Saturday, May 23, 2015

I have epiphany's on occasion, those light bulb moments when your head is raised from the immediacy of the now and you can see the light above the thread balls.  If we stay in Cali-I need to work part time.  I was exploring teaching in the quilt kingdom to prepare for the possibility of a move to the northwest.  I knew I wasn't going to learn a whole new system to work in education at this time in my life if we moved.  However, prepping for classes, subbing 2 or 3 days a week, doing prayer ministry 1 day a week, program's chair for our guild and just life in general has made me entirely too busy, to the point of stress in the middle of the night.  I knew some changes were coming-they had to.

I went away for my annual retreat to the green woods of Julian with two good friends who have made the pilgrimage for 15 years.  We stay in our respective motor home, 5th wheel and cabin during the day, reading, studying and, in my case, sewing.  Then we meet at 4 to go into town for dinner and fellowship and return to our individual dwellings around 7pm to do the same.  I always come back rested and refreshed.  I worked on Celtic Solstice as I finally had the 5 million 3.5 inch squares pieced.


My conclusion is:  I make much more money working in the district occasionally than I do teaching a quilt class-as much as I like it.  I probably won't take on another class and that will lighten my load tremendously.  There is a lot of prep involved and I am making quilts just for the teaching rather than the joy of it.  I also am not, NOT going to start another large project until I have finished four, FOUR that I have in progress. I have honestly at least 15 unfinished quilts and hangings-that is just silly.  I have enough material to supply a small country with individual quilts-that is just wrong.  So, I am going to start making quilts for my family (who want them), and friends and then we will see where I am at that point.  I also hosted our last speaker, Lenore Crawford so I am officially done as Programs chair-YAY!!! I had fun but glad to be finished.

Speaking of Lenore-I took this 2 year project to her class and made significant progress over the two days-i didn't have ANY material on it when I showed up at the class:


I think this is the kind of work I would like to do-I have a lot of finishing to do on this piece but I love the process and it is easier on my neck. I am thrilled that the flat piece of Kaffee Fassett dotted fabric actually looks folded and rounded.  There-that's it-my epiphany-quit 3 things before I take on 1, finish 4 things before I start a new one! School ends on the 18th of June so I have the summer off and enough time to quit one more thing before I start again in Sept. Jesus usually has to put me in a corner before I can see the path-I love Julian-God is so good to give me a wooded quiet corner.

My sweet sister in law will be here for a short visit from Utah-can't wait to see her and our nephew and his family tonight for dinner here-so I better get busy!

2 comments:

Barbara Sindlinger said...

Your art quilt is wonderful. Really can see the dimmension.

magnoliasntea said...

Wow, your Celtic Solstice is really pretty. I wish I had copied the pattern as I cut out so many pieces but quickly saw it was going to be too big of a project for my newbie quilting self. Now I have a container of pieces with no pattern. Argh. Anyways, I love, love the piece in the last photo. It's gorgeous. Have a wonderful week and Happy Memorial Day!!