I Talk...

 

I gave a talk to the Seabreeze Quilt Guild in Exeter NH last week. It was a glorious day, sunny and unseasonably warm. They wanted me to talk about my letter quilts, so I did. I brought fifteen quilts, including Too Much Chicken (behind me).

One of my all time favorite letter quilts is the Quick Brown Fox.

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I watched Project Runway from the very beginning, although I stopped after a few years. I always loved Tim Gunn's trademark phrase, "Make it work." He meant to use what you HAVE, not to go out and buy more stuff or change your mind. 

It reminded me of an Arthur Ashe quote I found in my notebooks as I was working on my talk. "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." That would make a great word quilt.

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Naturally I brought the Not Paper Pieced quilt.

Afterwards, a lady game up to me, "I almost didn't come tonight, because I couldn't see any point in putting letters on a quilt. But I'm so glad I did. I am so excited. I have SO MANY ideas. You have totally inspired me."

Afterward I got this text from the program coordinator from the quilt guild. Made my night.

One of the really nice things about the evening was that my mother was able to attend. She had never heard me speak before.

I wrote a tutorial about making free pieced letters. It's enormous, but comprehensive. You can get a copy here, if you want to make letters yourself.

Twenty-Eight Quilts

I spoke to the ladies of the Bedford Friendship Quilt Guild yesterday, at their meeting room in the basement of the Bedford Presbytarian Church, pictured above. And if there is a more iconic New England image than a tall white church on a hill, I don't know what it is.

The group had their show and tell first, and the ladies who took the bird class two weeks ago were asked to come to the front of the room and show off their creations. As you can see, Judy, second from the right, has been busy since the class. I think she has made a dozen birds.  One lady in the audience asked "Those are paper-pieced, right?"  I was more than happy to say a resounding "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

After the guild had their business meeting I gave a trunk show. I brought 28 quilts with me. How much room does 28 quilts take up?

About 8 bags.

When I was getting the talk ready over the weekend I was a bit freaked out that I had ONLY 28 quilts at home, but it turned out to be a good thing, because 28 quilts is a lot of quilts.

I had a grand time, and the group was wonderful. While I answered questions after my talk, guild members folded up all my quilts, packed them in bags, took the quilt stand apart, packed that, and then asked for my keys where they then went out into the parking lot trying to find the car that unlocked when they clicked the remote, and then carefully packed my car for me.

Comments that made my day:

[told to the Program Director and then relayed to me] "I think that was the best speaker we ever had."

"I don't belong to this guild, I'm just a GUEST, but YOU!  YOU are WONDERFUL! I haven't had as much fun in a long time as I had sitting here listening to you talk. Where are you from? [here] Can you come to my guild [a town an hour's drive away] and talk? Oh good!"

"Where did you grow up?" [New Hampshire] A frown. "Really? Because you don't sound like it. I mean, you have such confidence and such personality, I thought you were from New York. I mean that as a compliment." [I took it that way]

"You're still WORKING?" [most of the ladies were retired.] "How do you DO it all?"

"Have you got a tutorial for the letters?" [Um, no.] "Well HURRY UP!" [accompanied by laughter]

Yeah, it was a great morning. I actually didn't mind going to work afterwards.