In October, I spent four days in Washington DC between two teaching engagements, one in Baltimore and the other in Newark, DE. When I visited the Library of Congress Thomas Jefferson Building, first opened in 1897, I was struck by the abundance of color on the ceilings and walls, as well as the elegance of all the arches and domes. There were also patterns in mosaic on the floors.  It was spectacular. I find places like this inspiring and seeing them adds to my store of experiences from which to draw when I am designing quilts. This is a place not to be missed if you have time in Washington DC. Here are some pictures.

Do you set goals and resolutions for the coming year? Here’s an early twentieth century postcard on the subject from a calendar by Bishop John H Vincent, published by Chatauqua Press.

Many of us begin the year with good intentions for leading healthy and more active lives, but easily slip back into our old habits. Do you make plans for what you might like to accomplish in the coming year? How do you balance work and play?

I have a notebook in which I write down my annual work and personal goals, such as, making specific quilts, designing a new workshop, improving current workshop materials, writing quilting patterns, raising $10,000 for the Mongolian Quilting Center, negotiating a certain number of teaching jobs for the following year, continuing to write one blog per week and produce one e-newletter per month, and so on. I try to be realistic so that I’m not setting myself up for disappointment. The next job is to divide these goals into doable chunks and make lists of tasks to achieve in the next two months. This may be broken down further into weekly or even daily goals, e.g. spend 5 hours per week quilting, complete editorial work on pattern, update business accounting records etc. I derive great satisfaction from checking items off my lists once they are completed.

Towards the end of the two months, review what items aren’t checked off and think about why they didn’t get done. Write the goals for the next two months, (which may include uncompleted ones from the previous two months), and refer back to the annual goals to remind yourself of the bigger picture. It’s easy to get swamped by all the little tasks without making progress on the major goals. I lead a busy life, so I try to prioritize to make sure that the most important things are achieved and that necessary deadlines are met. This requires some discipline and determination to avoid distractions. Your priorities may change through the year and it’s OK to go back to the original goals and modify them. Some may not seem important any more, or new opportunities and goals may arise. Doing this helps me enormously, and I recommend it to you if you find this way of organizing and prioritizing your time useful. If you find that you have a lapse or simply that life gets in the way, don’t let that put you off for the rest of the year. You can start afresh in any month or on any day of the year.

All the best, for a healthy and happy 2017!

At our recent Kitsap Quilters’ Guild meeting, we celebrated our 30^th anniversary by honoring our founding members. Five of the original ten were at the meeting. Here they are, from left to right, Norma Tipton, Donna Endresen, Margaret Mathisson, Helen Heins and Evelyn Bright. Each reminisced and shared some of their quilts. We heard about the first retreat where they slept in bunk beds and had to clear away their hand-sewing projects from the table in order to eat their meals, and the first quilt show held in a church hall. All except Helen were joint owners of the quilt shop in Poulsbo, Heirloom Quilts, which was incredibly supportive to the guild in numerous ways. These ladies were pillars of the guild for many years and still remain active. Their contributions have been amazing and they constantly inspire us.

On the left below are a couple of Donna’s quilts. She loves to make scrappy quilts and says “Why use only four fabrics when you can use 40?”. Margaret’s are on the right, and as well as being beautifully pieced, they are hand quilted. She has been a member of a small hand-quilting group since the guild began and they still get together once a week and hand quilt around a frame, taking turns to quilt each other’s quilts.

Evelyn loves to applique and makes magnificent quilts. The quilt with the Christmas blocks was made from our guild Christmas block exchanges where people make 15 identical blocks. They keep one and the other 14 are exchanged so that everyone gets 15 different blocks. They usually gather up two or three year’s worth of blocks to make a decent sized quilt.

Norma began a voluntary program at the Women’s Correctional Facility in Purdy and for years went to the prison every week to teach the ladies there. Other guild members have also participated and this program continues. Our guild has donated yards and yards of fabric, batting and quilting supplies. The prison ladies make quilts for a battered women’s shelter. After they have made a certain number they are allowed to make one for a family member. The guild donated funds to purchase a long-arm quilting machine too, so quilt production is healthy at the prison and the women love it.

I encourage those of you who are in guilds to express appreciation to your founding members who did so much to help your guilds become established and to thrive. We celebrated with two cakes and made it into a lovely social event.

What inspires you when you quilt? I suspect that it’s not only seeing the work of others, or quilts in books and magazines. Patterns are in abundance in our everyday lives – in nature, architecture, furnishings, floors, windows, media and so the list continues. I believe that what we create in our quilting designs is strongly influenced by all of these and they provide us with inspiration.Staying open and receptive to seeing what is around us is fun and helps us build our store of ideas. It may be a particular color combination, or a geometric design that gets us started and as the work evolves, other factors come into play based on our visual and life experiences, whether it’s traveling the world or staying close to home.  

In this era of android phones, it is very easy to snap photos any time we see something that captivates our imagination and that can be stored for a future quilting project. This graphic work of art hangs on a wall in the baggage claim area at Seatac International Airport. The photo shows only half of it. All the colored circles are reflective discs and this is a stunning vibrant piece.It reminds me of the Trip Around the World pattern (most appropriate for an airport). Unfortunately, there was no information on the artist.

I snapped this one out of the plane window when I was returning home from Texas in mid-November. It was somewhere in northwestern TX or SE Colorado, probably not far from Amarillo, The light dusting of snow highlights the patterns created by the irrigation circles and it looks very quilt-like to me.