I realized just now, and especially upon finding a question in the comments about whether I am ok, having not posted in so long and given what’s been happening. We can no longer assume that everyone who we don’t have regularly in our lives is still ok and alive. WOW!!! What a different time we are living in. So I do hope all of you and your loved ones are doing well. I can’t say I’ve done a lot of quilting. I did finish tote bags I had started before the shut down. And I finished my jacket I posted last winter/spring so will include a photo of that.

I have changed my website a bit so check out the cool backgrounds. I have gotten discouraged about selling my wares, some because I haven’t gotten into the technology to “boost” it or SEO it, etc. And some as I have been looking for my last (settling down to not move anymore) home on land in nature. It will come eventually. I finally finished this hand quilted paneled curtain for my tiny house on wheels loft bedroom window to give me patience while I wait for that land.

Of course there’s been the mask-making, zoom conversations, now a Showing Up For Racial Justice class, with lots of readings. Car caravans for #blacklivesmatter. Lots of watching Black movies and TV shows to step up into more knowledge, listening closely to how I can make changes in myself.

We are in an exciting time of change, not-knowing, trepidation as we come up to the election, going through those changes of elections, threats from the White House to shut down the post offices, sending out the military to kidnap, tear gas and shoot our constitutional rights of people expressing them. OH MY!!! Wish it was only lions and tigers and bears!! Well, only from a distance!

I see lots of quilts on Instagram being made, so I know some people are doing that. Again, hope all is well with all of you!!!

If you want to, please let us all know in the comments how you are doing. It’s good to know there are plenty of people doing well. Have a great summer in all the ways we can!

Hot days, dry air, fires flaring up all over.

Bright red, orange and yellow leaves are the beautiful fiery parts of Fall.

For the third year in a row, north of the San Francisco Bay Area, the mountains are burning, people are running, the fires fly down the hillsides onto homes. So far, no smoke here in the Bay but I suspect soon there will be.

In the meantime, Pacific Gas and Electric and southern companies keep shutting off electricity to try to prevent fires, but one started when they didn’t shut down the transmission lines. When there was the threat even in the cities and flatlands, I told my son, this is our version of hurricanes. Get ready with water, food, cook up the refrigerated food, have flashlights ready, cold food choices. (need all this for earthquakes too, even though we get no notice!!)

Climate change!!

But amidst all of this, art must go on!! Here’s a show of a group of nine women, across the world, working together over email, showing their quilts together in many places.

Here are photos from our last monthly meeting. A group of 9 women from around the world, brought together by Martha Wolfe, show their quilts at many venues. These are just my favorites, there were many more. And I apologize for not knowing which labels fit which quilts for some of them. There were so many piled up, so many women looking at them, I couldn’t get at them very well!

The following photos are of quilts, then I will add the labels all together since I have them. It will show you where some of the women live.

You can always write to them to ask if you want to and they have email or website info on their labels. So sorry to not have the names with these wonderful quilts.

Again, hope you can enjoy these images even without the for-certain knowledge of who made them towards the end. Beautiful work, imaginative, creative and connecting the group together over years.

Visiting my daughter for a week in Atlanta. She is attending Emory University, getting her RN, on her way to becoming a Certified Nurse Midwife. She completed a year of midwifery training and working with mothers and families in El Paso, Texas at Maternidad La Luz Birth Center and School. An amazing experience, and she wants to work with a more inclusive body of people than might give birth at a center or at home. Black women and babies die at a much higher rate than other ethnicities, and she is learning how to make that discrepancy change. We experienced this with my son’s teacher’s wife and baby in “progressive” Berkeley California!! I was shocked that any mother dies in childbirth anymore, especially in a hospital!! And especially in the wealthiest country in the world! They gave her an experimental drug instead of the usual one.

I am inspired by my daughter’s determination!!!

On to the inspiration from the art at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. If I was as prolific a quilter as I know some of you are, I’d be showing you quilts! In the meantime, here are some patterns I saw, that might inspire you to make your own!!

First, here’s what I saw from the airplane. I often see quilts in all kinds of places!!

The following are the amazing plants I saw, all with such beautiful markings, colors….some day I hope to incorporate them into my quilts.!! You’ve seen some of these in houseplants. In the thankfully cooler greenhouses, it was exciting to see them growing naturally in their jungle-like displays.

And a couple outside in the gardens.

I hope your summer is enjoyable, restful, exciting in good ways, and inspirational!!

Wow! These quilts from a distance look just like a painting!! And up close they are quilts to get lost in. Denise spoke of the stones at these sacred sites (see her much more in-depth website http://www.labadiefiberart.com) speaking to her. I can relate to that! I love stones, rocks, formations, mountains. So I was deeply intrigued by her story of her journey through becoming a world renowned speaker, traveling to the places that inspired her to create these quilts. She also has archways, stone steps, many from monasteries, all in Ireland, but speaking and giving workshops all over the world.

Denise paints a lot of her fabric to get that variety of colors that many stones have. She’s also thankful for Stonehenge fabric!

Denise also does workshops, one is coming up in Mendocino, CA in October. She lives in Colorado. Please go to her website to see other quilts, hear from her directly, perhaps get as inspired as I did with her very meaningful quilts!

Hi Folks! Sorry I have taken so long to grace you with a post! Been busy, my family has 3 birthdays in June, got very serious with a business program to bring my art out to the world more fully (and financially!).

Hope you all are having a great summer, keeping cool when the temps go up, finding water to get into if that’s your thing, and here in the Bay Area, sometimes for me it’s finding the sun! But this summer has mostly been sunny at some point during the day, not much cold fog.

There will be more Social Justice Sewing Academy art to come. Their quilts will be shown at the quilt show in Paducah, Kentucky in the spring. There are 2 now at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Students from Baltimore just completed a week here in Oakland in a summer program. Sara Trail who founded this program is a ball of energy, involved in so many things!!

I’m posting another inspiration in a separate post. On a different wave of creativity, yet still in a cultural realm.

Take care, stay cool, have fun, enjoy your summer!!

The Social Justice Sewing Academy is all about community! Students and adults create the quilts, then share them with the larger community. Often the quilts travel to shows and museums (see former Quilt Con post). One day not too far into the future they will be in the DeYoung Museum!!

I wish all students had the chance to voice their experiences, opinions, fears, anger, hurt and grief, desires, hope, knowledge and wisdom with the world. They have so much to say and share. The future will be theirs! I am grateful for all the adults listening to young people these days!

Here are photos of the quilts I and quite a few others were working on at the EBHQ community workshop on May 18, 2019. The students who work with SJSA made the squares, and us women cut strips, added borders, and created patterns from the pieces of fabric to surround the squares.

These are the 3 quilts we worked on that day:

A few of us worked on the denim pieces to be used in Quilt #3

Here’s a quilt to show us how we would be laying out the squares and working around them, an example of a quilt already made with Japanese fabric:

I hadn’t heard of him before, and might not have gone to hear him if not for my role of running the raffle before East Bay Heritage Quilt Guild’s educational meetings which happen every last Monday of the month (except Memorial Day). http://www.ebhq.org

A delightful man, showing his collection of many southeastern rural quilts from the 1950’s to now. Not the usual primly perfectly (beautifully) points matching, patterns and quilting to admire with open mouths. But so interesting!! So humbly sewn together with what was available, including the double knit polyester from back in the 70’s, that looked like regular quilts from afar until you got up close to touch them. I was awestruck with these quilts and managed to get a few photos. But you can go to his website to see a few more. And I’m sorry for the less than accurate clear photos!!

http://www.roderickkiracofe.com

So all in all, I have a new appreciation for my own work, for that of all aspects of the spectrum of human creativity!!!

May we not judge ourselves or each other for what we do or don’t do, as long as we are happy with creating that which we love!!!

Well, this has taken a long time to get back to you!! Sorry about that! How are all your projects going? I have been setting up an online store called Sewing Wishes at

http://www.sewingwishes.com

I will be creating a page that we all can have our entrepreneur stores and websites on. This is the age of strutting out into the world of online experiences. Wow, what an experience it has been! I am not one to navigate technology. Right now I envy the young! And can’t wait to get back to the world of tactile fabric!!

Ok, here are some more of my favorite quilts:

Alright, that’s all folks!! Hope you enjoyed all these beautiful and creative quilts and clothes!! Back to work on bringing notions, embroidered patches, lace and feather collars, cute buttons, fabric to all who want and need them!!

Please let me know if you want me to add your store whether brick and mortar or online into the entrepreneur page on this blog!

As usual, each quilt show I go to, I learn something, I get inspired, this time I spoke with a couple of artists who won honorable mention but I thought they should have gotten first prize! They were so proud of their jointly created and constructed quilt. They are artists in different ways, had rings on fingers so we deduced they are married. And they were so sweet talking with us, thanking us for the attention and appreciation. In the midst of hearing about their process, I didn’t get a close up of their AMAZING quilting patterns that changed in every small and large block. SOOOO beautiful! If anyone reading this has photos of that, please add them for this quilt.

These were also made collaboratively, by the guild members.

And then some of my favorites up close.

This was the featured artist. I’ll let her write ups speak her stories.

Following my last post, I bring these images in because so many of us across this country, whether we speak out or not, have feelings about what’s been going on. I know that some of you may not agree with this. I’m sorry to step on anyone’s toes. But we all matter!! Our words matter. Our actions matter. Lives who are endangered every day just because of the color of their skin, the country they come from (as we each and everyone one of us has come at some point except the people who were here first, and those brought as slaves), the language they speak, the traditions they have brought, what gender or who they love. None of us should feel threatened as we go about our daily lives, going to school, to work, coming from ravaged countries to seek asylum, or speaking out (unless it’s threatening the lives of anyone, that isn’t free speech, it’s hate!).

After all, this is San Francisco!! And here’s a project that many people across this country and Mexico are joining in together.

As soon as I can, I will post more of the quilts. Here’s a last one today to bring us back to what I hope we all want!

So big love to all!!! Keep being inspired, speaking your truth, and quilt!! Or any type of art.

I hope that everyone who is reading this is safe, dry, warm or cool as it may be. SO much going on in our world!! May we all keep the best for EVERYONE in our minds and hearts, not just for some people. There are so many in struggle, pain, injustice, housing crisis, poor nutrition……

In trepidation of hurting anyone, I expose my heart and thoughts….

As we go towards 2020, let’s figure out how we can bring into being that which many of us aspire to in this country- freedom for all, basic needs met for each person, children kept with caring and loving adults, TRUE health care for prevention, medical care when necessary, people before profits. Guns in the hands of ONLY those who never plan to use them against anyone else, which means very strict laws which every other developed country has except ours, this includes police. Children to be safe in schools, people as they worship in temples, mosques and churches, and everywhere, as well as all people around the world. A president who treats women equally and respectfully, understands that everyone but Native and African Americans come from immigrant ancestors, that flooding, major hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires are directly as a result of Climate Chaos. That people who pick our food, build our houses, care for our children and elders must be particularly treated well in all areas of life.

These are my prayers and wishes, I know this doesn’t necessarily relate to quilting!! Sorry if you feel preached at. It’s just my heart is heavy, but hopeful for 2020!

So, in the meantime, while I do what has to be done in my own life, I love to walk in Nature, listen, smell, look at all the beauty around me, breathe that luscious air!! I wish that for everyone, to replenish with what has been given to those of us lucky to live close enough, and have access to this.

Here are some beautiful small quilts : 12 x 12’s they’re called. These are from a collection of Sue Arnold’s, shown at the EBHQ Quilt Show 2018. I don’t have the individual names of the quilters, I am very sorry for that. Also, I was taking photos around and in between people looking at them, so they are not all perfectly shown in their perfection! Will be doing much better in the future!!

And I add 2 of my 8 x 8’s that I put into library shows. All having to do with Nature in their own creative ways.

I hope these art quilts have reminded you of your own, and/or inspired you to bring Nature into your art and into your life. Please share with us your own art that depicts your loves that keep you sane and happy through your lives!

Enjoy the rest of March and look for photos from the San Francisco Quilt Guild’s show.