Over the years I have made “fits and starts” at keeping a record of my life. I received my first journal in 1981 as a Christmas present and I was not a very good record keeper. Someday my children may enjoy the few pages I wrote because many of the stories there are about them and their childhood.

Later, when I started to travel and teach, the journal I kept was more about keeping track of myself and obligations: what I needed to do and names, dates and information that I wanted to remember, with occasional notes and/or personal reflections. I filled several books like that.

I was also buying lots of fabric as I traveled and I sometimes needed more, or was curious as to how much and where I had purchased a particular fabric. So in 1991 I began keeping a fabric purchasing journal with swatches of the fabrics I bought. (This could be a good fabric dating tool in years to come.) I kept these journals going for about ten years and I filled many notebooks.

Then in 1998 I kept a Gratitude Journal for about six months. For me, this may be the best and most valuable record I have ever kept. I faithfully made one entry each day from April 20 through October 25.

I made my own rules about keeping this Gratitude record: 1) I only listed one thing I was grateful for that day, 2) I could not repeat myself; and 3) I had to explain why I was grateful for that one thing.

It was an eye opening experience. Because I had to stop every single day and reflect on the day’s events I found that time slowed down for me because each day was noted and reflected upon. I learned things about myself and how I think. I learned to appreciate my life and the small details in it instead of always looking forward to a better day. That journal truly changed my life and my thinking.

These days my journal is a combination of quilting ideas I want to remember, reflections on interesting events, and mundane things like what I planted in the two pots on the front porch so I can remember next Spring and decide which plants I will repeat and which ones I will leave out.

I am also keeping a more public journal, this Jeana’s Journal, and I keep a record of it by printing out each entry and storing the entry pages in plastic sleeves in a small yearly binder.

At this point you may be thinking what is the purpose of all of this record keeping of a life. My motive is simple.

Women who are important to me because they are who I came from—-my mother, my grandmothers, and earlier ancestors, excepting one or two, did not keep any kind of a written record of their lives. Yet it was them who gave me these hands and this mind that governs my daily existence. With my hands and my mind I am able to create quilts and quilt designs that are among my greatest pleasures in life.

They are the ones whose works, beliefs and attitudes come together into the person I am. I want to know them, their thoughts, and their struggles. Knowing that could bring me much pleasure, recognition and understanding.

Their names have been recorded and kept. Going back thirteen generations, descending from mother to daughter only, I know that my far off grandmother, Mary Greenaway, was born in England in 1568 and died in Suffolk, Massachusetts in the 1600’s. She was among the first immigrants to this American continent.

I want to know what motivated her and her family make that dangerous and unknown journey. What did they hope to find? What, in fact, did they find? Was it good, or was the challenge greater than they had imagined?

I also have many, many questions for the generations that followed her. However, these are things I cannot know because time has erased most, if not all, of what they did.

The one, and only, thing I can do about that is to begin with this (my) life and keep a record for those who follow me. I am trying to make it a pleasurable occupation for myself by recording thoughts, memorable experiences, and sometimes simple daily routines that can shed light on the life that I lived.

Over the years I have learned that the creative process cannot be controlled. New ideas cannot be called up at will. In fact, they often appear at the most inopportune times. Worse still, if a great idea is ignored, or pushed aside to be developed late, it will disappear altogether into the recesses of the mind.

Many years ago a wise friend gave me a bit of advise that still echos in my ears when a new quilt design appears and I begin the debate inside my head about ignoring yet another quilt or adding it to my list of unfinished ideas.

At the time I was on a deadline for a new book and the idea for one more quilt that fit perfectly into the book came to me. I was agonizing between comfortably coasting the end of an easily completed book or adding one more quilt and over-extending myself to meet a looming deadline.

My friend, Marion, very kindly and wisely said, “To ignore an idea is to deny the art that is within you.”

I took her advise and rushed into one last quilt for the book. The process was painful and a couple of “all night” working sessions resulted from that decision. Interestingly enough, the quilt that I had considered ignoring turned out to be the most popular quilt included in my Backyard Garden book.

I learned a great lesson from my friend and since then I have rarely ignored a new idea. If nothing else, I write it down and sketch out the design. Sometimes quilts stay exactly there—on paper–and are never taken any further. Sometimes I go as far as pulling fabric and beginning to stitch only to be pulled away by more pressing responsibilities. There are many good quilts/ideas half developed and carefully stored in my basement until I find time to return.

For the past two weeks I have been arguing with myself again. A patriotic pieced quilt with an applique border is on my mind.

I have more than enough ideas that I am actively thinking about and working on these days—five to be exact. Adding to my dilemma is the fact that seasonal quilts are just that…..seasonal. Is it worth my time to make a quilt that will be hung for just one month out of a year?

Finally, yesterday, due to the persistence of the thoughts about this quilt, I gave in and have pulled the fabric. Red, white and blue.

Blue, as many know is my least favorite color, and here I am considering a quilt with blue as a major player. Am I nuts or am I simply honoring a idea that has been given to me?

Time will tell.

This week, with St. Patrick’s Day on the calendar, seems like a good time to talk about one of my two favorite colors: Green.

But first, a little detour: If you want to know what your favorite and least favorite colors are, arrange your fabric all together by color and it will tell you.

I have been collecting quilting fabric for about 30 years now. Over the years I have found that grouping fabric together by color is the most efficient way for me to use it. I have refined (weeded out) my collection several times (moving is a great incentive) and still the proportions of “keeper” fabric stays the same: No. 1 is green, No. 2 is red.

Much of my design work is applique and in that medium red and green do dominate, so it seems logical that I would collect those colors.

However, a peek inside my closet reveals a dominance of those same two colors. Almost weekly one batch of sorted laundry that I wash is red—-only.

Also, my kitchen cabinets, chosen by me alone, are guess what colors? Red and green. In my mind, it is an everlastingly beautiful color combination.

We have a natural born instinct to purchase fabric for our quilting in the colors, and different shades of those colors, that we wear well, i.e. colors that look good on us. We also like to live with these colors around us and decorate our homes accordingly.

I cannot tell you how many times, as a teacher, I have stood before a class who is ready to begin work and who have their fabric stacked neatly beside them on the table. Almost without exception, I see students sitting expectantly at tables wearing clothing in colors that coordinate perfectly with the fabric they have chosen for the day’s work.

I don’t believe the students planned it that way, it is instinctual. We choose fabric for quilting in colors that we wear well.

Check your closet and your fabric stash to see if my theory holds out for you.

But back to today’s subject: Green. The word green is closely related to the Old English verb growan, “to grow”. All of the plant world begins with this color and it is synonymous with life.

I see green as a neutral against which all other colors are enhanced. Perhaps that is why green is the largest collection in my fabric cabinets.

Visual dimension is achieved by simply using a variety of contrasting greens from dark to light in different shades or hues.

It is a hard working color and rarely disappoints in bringing life, dimension and, sometimes, pizzaz to all of the other colors in my fabric palette.

Case in point, here is a sneak peak at an upcoming design. Publication schedule: Christmas quilt first, this nine-block album quilt to follow…..

Recently my daughter and I were discussing the possibilities of where her family might finally settle when their commitment to the Air Force is complete in a few years. Laughingly she told me that the one place they would positively not be settling down is in the empty lot next to ours. “There is absolutely nothing there, except you and Dad, of course, that appeals to me about living in Spring City!” she said.

Small towns hold no appeal for her at all. City life and the advantages of a good education for their children, easy shopping for anything one might desire, and opportunities for cultural enrichment weight much heavier on the scale of desirability for her when compared to country life.

Yet, many, many years ago, one of my younger sisters stayed with my husband and me for a couple of months during the summer after she had graduated from high school. She was exploring the possibilities for her own future and had come the “the City” to see how it “fit” for her. Very quickly she discovered that city life was not a good fit at all. She decided very quickly to return to rural Utah to pursue her future. By way of explanation to me she said, “It makes me feel nervous to go into a store and see no one I know–not the clerks, not the customers, nobody! The city is far too impersonal for me.”

I have lived in both, I grew up in a small town and could not wait to move to the city. It was a good choice at the time and we were there for over twenty-five years. And yet, whenever we would leave the place where we lived and visit another city, or another part of the country, in the back of our minds we were always searching and questioning if this new place we were visiting might be a better place to live. Looking back, it seems that I have always felt unsettled and that I was forever looking around for a place that might suit us better.

In 2005 we found this piece of land where we now live and it is finally the right place. Whenever I travel away to teach, as I did this past weekend, I no longer wonder what it would be like to live in the place I am visiting. Instead, I find myself counting down how much longer it will be until I get to go home.

In this place where we live there are few people. They all wave when you pass them on the street, even if they don’t know you. The postmaster, the clerks at the bank and in the grocery store are all friends. It is rare to stop at any store in this valley without meeting someone I know.

We have a small and informal quilting group that has been formed since I moved here. We hold our weekly meeting at the local elementary school library because two or three in our group work there. We all work on a project of our own choosing and give advice and encouragement to each other as we pursue our different quilting interests. Someday I will show and tell you all about us and what we do together and separately.

It is delightful to be a part (even though I will never in my lifetime be a local) of a place where I feel accepted and included.

The second reason that I would never want to leave is the beauty and openness of this place. Ours’ is a small valley (meaning the space between the mountain ranges on the east and west of it is only 20-30 miles wide) and it is a sanctuary and wintering place for much wildlife.

A herd of elk spend their winter in this valley and it is common to see them bedded down during the daytime in one particular alfalfa field a few miles from here. The field is quite near the highway and yet the elk are respected and undisturbed by those who pass by.

A group of 50 to 100 (depending on the year) bald eagles migrate from Alaska to winter in this valley. They all congregate at dusk in one particular grove of trees near the center of the valley. The locals all know where it is and they respect the birds by keeping their resting place quiet and by keeping their distance.

I love it here. It fits who I am and the lifestyle I appreciate and have always longed for.

And so, I say to my daughter, “Find the place that feels right to your heart,” and then you will have found home.

It was September and I was 29 years old. I was an adult, and yet until that time I had never ventured into an unknown situation entirely on my own before.

A few weeks earlier a clerk in the fabric section of a department store had told me that there was an organization in town called the Utah Quilt Guild. (From it’s name, I imagined that it must be a pretty exclusive group of women.) The clerk told me that their annual meeting was coming soon and that she had attended the year before and it had been fun. Since I was interested in quilts (she had noticed that I was buying small pieces of several different fabrics), she said I should go.

At that time I had just completed a beautiful blue polyester and cotton double wedding ring quilt. I was very proud of that quilt. With a young family (two pre-school-aged children), it had taken me a couple of years to complete it.

I must have been motivated by the success of the quilt I had made, because I called the lady whose number the store clerk had given me.

Carol Hatch, the Utah Quilt Guild President, encouraged me to attend their upcoming meeting and to “bring along your quilt” to hang in our show.

And so on a golden Saturday in September my husband and children dropped me off at the appointed place for this event called “Annual Meeting.” Under my arm I carried my double wedding ring quilt.

The place was bustling with busy quilt ladies. They were welcoming and friendly. One of them took my quilt and they hung it with the others for the one day quilting event.

The quilt show was held at National Guard Armory building. It was pretty informal. The quilts were hung from the railing of a running track that circled the second story of the gymnasium.

Once the quilts were hung, I stood in the middle of the gym floor and slowly turned, viewing the entire quilt show from that central point. The quilts were beautiful! I had never before seen so many quilts in one place at once. Each one was more lovely than the last. Then I spotted my quilt. It was a nice quilt, but it was not the best quilt. I instantly knew that there was a good deal yet for me to learn about making quilts.

In that moment I knew I wanted to know more…..lots more…… about quilting. Mini classes were offered at Annual Meeting that day and I immediately signed up for one. I was eager to get started.

I don’t remember the title of the class, nor do I remember much of what the teacher said that afternoon. I only remember one thing that she said. The teacher told us that there were professional quilt teachers. She coyly hinted at her ambition to be a national quilting instructor. “These lucky professionals,” she said, “get to travel the world teaching classes and giving lectures about quiltmaking.”

Sometimes we know things about ourselves without logically having arrived there. In a flash of inspiration I knew that I could do what that teacher was describing. “And, I thought, “I could explain things better than she has been explaining her techniques to us.”

“I could do that!” was my spontaneous reaction to her description of a professional quilt teacher. Then I quickly retracted my reaction and said to myself, “What an odd thought,” as I pushed that very brave thought to the back of my mind.

Little did I know that the seed to my future had been planted that sunny September day when I ventured out on my own for the first time accompanied by my blue double wedding ring quilt and an open mind.

Since we moved here a few years ago my reference library of quilt books has been stored in boxes in the basement. My old bookcases were in very bad shape from having been moved twice and, frankly, they were functional at best. The old bookcases would have looked out of place wherever I had put them in our new house. So I put that problem in the back of my mind and left the bookcases in the garage and my books packed away in the basement.

From time-to-time I have rummaged through the boxes of books to find a specific title. Whatever book I retrieved, it never seemed to make it back into the basement. Just like seeing an old friend, I didn’t want to loose track of it again. And so, in my sewing room, there were mounting piles of books with no place live.

Almost a year ago I accompanied my daughter-in-law to a new “big box” furniture store that had opened in the City and it was there that I found the solution to my problem. Ikea specializes in inexpensive storage solutions and it was there that I found the perfect bookcase for my books.

I knew the exact place in my house where it would fit. There is a long empty wall behind the door in the bedroom that is too narrow for a piece of furniture. It has looked bare and empty—until now. The bookcase is only 11 inches deep, it has glass doors to protect the books, it has height extensions to provide storage and display space from floor to ceiling and, best of all, it fits, as if custom-made for that spot.

I waited and I waited for my rebate check from Pres. Bush before buying the bookcases and to do my part in stimulating our nation’s economy. Finally! Last month our rebate check arrived and the bookcases were finally mine.

I cannot tell you how much fun it was unpacking each of those boxes and finding long-lost friends. Each book was new again. The process was extremely slow because I could not resist at least thumbing through the pages of every book before putting it on the shelf.

When I began quilting many years ago I found my best quilting resource was quilt history books with lots of pictures of antique quilts in them. I have thumbed through all of my books numerous times and it seems that each time through I have seen or learned something new.

From my quilt books I have learned history—both about quilts and our culture. I have learned design problem solving and effective use of color and fabric. I have read about the lives of women who went this way before me and who left a part of themselves in their quilts and their words.

I am inspired again—working on new ideas and getting much less sleep these days.

Below is a quote that I love from one of the older books in my collection. The book is The Standard Book of Quiltmaking and Collecting by Margaret Ickis.

Margaret quotes “one great grandmother back in Ohio” who said: ‘It took me more than twenty years, nearly twenty-five, I reckon,’ she told me softly, ‘in the evenings after supper when the children were all put to bed. My whole life is in that quilt. It scares me sometimes when I look at it. All my joys and all my sorrows are stitched into those little pieces. When I was proud of the boys and when I was downright provoked and angry with them. When the girls annoyed me or when they gave me a warm feeling around my heart. And John too. He was stitched into that quilt and all the thirty years we were married. Sometimes I loved him and sometimes I sat there hating him as I pieced the patches together. So they are all in that quilt, my hopes and fears, my joys and sorrows, my loves and hates. I tremble sometimes when I remember what that quilt knows about me.’”

Amen.

The Needle Samplers are a big hit. We have been hearing from you (the actual uses of them) and not only are they a great educational tool, they are a perfect for a small “thank you” or “just because” gifts, and they are handy as a travel pack for take-along sewing projects.

Winter has ended at last. The trees are beginning to blossom and leaf out. Because of our high altitude and cool climate we are slower to see spring than many areas of the country. Recently we have made several trips to the nursery to buy more trees, berry bushes, rose bushes, vegetable starts, perennials, and seeds. This large property seems to swallow up all of our new purchases and it still looks empty. Some day it will be beautiful, but for now we are nursing along baby plants and visualizing grandeur sometime in the distant future. To brighten the front porch and bring results more quickly I have planted a couple of clay pots with geraniums, asparagus ferns, and alyssum. We will enjoy them all summer as we rock on the porch and enjoy the peace and quiet of this place.

Creatively, I’ve been thinking about album quilts again and currently have a group of twenty-five students eagerly working along with me on a series of designs based loosely on the classic album quilts from Baltimore. Since the plan is to include 30 different blocks, each month of this year-long class brings two to three new patterns. It is quite a pace we have set but a good share of the students are keeping up. They are a great group.

I have a confession to make about myself and my quilts. The joy for me in my quilts is in the journey/process, not owning a finished quilt. I love working on my quilts and watching them grow under my hands. They become old friends. If you think about it, they are a piece of you after having been a part of many days in your life. In fact, I delay finishing favorite quilts when I near the final stitches because our time together is ending.

For example, Great Expectations, the cover quilt on my Forget-Me-Knots book has been 95% hand quilted for over two years and yet I have not been able to bring myself to finish it.

For me, making quilts is a bit like raising children. You do your best to help your children become the people they want to be, but the final step of being a good parent is letting go—and that is hard. However, this quilt is a beautiful piece and I would hate to see it in an unfinished state forever, so I have squared my shoulders and I am working faithfully on it every day. It will be finished in a couple of weeks.

On the bright side, the prospect of the completion of Great Expectations is softened by future projects. I do have the new album quilt to think about and I am now ready to start hand quilting the Virtues quilt. New possibilities on the horizon are good.

Do you ever get the feeling that someone (or something) else is in control of your life/string?….. even if it seems that you should be? That is the way things are here at Foxglove Cottage since we introduced our new Needle Samplers.

The work load has increased. Not complaining mind you, work is good. But each day feels like I am just one step away from getting my life/kite back. It will happen soon, and I will be posting to my journal again. Just give me a little more time in each day……

P.S. Photo illustration models are my son and granddaughter. Life is good!

Quilting became a passion for me when I realized the unlimited possibilities it offered me for discovery, for companionship, for entertainment, for study, for a peaceful activity while pondering, and, most important of all, to create something of beauty.

Many years ago I was talking with a friend who had just found her way out of a severe depression. As we talked she said, “It was not my husband, nor my children, nor my religion, nor any of my family that gave me the desire to fight back and find healing from the blackness. It was the quilts I had not yet made.”

She then said, “What is the difference between me and my next door neighbor? She quilts too. She makes a baby quilt now and then, and a quilt for a family member for a special occasion but that is all. She is not at all compelled to quilt the way that I am. What makes me different?”

I have thought often about the question my friend posed. I have also offered this question to students from time-to-time over the years and I have discovered that for every individual the answer will be different.

One student spoke of how the quiet time she spent alone with the repetitive process of hand quilting had helped her to heal from the loss of a child and the trauma associated with that loss.

Another told of how she felt that in today’s fast-paced work place, we rarely have the satisfaction of seeing something we invest our time and efforts into through to completion. We are just a part of “the machine” the generates a product or an effort. Quilting to her was immensely satisfying because from conception of an idea for a quilt to the final binding process the quilt was all hers. She created it from start to finish.

For my friend recovering from depression, I believe it was the discovery of self that creativity (in it’s many forms) so beautifully reveals. That is why my friend was compelled to pick up her life again and create the quilts that were still within her. She was still exploring her potential as a person and an artist.

The one thing that all of the answers I have heard have in common is that the choice to quilt is about fulfilling personal needs in one form or another.

Why are you compelled to quilt?

When I was a young girl I sometimes thought about what I would take with me should I need to flee my home and could take only one thing. Back then my treasures were few: the jewelry box my oldest brother had given me and a teddy bear. Right now I can’t recall exactly where the bear is, although I am sure that I still have it, and my jewelry box is still in plain sight but I rarely stop to admire it.

Life experiences and relationships help shape the things we value. Success and finding an area of interest that we pursue, either as a career or a hobby, are also great contributors to the things that bring us pleasure. The places we live and vacation as well as people we collect as friends are also important in shaping the person we become and, consequently, the things we value. There are also things that we believe to be beautiful and thus want to surround us in our “nest.” All of the above reveal the person inside our physical body.

While thinking about my favorite things I wondered how much my things reveal about the person I am and how that affects me daily. I started a list of favorite things and it quickly grew very long. I realized that, unlike my child-self whose life experiences were few, as time passes most of the things I treasure are directly related to life experiences, emotional reactions, and exploration.

Perhaps we are like precious stones and each passing year adds new facets and dimensions to the person we are becoming as we learn and grow. If that is the case, I plan to keep exploring and learning so that in my old age I will be brilliant!

Below are a few favorite things that I have collected in my life’s journey. I have purposefully excluded family reminders, such as photos, and quilts I have made or own. They, in reality, are my first choices. The items pictured are “things” that represent visual stimulation and positive emotion to me. They are the things I live with every day.

The tools of my trade on a handy turntable on my work table. I look at and use these things every day.

My red built-in kitchen hutch (it was number one on my wish list when we built this house). It holds everyday dishes and other dishes I have collected in my teaching travels.

One of my first drawings and the vehicle by which I learned that my hands can draw. It was an amazing discovery. The teapot represents the herbal/fruit tea I enjoy. My husband says it tastes like drinking potpourri, but I love it as a warm daily treat. 

During long hours of stitching time I listen to my favorite author, Miss Read, over and over again. Nothing much ever happens in these books. They are a fictitous tale of the daily lives of inhabitants in an English Village. The familiar characters keep me company and make me feel good inside. When working under a deadline I spend lots of time with these characters in Thrush Green.

I do love that 30’s green, I have lots of that color in my house. These dishes were hand-painted by ladies, as a hobby, in the 1930’s. Having their exquisite work—painted with “berry” motifs—is visually such a treat to me. I do love china!!….and red and green!!

Round red sandstone rocks collected on walks in the desert and sea glass from walks on the shore (many different shores) are a couple of my “nature collections.” These particular collections are a daily reminder to me (as they sit on the window sill above my kitchen sink) of the beauty and wonders of this earth.

A brand new bracelet (thus my favorite piece of jewelry) from the Cameron Trading Post, located on the Navajo Reservation between Flagstaff and Page, Arizona. Note the red blood coral stones—surprise— one of my favorite colors!