Our lives are like quilts - bits and pieces, joy and sorrow, stitched with love.

These are just some of my quilts.  Many I have given away and many I did not take pictures of before I gave them to friends.  The brown and red one still needs the applique finished and the top made into a quilt.  Right now I am in a quilting slump.  I have the brown and red lap quilt to do and I have a log cabin out of beautiful oriental fabric that is in 25 blocks.  I have started a purse making club at the local quilt shop and I have 10 days to cut out and make the first purse.  Everything is just sitting there, not being worked on.

I started quilting after going to a Public Library Association Convention in Atlanta.  It ended on Saturday and my flight was not until evening so I went to a juried art show at the convention center.  I saw some beautiful quilted clothing that was selling for $400.00 a skirt.  And I thought I can do that.  So I started by making quilted verts.This is one of them.  I then

when on to making quilts, wall hanging, table runners, and some "art quilts".

I am trying to broaden my horizons, however, I still consider myself a traditional quilter.

My mother, Gladys Mildred Holdred Holmes, was a sewer through out her life.  By the way, she liked Millie or Mildred not Gladys.  She came from pioneer stock.  Her mother, Ruth Katrina Lamb, was born in 1880 in Salt Lake City and she and her family left that year to settle in Chandler Arizona by wagon train.  My mother who overcame the problem of complete nerve deafness brought about by a case of thypoid in early childhood to become a elementary school teacher in the mining camps of Arizona.  She was a modern woman in that she did not can fruits or vegetables like her mother...she bought them in the grocery store.  She also did not quilt, she bought her bedding in the department stores.  But she could sew up a beautiful designer Vogue pattern or tailor a men's suit coat.  I learned from her and from my home economics classes how to use a sewing machine and I think my love of wild vibrant colors came from my mother.  The love of quilting did not.

I can remember the first sewing I did in junior high in Miami.  I made an a-line lime green dress out of linen.  I really never liked the dress after it was finished, however, I did learn  how to use a sewing machine.  The first machine I purchased after graduating with my masters degree in Library Science and joy of joy getting a job...it was a Kenmore sewing machine.  I really did not sew with it much until I was inspired by visiting that art show in Atlanta.

 

This is my sister-in-law from New York with a quilt I made for her a few years ago.  

I enjoy quilting.  I love learning new techniques and I go to quilt conventions in Utah, but also in California and Arizona.  I am thinking of taking classes at the International Quilt Show in Long Beach this summer.  Now I need to get motivated and start finishing some of my projects.  I work as a library director 40 hours a week.  I have my husband and two daughters at home.  I have my 92 year old father that I take care of at home.  We are upgrading our 1915 year old Carnegie Library to seismically safe....our town is on a fault that has not moved for over 100 years and about every 100 years it has moved and a major earthquake has happened...so with the help of FEMA our library will be upgraded to survive. All of this in my life is stressful and my motivation to sew and be creative is low.

Have any ideas on motivation to create?