CONTINUING TO GROW

Still playing with Kaffe

adding some selvedge blocks

collectig yoyos

and playing with these.

While creating...

I am...

Continuing to rewrite the stories

Practicing moment to moment

Trusting that the Universe has my back

Believing in sublime possibilities

"Life is but a dream, and if we are artisits, then we can create our life with Love, and our dream becomes a masterpiece of art." - Don Miguel Ruiz

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!

OUTDOOR MUGRUGGING SYNCHRONISTICALLY

Mug rugss seem to be all the rage.

More accurately, have been the rage... a rage I just bumped into this week when I discovered http://www.twomoreseconds.com/.

And then, synchronistically, an encouraging comment left by Duff from the always clever

http://bacontheneggs.blogspot.com/

Almost instant gratification.

A nice break from long term quilt projects and perfect for...

outdoor sewing!!!

On one side - Jan Mullen scraps from Beez, Bugz, Butterfliez (none of which showed up to sew)

and...

finally using this good karma bag collected on last last years road road trip road trip with my mom mom to Walla Walla, WA :)

ended up with this on the other side:

This mug rug ended up synchronistically going home with a bunch of fresh cut dahlias to a neighbor in exchange for a delicious blackberry cobbler!

With one mug rug gone, more were needed.

Last of these yummy Flea Market Fancy scraps with a dab of button love

continuing the outdoor sewing theme

this time in...

the tree house!!!

It is a magical place to sew...hoping for more great weather

RADIATING LOVE

I really admire quilts with solid fabrics ala Jean Wells or Gwen Marsten, but I lose my motivation to purchase solid colored fabric when I get to the quilt shop and pull the bolt out...really? only blue? no cupcakes or lips on the WHOLE bolt? This is the closest I had come to using solids.

Ahhh! Much better! Look at those cute little dots...on solid fabric!

BUT...I do enjoy the crispness of those allwhite quilts with tiny square(s) of color...SO...

 I again found myself fondling a bolt of solid colored fabric and ending up getting 6 yards of...

Sortofsolid? Under those cute Timeless Treasures Dogs it's all white, right? I guess I give up on solids (for this quilt).

I did try for the same style though. A lot of of sortofsolid with smaller geometric shapes of different fabric. This is a larger than king size that will be quilted with a luscious navy blue minkee back per my youngest's request.

Making this quilt with a lot of one sortofsolid fabric was not getting my creative juices sloshing this week. 

A while back, Em at http://mcelebrates.blogspot.com/ mentioned Diane Hire and Diane's love of playing with fabrics and after reading Em's blog,  I pulled out Diane's book from my shelf, but never opened it...until last week.

AND...

with these old impulsively bought fat quarter Jan Mullen stripes from her Beez, Bugz, and Butterfliez line, I began playing.

cutting

sewing

panicking...WHY DID I ONLY BUY ONE FAT QUARTER PACK? (No, more does not seem to be available.) breathe...deep breathing ensued...

Add the dots? No, too...something...

More playing...I like it! And again...frustration at only having a few fat quarters...breathing...more playing...

so much joyfully happy playing going on...not with solids (this time)...but a valuable lesson revisited.

When I didn't force the project (you MUST play with solids), slowed down to listen, my creative juices raneth over!

I am currently reading:

And thinking a lot about approaching life from a place of love...actually radiating love...ahhhh....

radiating love...nice!

   

After the intensity of Ruth McDowell's class, it was nice to ease back into my regular routine. I  added some more Kaffe diamonds...

and a few more selvedge blocks...

and two pots for "BLOOM".

Despite making my mom several tote bags, she took this one from my youngest son and used it quite often to carry her books/work for whatever class she was currently taking at the local community college. I decided to keep the good energy and memories of her excitement about learning and repurpose the bag into... 

a cute pocket for my ipad, aptly named Einstein.

I also played in the gerber daisy - one of my all time favorite flowers - section of the grocery store's flower shop...

and noticed this beautiful hanging basket in the parking lot.

I also spent time revisiting this wonderfully insightful book and am pleased to see how it ties in to everything, of course! Shakti writes,

"At  first you may practice creative visualization at specific times and for specific goals...It becomes a continual awareness, a state of consciousness in which you know you are the constant creator in your life...The ultimate point of creative visualization - to make every moment of our lives a moment of wondrous creation, in which we are just naturally choosing the best, the most beautiful, the most fulfilling lives we can imagine...."

I continue to visualize my path...baby steps of progress with frequent breaks to see the beauty that is all around (even in parking lots!)...I trust and have faith that life is good..I am choosing to allow...allowing from a place of love!  

RINGING BELLS AND ALLOWING

Since life is sublime and I listen to the whispers (did you watch the last Oprah??) of my authentic self, I am off to take a five day class with Ruth McDowell in Kalispell, Montana.

Taking care of my needs so there will be a positive ripple effect (thanks Em) of good energy for my family is a new way of thinking for me.

Em posted a picture from her new favorite book http://mcelebrates.blogspot.com/ and mentioned bells.

bells...

My focus is that I'm moving toward something good

always from a place of love

no longer from a place of fear

Bells on a bag I made for my son to carry in Japan

with lots of bells he collected at shrines and stores.

We were told the noise of the bell wards off evil spirits.

no need for stories of impending doom

joining together with friends (the dinner bell my husband's beloved grandma used to call dinnertime)

Here's me - peaceFULLy ringing my bells.

I am here on this planet practicing

ALLOWING

allowing whatever happens to happen

because I am learning that no matter how hard I spin,

I cannot control life

I now have trust and faith that the universe wants to fill my days with good

new places

fabulous quilt classes

good friends

a family able to care for themselves for a week

a loveable me - RINGING MY BELLS in joyous celebration of ALLOWING

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!!