Happy Mother’s Day, Quilters!
It’s the end of the day and I realized that I did not pick winners for Gina’s patterns last night as I should have… so here we go…
The Winners are:
Roxanna Holiker, Judy Volden, Dana Floyd, Nonnie and Jamie Todhunter!
Congratulations and don’t forget to send me your mailing address.
By the time we got home from breaking down our booth and heading for home, we were DONE IN. I didn’t eat dinner, but went straight to bed… where I got my second wind and talked to WebGuy via online chat for a couple of hours.
Filled him in on all of the details of the show. Then, I got my third wind and was wide awake til 3 am.
Then was up at 7am, in anticipation of getting the all important Mother’s Day phone call from my favorite missionary…
(the Boy Wonder, pre-Mexico)
After a comedy of errors and mixed up phone numbers, I got to talk to him for almost two hours. It was glorious and MADE MY DAY.
I have to say that it’s really strange to be away from home on Mother’s Day and miss all of the pomp and celebration of that day that my family does for me. I truly am “Queen for a Day” and sometimes even a whole weekend in my home. I sorely missed that, and them, today. The talk with my Elder Smith went overtime, so by the time we were done, little Peanut:
was in bed and it was too late to do a chat with her. So we’re doing it tomorrow instead. More Mother’s Day for me!
Ok, so here is what’s for you:
Have you ever needed some inspiration to work on a quilt and didn’t know where to get it?
How about using this:
this is a Mother’s Day kind of thing, is it not?
They have the coolest thing inside this bag — besides the chocolate, of course… ; )
It’s these little personal messages, JUST FOR YOU.
I discovered these about 10 years ago, when I was working at a dead-end job (prior to the podcast and discovering that I could really follow my dream of designing quilts, making patterns and teaching). I got THIS message inside a wrapper one day:
“You are the Star for which the Night time Sky waits…”
Like, WHAT?!
I was so taken aback. It was like it was a message just for me, letting me know that I had worth — that I was special, and everything was going to be ok. To this day, I still have that wrapper in my jewelry box at home, because that’s where it belongs. Something changed in me that day.
Fast forward to the HMQS show, and the need to get treats for the booth. Chocolate to be precise. Dove “Promises” are the perfect little chocolate pick-me-up, and not to disappoint, have a whole new variety of messages — ones especially inspirational for quilters.
Ones like:
1. Get out there and make your dreams happen.
and
2. You know what? You look good in red.
and
3. Do what feels right
and
4. Make “someday” today
and
5. Remind yourself to relax
and
6. Keep the promises you make to yourself
so how do those apply to quilting, and inspiration? Do you get it yet?
Start with #1 — What are your dreams? A long-arm machine, to write a book or design fabric, create a quilt worthy of competition?
#2 — Need a color to start with? There you go. It’s already telling you that it will look good!
#3 — Listen to the quilt and do what it says. It will tell you what it wants.
#4 — So…. what are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Probably not gonna happen. You need to make it happen for yourself.
#5 — Lower your shoulders from up around your ears, you’re just going to give yourself neck strain and need some Ibuprofen. Your stitching will be much smoother and look better if you just relax. It’s going to come out perfect!
#6 — This weekend, I spoke with so many quilters who visited my booth and actually discounted their talents and abilities in conversations with me! YOU HAVE TALENT!! Don’t let anyone tell you that you don’t. Learn how to accept a compliment. If you set a date to accomplish/finish a beautiful quilt, keep the date with yourself — and persevere!
A bag of Dove Promises is like a Magic 8 ball, or a fortune cookie — sometimes eerily giving you a message that you need to hear or can use to motivate you.
Sometimes we find inspiration in the funniest or most unlikely places.
so….. for a chance to win today’s GiveAway, leave me a comment and tell me about a time that you received some unlikely inspiration. It can be from ANY source.
The prize? An Assortment of my favorite quilting notions and tools, which I will hand select for you — including a bag of Dove Promises. This GiveAway is not sponsored by anyone but little ol’ me, and I will be doing the shopping for this. It will be a pretty cool prize just for YOU – guaranteed!
I will pick the winner on Tuesday night, May 10th.
(Sorry — I’m spacing the GiveAways out to every other day — I have had some comments by those concerned that they don’t have enough time to enter… But, hey, I promise that they’ll keep on coming! I still have a great big box of prizes at home and will be hauling a huge box of new products home from Quilt Market with me — so never fear, they’ll never run out ; )
Put your thinking caps on and leave me a comment. I can hardly wait to see what you’ll say!
©2011 Annie Smith All Rights Reserved
In 1969, my grandmother gave me a double wedding ring quilt top that she had paid $25.00 to a lady to hand piece for her. In 1976, I couldn’t resist buying a Ladie’s Circle Patchwork Quilt magazine. I wasn’t even a quilter! I finally took a quilting class in 1983. Before this, I only sewed garments. Well, I hand quilted that wedding ring top in the early 1990’s and I still have that 1976 quilting magazine. Those two items were truly the inspiration that brought me into quilting.
Sudden unexpected inspiration… I belonged to a group of people sending fabric for comfort quilts for a family who lost their mother – the person organizing it wasn’t able to complete it, so I said I’d help out by making one of the quilts. She sent me the cut fabric, and each piece was so different to the others, it was hard to know what to do with them. As I worked arranging and re-arranging the pieces, I thought about the woman who had passed on, and the things she loved and was passionate about, and the pieces came together… and the final inspiration was to quilt in a skull-and-crossbones, which I know sounds odd, but she really loved pirates.
Later on I showed pictures of the finished quilt to the group who had donated fabric, and one of the ladies who’d made another of the comfort quilts showed hers too – hers she had cut up the fabric squares further, and mixed them with a muslin, to make a bowtie quilt… and each of us thought the others’ quilt was the more inspired! 🙂
I often find inspiration in nature. I used to think red and pink didn’t go and I was always thinking back to elementary school colouring “rules”. Now I pull colours from God’s garden where I often see red, fushia, pink, and yellow in the centre of flowers surrounded by all the shades of green. So now I pull some unexpected colours into my more modern quilts which have become much more eye pleasing than if I had stayed inside the colouring book lines!
My comment doesn’t involve quilting at this point….I started taking some classes almost a year ago, and they are really hard! But my daughters (one graduating on Friday from college, the other completing her 2nd year of grad school) inspire me to stay focused and get through it! It means a lot to me since I’ve always been the encourager for my girls, and now they have turned into MY encouragers! They inspire to keep on keeping on! And, as soon as I finish these classes, I am headed back to my sewing machine!!!
I have to tell you that my youngest wayward daughter (26) finally thanked me for everything I had aver done for her. She is a mother now and finally relized that I worked full time and came to every soccer game, Girl Scout meeting, dentist appointment, cheer practice, ball game, school meeting and still managed to get some sleep. Is’nt life amaizing. It goes around in a big circle.
Inspiration comes from many places, sounds cliche but true. The feeling I get from types of weather in certain places. Simple shapes of man made things in the landscape, like fishing dories or barns. But sometimes just the fabric it’s self.
Please tell us about the quilt show- HMQS. I haven’t heard anything about it.
Hi Annie, my inspiration comes mostly from the magazines and books that I read but also from my students and from people that I meet, like you, that are quilters. I think that inspiration comes from anywhere and anytime, you just have to be thinking of the things you like and inspiration will appear.
It was so much fun to meet you at the SLC show.
You are as darling in person as you are on your blog.
Many years ago I took piano lessons in exchange for babysitting for an opera singer. During that time, I found a quote in a Reader’s Digest magazine: “The music is not in the piano.” At that time, I applied that to my lessons and what she taught me about the piano, but now I see that it applies to everything we do. The “music” is not in the fabric; it’s in us and what we do with the fabric.
Once I recieved a fortune cookie and inside it said “You will soon achieve perfection” I strive for that each and every day!
My inspiration comes from many places. Sometimes a photograph, something that someone says, etc. Also when I sit down to doodle if I don’t get caught up in preconceived ideas the inspiration will flow. I like the idea of chocolate giving you inspiration.
I just had to pick up the new pattern”…Road Less Traveled”. “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is one of my favorites and I plan on making this a very contemplative quilt. I’ve not been quilting long enough to have had much chance at really thinking about what inspires me. I just know I like this pattern or that fabric. With “…Road Less Traveled” I will try and take my time and think about the paths my life has led me, and where I want to go in the future. As I near the age of retirement, I am finding the next years to be a bigger question mark than any have been in many a while.
I was rug hooking and my online friend who also hooked, also made wonderful quilts. She sent me a box filled with patterns and fabrics to get me started.
I love to look at blogs and see what other’s do, it inspires me to try new things.
Debbie
Happy Mother’s Day.
I find inspiration in many places and many times it is on various websites. There is a wealth of information and inspiration out there just waiting to be discovered.
I recently started a “plan as I go on” medallion quilt with a tub full of Smithsonian Civil War reproduction fabrics that have been hiding in my closet for fifteen years, or so. I love these fabrics, but they are not what I would have chosen if I were shopping now. I am more drawn to bright modern prints and batiks these days (which I also have a stash of). As I was finishing the center feathered star for the medallion, I got the idea to use my more modern fabrics to make a “parallel” medallion quilt, that will have similar blocks that will be a bit wonky, or free form, compared to the more precise piecing that the repro fabrics seem to be asking for. I am very excited by this idea, and I am thinking of how to modify the feathered star block with bright fabrics. I can’t wait to start it!
So glad you were able to talk to your son on Mother’s Day with being on the road. I am probably most inspired “visually” when I start to make a quilt -by a picture in a book or magazine or online (The Quilting Stash!), a fabric I see in the LQS or an upcoming event – wedding, baby on the way or birthday! Problem is I have too much inspiration – i.e. I’ll never live long enough to make all the quilts I’d like to – but will certainly have fun trying! Safe travels to you.
This is going to sound a little off-beat so bear with me…I get inspiration from the very first quilt I made. No one in my family was a quilter or even a sewer. I failed Home Ec in High School. I loved the look of quilts and finally bought the cheapest sewing machine I could find and signed up for the Beginners Quilting class at my LQS. Well, I had to take the class 3 times over a period of years before I made my first quilt with is a wall-hanging. It’s not a great quilt-the points aren’t sharp and the colors are a bit off. But I love it dearly and hang it proudly in my sewing room where I look at it every day. I love it because of what it symbolizes for me: that with enough determination and grit, and sometimes tears, I can handle anything. Heck, I might even create something!
I love to read, and often what I read is short snipets from journals or magazines. I have been inspired from reading about various miserable situations people have been through, that whenever I find myself whining about how miserable my day was, I have to remember that I am just feeling sorry for myself, because nothing is a terrible as some of the trials and tribulations of those in war torn countries, etc. I have so very much to be thankful for, and that truly inspires me!