett fabric is most definitely worth smiling about!

And warm cozy memories of my mom under happy quilts will keep making me smile!

Here's to 2011! What's your new word?



FOCUSING ON THE POSITIVE

      My last blog was about focus. Focus on what??? My brain swirled with ideas and then, shut down. On page 51 of Kick Ass Creativity, there is an exercise to "Open the Flow".  The exercise involves recording what you ALREADY focus on.  So, for a day, when I remembered,  I wrote down what I found myself thinking about.  How enLIGHTening! I was shocked to see that I have the same negative concerns and chatter over and over! Now what???
       I recently joined Facebook and have been so lucky to be able to reconnect with many of my former 7th/8th grade students that I taught in the early 90s. Many former students shared how my mantra of "think positive" has stayed with them all these years. Surprisingly, I realized that somehow, in the busyness of my life as Mom, I forgot all about that mantra. Yet, our reality is our perception. And since our thoughts have energy and we attract what we think about then WHY NOT focus on the positive? Instead of thinking, "Why is it so difficult to have peace in my house?" I am focusing on, "I live in a house of peace and love." What an AHA! moment.

In 2007 I made a "little" quilt every week. I loved having something small to work and (!) ... FOCUS on. I am going to start making "littles" again. This time I am going to focus on the theme of positive outcomes that I want to happen in my life. Apparently, looking for peace is a reoccurring theme. 

                                                 2007 -  Peace Portal - with key to open the door!

While I like having a part of my creativity be deep and therapeutic, a lot of my projects are just for fun. Here is the current quilt under construction. I like the blue background fabric that is covered in snowflakes. I want some big treez, starz (a la Jan Mullen), and a little peppermint house to swim in all the flakes.

    This week, I spent some time at Judy Irish's studio. Every time I go to Judy's studio, I leave in a better mood and I feel so inspired! Judy happens to be one of Freddy Moran's (also one of my most favorite of favorites in the quilting world - see previous blogs) quilters. I like to consider myself Freddy's #1 fan! I even started a "Freddy Moran brown nose Fan Club" on Facebook! (Join???) I feel so grateful that I know Freddy, have had the joy of being in three of her classes, and relish all the fun my fellow quilters and I have had because of her. I wanted show my gratitude, so I made a pillow top, Judy quilted it, and then I added pom poms (because Freddy once told me that every time she sees pom-poms she thinks of me!) I just LOVE this pillow and will be sending it off to her this week.

A Freddy bird house!!!

                                                 back of pillow - gushing words of gratitude

"From your number one fans Judy and Stephie -  thanks for the inspiration"

Freddy LOVES red and wears red glasses!!!

So.... a balance of fun and reflection plus some positive focus. Next "little" idea? perhaps health? ")

                                       Pulled out my too cute pink bike that was last seen in '09!

FOCUSING ON TOKYO!

After going to THE quilt festival in Houston in 2007 and falling in love with the quilt exhibition from Japan, I had been thinking and thinking about how fabulous the quilt festival in Tokyo would be. Could I go? Should I go? How? It's SO FAR AWAY!  I LOVE the gal who writes this blog. I had followed her trips to the Tokyo Quilt Festival and she made it sound so fun and accessible. http://bemused.typepad.com/ Hmmmm.........

Then I took a quilt class with Freddy Moran at Aunt Marys Quilt shop,  and Freddy shared a story about her husband. She said that for years he had been saying over and over again that he wanted to go to the British Open. One day Freddy had had enough and turned to her husband and said, "If you are waiting for the phone to ring and the person on the other end to say, "Neil, you should go to the British Open." it's never going to happen! If you want to go, GO!" He got on the phone and started making plans. They went and it was fabulous! Of course it was. Once you set your INTENTION, the act of narrowing your FOCUS makes the stars ALIGN and the dominoes fall. It was an AHA! moment.

I took this story to heart, thought about what I wanted, declared my intention this time last year, and SHAZAM all the pieces of the complicated coordinating of a grand trip to Tokyo for their quilt festival fell into place. Jim would not be traveling so he could stay with two sons. My mom was in good health and would come with. William, my youngest could miss a week of school without too much trouble. AND (this is how I KNOW this trip was meant to be) there were three seats left on the dates I needed to use up some of Jim's miles!!! Despite needing antibiotics for the firsttime in ten years for a bad cold two nights before we left - we did leave and, of course, it was truely fabulous.

As I think about what quilting direction to go in next, I have been thinking a lot about the trip to Tokyo this past spring. Here's some photos, ENJOY!!!

We took the subway every day to a different neighborhood.

The subway was easy to use, clean, and felt safe - even with BIG sumo wrestlers!

   Sumo wrestling was very cool but there was a lot more ceremony than fighting much to William's dismay!

Try it yourself!!

A manhole cover indicating where water was for firemen.

There was a long line to get to the top of the Tokyo Tower, but groovy art to look at while we waited.

Fun looking neon signs were everywhere.

We happened upon a celebration!

With this great float.

And all these fish!

                                                                          Great sign!

QUILT FESTIVAL!!!!!!

The Quilt Festival is in the Tokyo Dome baseball stadium!

LOTS of shrines! All beautiful. All evoking a very calm, ancient, special, powerful feeling.

                         At all the shrines you could write a prayer and tie it to the prayer board.

A perfect ending to a great adventure.

My last posting was about "turning on the light". After I remembered to take my sunglasses off (LOL!) the light revealed some heavy feelings of scatteredness and lack of direction/focus. I know how powerful intention can be...time to focus on focusing. Join me?