Saying thank you

Hoping to do some relaxing sewing, I opened up several stash drawers to pick out fabric. As I began, I realized I had one last project to finish with some of these fabrics. My daughters attended a great elementary/middle school and when they moved into a new building we designed and quilted a lovely hanging for the wall of the gathering space. Since then we have made small wall-hanging quilts for staff to say thank you at different milestones. I’ve been getting low on the fabrics for these quilts, so I needed to make just a few more!

Here are the five I began to work on — everything is selected and cut out. Squares, hands, backing, sleeves, binding, and labels. And there is NOTHING left of these blue and green fabrics. Barely had enough to finish the backings and bindings! Still not sure about the two on the left, but now I can dive into my stash at will for other projects. (And I found out on Sunday that I only need 2-3 out of these five)

I had several of the quilts that I never finished because they didn’t quite gel. Here you see the versions with a little more color. Cheerful! And yet harder to lay out and get the balance to work. 

I am grateful for the wonderful teachers and staff at Ann Arbor Christian School who provide a wonderful learning community filled with creativity, grace, laughter, dedication, and love! Thank you.

Listen to your voices

Cleaning up our studio, I also finished these two quilts for Ann Arbor Christian School as rememberances for teachers and staff on special anniversaries. I wasn’t being inspired with how things were going, so I trusted my instincts and kept working with the quilts until I feel as if they work much better. 
The take home? Listen to your voices!

Back to basics

Bottled-up creativity remains quiescent until an outlet is created. Returning to the basics frees the muscles to remember paths once followed and frees the mind to imagine new ones. A stash in need of cleaning, fingers in need of freeing, and a gift not needed combine to form these simple table centers, ready for hospitality.

Hands and imagination shaking off the accumulated rust of doing what is needed, to do it just for fun!