Sometimes we hear the phrase “life-long learning” associated with community education classes and, to me, it sounds like hard work or something that old people do.

What life-long learning really means is that once you graduate and leave the formal school environment, you get to learn about anything that catches your fancy! What great prospects that opens for everyone!

In looking back I recognize that learning about quiltmaking and women of the 19^th century has been a lifetime-learning subject for me and it has been an important part of “enjoying the journey” of my life.

Many years ago I remember sitting in church and seeing an elderly gentleman, in the row in front of me, open his Bible to the Old Testament. He turned several pages and each one was covered with red underlinings and hand written notes in the margins. I remember thinking, “Wow, I wish I knew as much as him…or that I had even once read those same pages that are so well marked in his scriptures.”

I am sure those notes were made over time and in moments of time when he settled down to study a particular subject. That is what happens with small tidbits of information and learning…it accumulates. Before we realize, we know a great deal about a particular subject.

Last week was our wedding anniversary and we took a ride to another small town not far from here. We went there because neither of us had been there in recent memory and we wanted to take a look. The ride was enjoyable. I especially enjoyed spending the day alone with my husband. After lunch at a roadside hamburger stand we stopped at the one commercial business that was not a grocery or hardware store in this town. It was a rock shop!

What a fascinating place! There were stones and elements in beautiful shapes and colors from all over the world.

I learned that near this town is Topaz Mountain…and truly there are crystallized topaz stones in perfect cylinder shapes that look as though they are growing out of solidified gray ash on this mountain. Oh my, I want to go looking for some topaz there myself one day!

(As a side note, I am not an enthusiastic exerciser, so when I walk I am always looking for things to take my mind off of exercise. Often I look at rocks and so for years I have been a bit of a closet rock collector. However, most of what I have found is interesting shapes of gravel…..only interesting to me and my grandchildren.)

Below and at the top of this posting are two views of one of my purchases that day from the West Desert Collectors shop. It is a Septarian stone that has been formed and polished into a heart shape. It is so-o-o beautiful!

This is what I learned about Septarian nodules: “Septarians were formed millions of years ago when the Gulf of Mexico reached what is now Southern Utah. (Imagine that!!) Decomposing sea life, killed by volcanic eruptions, had a chemical attraction to the sediment around them, forming mud balls. As the ocean receded, the balls were left to dry and crack. They also shrank at the same time trapping the cracks inside the balls. As decomposed shells were carried down into the cracks in the mud balls crystals formed….” And this beautiful stone is the result!

Life-long learning is exciting and I have just found a new topic to explore. I can’t wait to find another rock shop!



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!