memory on 2 levels

The pipe is long gone but the pipe holder remains. Grampa smoked a pipe and there are certain cherry/vanilla scents that bring back such a pleasant memory that I’m back in the apartment with Gramma & Grampa. I can see Grampa having his tea in the saucer so he could drink it and have a few oatmeal cookies before he went back to work. Somewhere in the family photos are pictures of Grampa with his pipe. Memory is strong and so are the emotions that go along with it. I like that. Cherish the memories.

I’ve been working on a quilt off & on over the last 8 or 9 months. Yes dear quilters I have several quilts like this. It’s all part of my internal process. I don’t like to have one quilt going at a time as I need to pause and do other things – like competition quilts. I sent the picture with Hello Kitty to Debby Brown. Debby loves all things Hello Kitty – so much so that she has a few Hello Kitty hand bags and more. Debby has more Hello Kitty. Debby sent me the ring – which she gives to her Sweet 16 students- along with some tea. I love it. Hello Kitty stays right near my machine. Debby is one of those teachers that I’d love to take a class with and not simply because she is a friend and mentor but she has some mad skillz!

Shhhh don’t tell anyone but I’d take classes from a few long arm quilters just because of their skill and how I see their work being incorporated into domestic machine quilting techniques. If you’re really nice I’ll tell you all who they are. But that’s a post for another day.

Debby asked me what I intended to do with this quilt – at the time I had no idea. As I stitched the feathery motif got tinier and tinier making the original feathers look downright massive. Taking pictures with objects like dimes and pins often helps give a good visual perspective. And the full scallop shape is called my brain on quilting. And yes, I’d have to say it’s pretty much what it feels like…my brain on quilting focused, deep in thought, looking at the minutae and wondering how it will look if I stitch it out like this. There will be more scallops and more designs. More designs will lead to a new class…mini-stitching. When I have a bet of a handle on the name for the class and more motifs well there will be the BIG Announcement.