Back to quilting and the blog...

It has been a slow start but I am gathering old projects to finish and moving my sewing area into my art room and generally making a mess of things around here! I have started the process of changing where I sew. I was tired of using the eating table for my sewing because a) it is a small table and b) we never could eat at the table unless I cleared it off every night which I didn't...

So my other "art studio" room is undergoing a transformation into more of a sewing room and crap is everywhere! And now I am leaving for 10 days in Oregon and you know what? It will just stay a mess til I get back! Not going to worry about it!

But I did get the table runner I was making for my sister done and I will be giving it to her in a couple of days when I see her. She saw it mid-blocks but hasn't seen it done. And she doesn't get the cat! (That is Phoebe, dutifully watching what I was doing on the bed since I didn't have a long enough table to set it out!).

The back is just the purple fabric.  The surprise is that I got variegated green and purple thread and serged the edges instead of traditionally binding them like a quilt. I thought it was a cool more casual look and I love how it turned out!

A close up of the serging around the edges:

And now I am really jazzed to start some of my other quilting projects when I get back. I found a really cool lap quilt on Pinterest which I want to use as inspiration for my own modern scrappy quilt and then I have a lot of other unfinished projects (UFOs) to get done. My intention is one UFO a month or at least work on one as well as any other newer project. We shall see!

So now I am heading to Oregon, land of incredible fabric stores -- NOT that I need a single morsel of new fabric, but any of my quilting or sewing readers that has never stopped any of us in the past! Hah!

But I am also going to the coast and some other fun stuff so I will post some pix here and blog from my tablet along the way.  Aside from fabric hunting, my sister is having a big birthday bash, I will get to see another cousin later in the trip and who knows, yoga on the beach anyone?

Wild Geese...

Today in yoga class Denice read Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.  This poem has flitted in and out of my life over the years. I first heard it when Jan Haag read it in our creative writing class at Sac City College many years ago. I had taken that class just as an easy way to get some units for my continuing credit for my teaching credential and it turned out to be a key turning point in bringing me back to writing.  Then I heard the poem a other times and most lately a few times in yoga classes at It's All Yoga. Seems a lot of yoga teachers like Mary Oliver poetry.  And again this morning, my first yoga class of the New Year and Denice read it to the class. I figured it was time I posted it so I would have it at my fingertips:

Wild Geese   by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

And HERE is Mary Oliver reading the poem.

Word for the Year... 2016

I had been thinking a lot about my Word for the Year lately... and even chosen one I thought might be good for it (play) and then in yoga class the last day of 2015 another word came to me that has taken a stronger hold in me.... BE.








The more I thought about it the stronger the word became. So many things have been pulling on me lately (who am I now that I am retired, what do I want to do with my life now, how can I make new habits that would make my life more of what I want it to be, etc)... and though all of it a simple breath and the one word just comes though... just BE. The rest will take care of itself.

So along with this came thoughts of what this new year's CDF's (core desired feelings a la Danielle LaPorte) would be. Last year my words were unencumbered, aligned, vibrant, connected, and mindful. I decided to rework a couple of last  year's words and add a couple of new ones. So for this year my core desired feelings are:

UNCLUTTERED: Still working on the unencumbered, decluttering thing and hoping to muster more energy towards it this coming year.
MINDFUL: I liked this one from last year and want to continue feeling it.
PLAYFUL: Incorporating the idea of play, I want this year to be full of movement (yoga, dance) and just more fun play!
COLORFUL: Feeling the pull to get back to art and sewing, wanting to incorporate more color into my life.
GRATEFUL: An extension of working on this in December (thanks mostly to the Facebook Gratitude group) I do feel grateful for so many things in my life. It seems like a good thing to continue recognizing what they are.

So with that I wish anyone who happens to stop by a joyous and wonderful 2016! Thank you for being a part of this chapter in my life.

Happy New Year!

I know I post this poem often but it is still my favorite for starting a New Year...

For a New Beginning

by John O'Donohue

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.