At approximately 7:15 a.m. on Monday morning this week my 50-something sister was on her way to work in downtown Salt Lake City. She takes a Trax train to the city. It was a snowy, wet morning.

She had just left the train and walked a little way when she decided to cross the street at the first intersection in the middle of the block. Since the light was going to turn soon she decided to run for it. Her foot caught on an uneven paving brick and she fell.

In the fall she pitched forward and tried to break her fall with her arm. The arm bone nearest the shoulder broke and her head hit the pavement.

In a dazed state she knew she had to get out of the street, even though at the moment it was deserted, she knew the cars would be coming. She got to her feet and crossed to the other side of the street and immediately sat down on the concrete sidewalk because she felt she was about to pass out.

As she sat there trying to assess the situation, plot a plan of action, and keep from fainting, a man came and sat on the sidewalk next to her. He was a UTA (Utah Transit Association) worker who had witnessed her accident. He brought along some gauze to catch the blood coming from the cut in her forehead. He sat quietly and offered suggestions for assistance.

She decided she did not need an ambulance. Instead she phoned a fellow worker, who she knew drove into work, and asked her to stop and take my sister to the hospital. While she waited, the man sat beside her on the ground and simply “kept her company” until her friend arrived.

Since she told me about this man’s simple acts of kindness I have thought about how little it can take to provide a valuable good to those around us. Big things happen in small ways.

Changing topics, our online class is going great. Altogether there are over 70 students enrolled in my Cottage Garden class and great versions of the quilt are underway. We are having fun discussions in our Yahoo group about subjects are varied as thread to Saturday morning memories. It will be a grand party when we all get together next August here in Spring City!

I have been advised by some of my students that I did not emphasize nearly enough all of the good things the Cottage Garden class includes in the description of the class.

So if you are still thinking about joining our group (registration is open until May 2012), here is additional information about what the class includes: You will receive the patterns and several close-up photos of every block (enough that you may as well be holding it in your hands). You also receive detailed Color in Quilts (Jeana Kimball style) instruction, plus a Technical Support section that explains my stitching technique in such complete detail that it will take the full year to tell it all (it would make a very big book), And, finally with each lesson you receive an interesting historical biography or review spotlighting a person of interest from the early 19^th century.

We are all having a great time, looking forward to August, and we invite you to join us!

A favorite part of my work is sharing my designs and appliqué skills with others. Another joy for me is getting to know my students individually and watching them develop into confident and highly skilled appliqué artists.

A Cottage Garden Quilt Center

During the past five years I have concentrated my teaching solely in this direction by teaching several small classes once a month at quilt shops in Northern Utah. It has been highly satisfying for both me and my students.

Unfinished border

Each year I design a new project. Everyone chooses their own fabric. They have learned to rely on their own color sense and at the end of the year we have an amazing array of individual versions of a single quilt.

Nasturtiums

In addition to receiving patterns each month we have a short lesson on a topic that is related to the new project. For example, for this year’s project I designed, “A Cottage Garden.” It was inspired by and stitched from authentic 1930s fabrics. So our topic this year is related to lifestyles and trends of that time.

We meet for 2 hours once a month, except for July. In July, class is held here for three glorious days of stitching, eating, show and tell, and visiting.

Carolina Wren

Recently one of my Journal readers wrote to ask if she could join my classes even though she could not attend the monthly sessions. As I thought about her request I could not see any reason why my class format could not work as an online class.

This year I am inviting all of you to join our class. Beginning August 1^st I will mail online students a hard copy of the designs for that month. You will also receive a written lesson on my chosen topic and color photos of the month’s appliqué blocks. Online students are invited to our three day retreat/class in July 2012.  I have also set up a Yahoo group for members of the class and all students—both local and online—will be members.

For those who do not know about Yahoo groups, members of a particular group correspond via e-mail that is delivered to everyone’s inbox. All questions, answers, and discussion includes everyone so we are all “on the same page” all of the time. Also, members can post photos of their finished blocks on the group’s page so everyone can watch the progress as each quilt develops.

Iris or Flag if you are in my mother's garden

I have just sent the information and a signup sheet to my web designer. Very soon (within a week) the signup sheet will be posted under the Online Classes/Retreats heading on my website’s home page.

I am very excited to be able to include all of you in this year’s project!

I have been mostly absent from my journal this Spring, but I have thought of you often. In fact, the things I have been so busy with include you.

First, and most important, the long awaited An Old Fashioned Christmas quilt pattern is DONE! I will pick up copies “hot off the press” on Thursday before Spring Quilt Market opens in Salt Lake City on Friday.

For those of you that have followed my doubts and dilemma about publishing this pattern over the past few years, you will be happy to know that all of my reservations have been satisfied. I am very pleased with the result. They were:

1)   Pattern vs. book format….it is a pattern booklet. All of the patterns are there, full-sized and held together in a book form.

2)    The quilt is highly detailed, my dilemma was how to produce a pattern that will give the close-up views that are necessary for you to reproduce the patterns? Answer: The pattern booklet includes a CD-ROM with close-up views that will fill your computer screen!

I am very pleased with this production and I think you will be too. It will take a week or so for me to get the information to my web designer and for her to get it up and listed on my Store, so please be patient. Or, you are welcome to call next week (I will be gone all the rest of this week and the office is closed) to place your order over the phone: 435-462-9618. The cost of the book & CD is $30.00, plus postage.

The second thing I have been working was suggested by one of you. In my last post, I showed a picture of a pattern I had designed, stitched, and rejected for use in my new year-long quilt class. I teach these classes in person in Salt Lake City once a month. This reader wrote to me asking if she could join my class even though she could not attend.

My response was, “Why not? I could conduct an online monthly quilt class for those who cannot attend. And, just as my Salt Lake students do, invite my online students to an “in person” class here at the end of our one year class. I think it will work!

So, as soon as I can get the information to my web designer, I will post more information under the “Retreats” heading on my website. Class will begin August 1.

Wish me luck at Market!

In recent weeks I have been thinking of an old poem by William Davies. I think of it now because my life recently has been the opposite of the advice Mr. Davies urges upon me:

Leisure

What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass,
No time to see, in broad day light,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at beauty’s glance
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

In an effort to remedy my over busy life I stopped today for a time to enjoy the birth of a new season. Here is what I observe:

The ground has a new cast of green as tender shoots of spring grass push through the cold brown soil. This past week it has snowed nearly every day, yet as the warming days melt the snow away the optimistic grass still shows green.

From the tops of tall old trees in town the red-wing blackbirds are voicing their optimism about the future and busy robins hustle about looking for the best nesting materials. Our cats spend hours each day practically glued to the windows with their teeth chattering at the temptation caused by robins hopping past.

You can see I have been thinking of the red-wings from the block I stitched this week. This bird is stitched from all 1930s fabrics and realistically it should be all black, except for the red wing tips, of course. I colored it lighter in view of the colors used in the rest of the quilt. Sadly, it is still wa-a-ay too dark to fit into my traditional 1930s colored quilt. It is back to the drawing board for me…. (The quilt is newly designed for my year-long classes that I teach in the City.)

Here in the country the changing of seasons is marked by many events that ignore how warm or cold the temperature may be. A new generation of babies, sheep, calves and colts is on their way and it will not be long before I spot new babies wobbling alongside their mothers. I always shudder and wish I could bring them indoors and away from the cold nights.

This year I am planning a herb garden and plans of what I will plant and how it will all fit together fit lull me to sleep at nights…..