Even though you belong to online quilting and fabric art groups, most quilters enjoy getting together in person with a local group periodically.  My daughter Beth finds these bi-weekly Friday gatherings a break in her schedule and a source of inspiration.
They share, they try different techniques, they enjoy refreshments, and they sometimes go on day trips.  These are something like the old time quilting bees when women gathered at one another’s homes for quilting and socializing.
Beth often discusses her group’s gatherings in her Meandering Threads blog: 
*Check out her December 3, 2007 entry which describes a workshop at Sue’s house where …read more

The Home Biz Notes post, My Mother, The Country Grocer, won this round of the b5 Business Channel’s “Apprentice” type challenge, an ongoing 8-week contest, with a different version each week.  This week we were to tell the prototype business owner, Kay, a success story. 
I chose to relate the story of my mom, who influenced many people throughout her years as a country grocer, and hoped this would inspire Kay and others.  As I wrote about Mother, I realized (as I said in one of my comments at the post):
I think we all can find inspiring stories within our families. I …read more

I discovered J’s Quilting Blog, an interesting one with projects you might enjoy.  Perhaps they’ll inspire you with your quilting and fabric art.
Warming Up consists of quilting with words!  Joyce Marden added a little house midst a collection of winter words in a piece she has referred to as Winter Words. 
I couldn’t keep on with such a cold quilt so I added a nice cosy house to get warm in, explained Joyce.  She also added a few more words to the winter collage type work. 
This blog entry, Winter Words, shows Joyce’s quilt before adding the little house.  I do like it better with …read more

                                           Sunday, September 9 commemmorates National Grandparents’ Day.  How are you celebrating this occasion?
*Visit your grandparents.
*Invite your grandparents to your home.
*Take them out to eat.
*Send them a note, a card, a gift.
*Phone them if they live too far away.
*”Adopt” someone for a grandparent if yous live far away or are no longer living.
*Teach grandparent appreciation to your children.
         *Make a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt! 
*Write  “What grandparents mean to me”  story and post it on your blog.
*Tell your children and grandchildren about your grandparents so those stories aren’t forgotten        and lost to your family history.
*Recall quilting with your grandmother…or resolve to …read more

It’s interesting to see that people in countries other than ours use quilting and fabric art to commemorate the lost in wartime.  Quilts have long been associated with war in the United States.  Either women made them to send to those on the war front, to sell for raising funds for war efforts, or to use as a commemorative piece.
At Hobobiker.com I discovered an interesting story and photo about a quilt in Guatemala, Patchwork quilt to honor the dead and disappeared of the civil war. 
It seems that quilters have a common bond no matter where they live.  In times of tragedy, …read more

Throughout the ages, needlework has sustained women (and sometimes men) as they work their way through grief…loss of a person close to them, a pet, a job, a home, or relocation to an area where they know no one.  (At a grief seminar, I learned there are many types of grief, other than that of losing a person in our life.)
Needlework also has comforted women during war time, as they made quilts and other items (nowadays even fabric postcards) for those far from home on the battlefront.
I recently discovered a site, Real Women Quilt, with a page, Quilting through Grief, where quilters …read more