Early will I rise - re•joy

Sunday morning. I woke up a few minutes to 7 as came down to our group's sewing room to get coffee. No one was there, all was silent (very silent, considering how loud and silly we were last night).
I decided that since the sun wasn't up past the mountain and the wind hadn't picked up, it was a good time to come sit on the hill overlooking this valley. I brought my coffee, my quilt tops to photograph and got to watch a silent sunrise. It's quiet here.
Each morning I have been able to sit over this valley and breathe. Between the time to sit still, the time to be creative and the laughter, I feel little bits of healing taking place.
I've also found quiet moments to think, to shed tears, to share.
Yesterday I had a short massage and there was a place the masseuse touched in my back that almost caused me to cry out - emotionally, not physically. This thought flashed in my mind: "I am carrying so much pain!" and then when she moved her hands, the thought was gone. That amazed me. I've been asked by a few people to think about and find out where I carry that pain, because our physical bodies connect to our hearts. But not until yesterday did I understand the connection was so visceral.
And if that is true, then 45 minutes of quiet overlooking a valley each day also has to have some true healing properties. So I'm soaking up this sun now as its risen.
I'll share my quilt tops with you later....

LAMQG - speed sewing for charity

We've been sewing all weekend, with a few breaks for meals and LOTS of laughing.
As one of the folks who is helping our guild have a vision for giving back with our time and talent, I thought it would be fun if we all gave 1/2 hour and speed made blocks for a charity quilt. So last night, a few us us prepared by finding a cute color scheme from our scraps pile and we all speed pieced improv blocks.

By 1/2 hour, we had 20 blocks and by 1.5 hours (four of us kept on the clock after the initial push), we had a finished top and 2 blocks for the back.

It's been suggested that we do this more often, what a fun way to work together and give back.

Re•joy - getaway

I've spent my mornings the past few days overlooking this valley. It's quiet. And beautiful. And big enough to hold a lot of thinking. I listen to the wind in the trees and drink coffee, and then head into a wonderfully happy room filled with happy friends to work on projects with for the weekend.
My quilt guild is having a retreat and I'm so happy I came. After our crazy past few months, I've not spent super much concentrated time in groups, I've generally avoided them, honestly. But these friends are safe and it's perfectly acceptable for me to do my own thing if I have to and come back to fill up on laughter again with them when I am ready. I'll post my projects that I've even working on today... After getting a few more hours in to play.

Jumping for Joy

I don't have a specific reason to jump for joy right now, but these photos make me want to.

J took them of our teenaged niece and nephew out on Pismo Beach back in June on our family trip. Aren't they fantastic?

Another easy camping craft

Here's another craft that I did in about 10 minutes while we were camping. I saw that there were tons of snapped twigs around on the ground in various sizes and spent almost no time collecting these to make our cute little sign.  I think it will end up being framed in our home.

No twigs were hurt (or even broken!) in the making of this art.

Camper Camp Crafts

We just went to Sequoia National Park on a camping trip with some other local families.
My responsibility was crafts and t-shirts. When I wasn't sewing in the car or giving their moms quilting lessons, I was making fun projects with the kids.

Though I love crafts and I love kid's art... I despise "puffy paints" and hand-drawn t-shirts that end up only being good for sleep and painting shirts. I knew my access to facilities and materials would be limited, so I tried to think of the best way to assure each kid of a cool shirt.
"Stencils!" i thought... "how could i use stencils?" Lucky for me, since the last time that i decorated t-shirts, a new product has come out.  These Tulip brand spray paints are awesome. They're not cheap - but it only took 4 bottles to make 11 t-shirts and 9 pillowcases - with about 1/3 bottle left over in each bottle.

Any stencil would work, but I wanted a custom one, so I printed out a clip art image I found of an RV and taped it to a discarded cereal box. I used an xacto knife to cut out the design and saved both parts. The RV alone ended up being a cool one for the adults (even the dads wanted them!) and then I drew and cut out the words "CAMPER CAMP" on the rest of the box for the kids' shirts.  Since I knew I would be using the stencil a bunch of times I actually coated both sides with Mod Podge to make it more durable. Acrylic Medium would work too.

Once we were on the trip, we laid down some plastic tablecloths on the ground and we got to spraying. One point to note is that the more intensely sprayed shirts ended up looking better after a wash.  The kids had a hard time working the sprayer, so I had them direct me which colors and how to spray.

Once the t-shirts were a big hit, everyone wanted to move onto the pillowcases that I had asked them to bring. But the girls, who'd been playing fairies in the woods all morning, wanted fairies and mermaids... so I drew and cut out of more cereal boxes some other designs - rudimentary, but all stencils are - I made dolphins, mermaids, hearts, pirate ships and fairies.  They sprayed the body of the pillowcases and used Sharpie markers to write their names along the hemmed edges of the pillowcases.

As I was making them - I realized, not only is this the perfect camping craft - it's also a great one for a birthday party.
I think we will be revisiting this process in the near future. With more fairies.

and just because I can't write about Sequoia and not show the giant trees... Here are some pics for inspiration and size.

 

(one big Sequoia with two cute 6 year olds.)

(see the tiny people down by the base of "General Sherman"?)

Inspiration weekend

J spoiled me this weekend and took me wine tasting in Los Olivos. It's amazing that only 125 miles from LA, there is this type of beauty and quiet.

We stayed in town - which is so small that it doesn't even have a stoplight. Talk about getting away. It was so nice to just be together and be a couple of people in love instead of a couple of parents.

Special thanks to the friends and family that took care of the kids and gave us a much needed breath of fresh air.