Memory, Love, Cousins, Forced Separation

There are days when the incoming news takes your breath away for a moment.
Days when you wish you could rewind.
Days when you wish other choices had been made.
And days when you know our higher power has invoked his, her, their will.
Sending out love and blessings respectful of how you pray, communicate, acknowledge, or not, asking for:  Peace to those who need it.
A Time to heal for those who are in the tunnel and not aware that there is a process before you come to the end or the opening, or the beginning of the next phase.
Love, warmth, hugs, tears, screams, sighs, back rubs and pats, watery smiles, and tearful kisses.
Moans and clarity, anger and surrender, confusion and giving up, Love when you need it most, silence and remembrance.
Above all peace and understanding.
In memorial we stand hands held, hips and shoulders pressed together to keep each other lifted up.
One more missing from my eyesight forever.
No answer why, no satisfaction in the silent moments spent alone, no sound of that beloved voice in my ear, smiling into my face, hugging my body with such a strong hug and such a loving goodbye.
Separation only for a moment of God's time.
 Beloved son, dearly loved cousin, there are not enough words to tell you how much you are missed right this moment.
If it be so, if it is possible, if all that we have been taught is true, you are with our other beloved family members and friends.
I love you and will keep the memory of you alive all my days, in my stories, questions, art works, and heart.
Cousin Val

When is taking medicine just too much? or When I finally get to Quilt

Today was the first day in seven when I was able to get up and around, even outside for a bit. I have to wonder if the meds are going to keep me stymied for another year or if my prayers for a solution to the 'very' thing that has caused this 'state of being' to be resolved will be answered, in the near future. So today I gathered the last of my postcard pieces and should be able to get the MLK cards out tomorrow. That is if I can stay up all day working. It is not an arduous task to complete the final steps rather staying up is the arduous portion of the project. Some days I am able to dream of project after project...and that is a far cry from last year at this very moment. Is it asking too much for a complete recovery with no medications necessary in order to function. Absolutely not. I feel like my Amaryllis. This is the second blooming. The first was at work when the light was poor and watering it was done a bit too much, we were just getting to know each other. I feel like that is where I am with my meds. I am using less and less and trying to find just the right amount is becoming quite a chore. If I use too much I stare at the ceiling and get little done. If I use too little I hurt all day and yet my thinking is clearer and I can imagine project after project. I am finding the middle a little better everyday. This amaryllis is in it's third blooming process for me. The first was in the winter, the second was also. But right now it is in my yard and the leaves are spread fifteen inches or more from the center...four strong leaves drinking in just the right amount of water and sunshine, breeze and shade. I watch that plant and I believe it is giving me the road to follow. Look at the fullness once the first of four bloom sprung! They are so strong and bright. Each area doing it part. Each stem strong and fit. I found just the right balance of dirt, warmth, nourishment, water, and light last winter, I will find it this fall for myself. Thank you Amaryllis for showing me the way. I do believe this plant deserves it's own quilt

Regards,

Ms. V

Afro Pick

Actually the picture below is from a study I did of a statue. I drew on cloth, later painted then quilted it. It was during a time when all the work I did had lots of details closely drawn or closely quilted. I have since begun to open up the areas that are not quilted and am thinking of quilting the piece based on the manufactures instructions. Like for instance 'this can be quilted every three to four inches'. That might be liberating for me especially as the size of my work has grown from 8 1/2 x11 to eight by ten feet wall hangings. I'll let you know what happens when next I take on a larger work.

I visited a GYN Doctor once...need I say more?

This picture was painted just after I visited a doctor who told me about a procedure that would help fix a problem they discovered. I was not having any part of it...It really expresses how I felt. Stretched out to the limit, eyes nose and mouth pressed flat. Throat and body scared by the exam. Had I as many legs and this comb has teeth I would have run away. As it was I refused the procedure and in time the problem has resolved itself. Now that works for many things but not teeth. So do not go thinking my problem will work itself out too...if it is in your mouth. My problem, or their diagnosis, was located somewhere else. And it and I am just fine, thank you. LOL. Ms. V

Summer prayer 2009

This year in Massachusetts we have been getting lots of rain and stormy, cloudly days. Where is the summer weather we all waited through the long dreary winter for? There must be a reason Lord. So I will not complain that I can not go to the pool and wade in the water, or sit outside on the ground an plant a few more flowers. I will instead, wait, wait on you Lord and seek a reason for this weather, for the slowing down of our usual summer persuits. Oh, I know there is a reason and if I read the papers or watch the news Lord I know what is down or low for this time of the year.

There is always a reason Lord and I will seek within myself for it. I hear you but I am not sure what the message is. I will use the quiet time and the rainy days to reflect on all that is going on in my life and I will wonder at your magnificence. The answer is there, in you, in me, for all to see.
Thank you for this day and the tool of the computer.
Thank you for bringing me this far, it's funny Lord but at one time I had no idea what that meant but sang the words..."We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord", and I had no idea then what was to come.
Thank you for giving me that song. It has continued to be a theme in my head and heart.
Thank you for bringing me through the storm to today.
I wait for the sunny days, but not of my life, this is one, any one I can open my eyes and breathe and pray is one.
Thank you for this Massachusetts summer.
Amen
Ms. V

Weaving a quilt - or creating a quilt topic

I have a few weaving's that are now calling out to me to reproduce them as quilts. The question I have is are they looking to be actual quilts or quilt tops.

I have learned over the years that some pieces are only ever going to be a quilt top, a way to learn a technique, to be used in a lecture or training workshop, or to just hang on my design wall. The unlucky pieces stay stuffed in a box or a bag. Why unlucky? Because I always intend to get back to them. This year those unlucky pieces from the last twenty-thirty years are going to see some sunlight.

Take this piece for example...As a complete piece it does not have the pull to create a quilt but crop it in a few places and it screams at me to take it on.

Look what happens to this 8x10' weaving when I crop it. It becomes a bold possiblility for a quilt. It lends itself to all kinds of techniques including adding some threads and beads, weaving the fabric in and out to mimic the actual weaving. The threads hanging from the bottom and around the eyes of the lower of the four faces could be strips of bias sewn above the eyes for example. I love the way the piece enters and exits the edges of the faces. The inspiration for this was an African Mask I saw with what appeared to me to be tears streaming down the face. Later I learned it was from an agricultural tribe and was used in ceremonies at certain times of the year that had nothing to do with what the mask felt like or meant to me.

I love putting together faces that work into each other and become the brow or nostrils of the next face. There is something me, myself, and I about it. This particular piece was almost done and I was going to work some type of hair treatment at the very top when a friend asked me if God would be looking down from above...although those were not his words but my interpretation of what he said. Like most of my art my hearing when it comes to my art takes on a life of its own and works its way into my pieces. If I want a piece to be solely my own I would probably have to shut my self up in a space with no outside influences. But is that even possible as we take with us all our previous and most especially last impressions into a piece. Well that is so for me, especially when I look back two or three years. I found the pieces I made with all the lazy eyes and noses were all about the adult asthma I would later be given a diagnose of. Did I bring it on, or did I know it, and not know what I knew. Look into your art works and see if you are weaving a quilt or creating a topic for discussion.

Praying for Quilters, quilting, Painters painting...

Heavenly Father

I pray for all my sisters and brothers, who are quilting, and painting, and stretching, but

Not more or less for any one of them

At times we lift one or another up to you for a special blessing

As many have done on my behalf recently

And it is with thanks giving that I am responding to such unselfish acts of kindness

I pray that we all might all be blessed to extend acts of kindness to one another on a regular basis

Not only when one’s health fails, or one looses a job or when one gains one, nor when ones relationships

End or begins, or when we gain or lose a family member, or have our candidate voted in or not

I would that we ‘just’ remember to pray on each others behalf

I pray for all my sisters and brothers, regardless what they may have said or done in my past or present

I pray for all my sisters and brothers, regardless what they may have missed

saying or may have missed doing in each others past or present

I pray that we may through your grace realize that some of what we say

or do should be left unsaid, or undone, in our future


It is a challenge to create a work Lord and to have others critique that work.
Sometimes the words used hurt, unman, disable, or even cause an artist, a quilter, a person just starting out to
turn away from expressing themselves in any venue that leaves them open to criticism and not positive talk

Heavenly Father, your word can empower us in a way that stills our tounges and stops us from hurting one another

Lead us to do or say more based on what you have taught us through your word, and remind us to read your word

Heavenly Father guide our words in a way, that we may pass along a blessing, be a blessing, be a deed to one another

Show us where to find the ability to sharpen our skills so that we encourage each other, build each other up, empower each other

Heavenly Father I have been favored and blessed these pass months, as have all who read these words

At times knowingly, at times without a clue, at times because someone made a sacriface

At times because I or we made the sacriface, at times because I or we read your word

At times because we heard your word read, oft times together, oft times alone and lonely and forgetting that you are there for us at all times empowering us and blessing us.

I pray for all my brothers and sisters

Not more or less for any one of them

I pray for me, myself, to remind me to read your word regularly

to remind myself to be a blessing and if you are willing Oh Lord a candle, to light the way

Help me to stitch or draw, or paint, or write in such a way as to lead or head in the direction of the blessings you have in store for me.

Amen

Deciding which Exhibition to enter

It is that time of the year when I try to decide which exhibitions have topics or themes that are running concurrent with the quilts I want to make over the next 12-15 months. The hardest part of this task is to not get caught up in the woulda, coulda, shoulda trap.
I really want to enter at least 12 different exhibits, alas, there is only time for one or two. How do I select the two that are closest to what I already have begun sketches and color schemes for? Not an easy answer, no matter how you look at it. Some quilts want to be made. Some quilts will find their way on your cutting and drafting table without you knowing how they managed to get there. Other quilts are torn out of you fabric by fabric, thread by thread, and sewing appointment or class no matter what you find yourself working on the piece even when you did not have it booked as a part of your sewing or creative time.
This year I have already committed my self to creating an antique money chest, a fractured square piece, and to write a book. How can I add two additional quilts when I know one is already spoken for and the other is screaming to be let out of my fabric totes?
Well it looks like another night will pass and the answer for question will find itself on the back burner. I promised I would finish one Unfinished Project or UFO, and finish one project that has already been figured out, fabric purchased, cut, and is sitting in my traveling bag. What is a quilter to do? Give up the new quilt ideas swimming around in my head? Or should I just keep trying to stay ahead of the pile of quilt tops that are piling up on what used to be my stash table.
That table hasn't seen the light of day in months, ok, years. But as soon as I get the UFO's done I will be able to have a solo quilt show, LOL. Have a great night and remember, sew a little, cut a little, and dream a lot...when it is almost midnight.

Ms. V