It’s A Land-Slide!

I just got back from dinner ---we went and had had lovely home-style fare at Miss Maimee’s --- I opted for the spinach salad, and partnered that with lemon peppered grilled catfish. It was DELISH!

I putzed around in my room, changed into jammies, put “the mentalist” on the TV ((Hey, it’s Monday, so that means there is NO NCIS on USA---- it’s WRESTLING…:cP)) and started in to edit the photos from today’s Scrappy Mountain Majesties workshop ----and found my inbox was FULL of congratulatory email!

I am SO flabbergasted ----Thank you all so much. Seriously, I feel almost embarrassingly guilty ---because the landslide was so complete that it looks like pay-offs and ballot box stuffing may have been involved!

At the same time I know I gave you the LINK to go vote – but I never twisted anyone’s arm on WHO to vote for ---it was multiple choice ---and I didn’t participate in any voting, nor did I ask my family to vote either.

In all my life I never really envisioned my life being the way that it is, and doing what I am doing. With book 4 just about ready for the presses, it still feels all so surreal to me. Thank you for being here with me on this amazing journey!

Thank You! You know, just today several of us “long time” quilters were talking about the people that influenced us the most in our quilting ---If I were giving this award to anyone myself, I’d give it to Jinny Beyer, or Judy Martin or Marsha McCloskey. My love of traditional patterns is anchored in inspiration from these women. I owe so much of how I work to them.

This award humbles me the most, because this is where my heart is. I love taking the shaky beginners, the hopeful novices and showing them that piecing can be FUN and they can work in ways they are comfortable, while pushing their boundaries and giving them more breathing room to play. That intricate designs don’t have to be hard to do ---and ugly fabrics are only ugly when they are WHOLE----once you dice it, it’s just COLOR --- let it play! And no matter what I teach --- or how many times I teach it --- I always learn far more from those I meet, than they learn from me. Dealing with quilters all over the globe has made the world a much more vibrant, colorful, fun place to be.

This is the one award that I just didn’t see coming. There are so many others that I would have awarded this to, because I have followed them and revered them and appreciated what they have done for the quilting word for the past 30+ years that I have been quilting. If I had my choice, I’d award this to the author of the very first quilting book that I ever bought ----the author is Mary Ellen Hopkins, and her book “It’s Okay if You Sit On My Quilt” is what turned the lightbulb on for me. I bought this book with the first ever credit card that DH and I had---before Jason was born. It was $20.00 and I charged it. I poured over that book ----til the pages were dog eared and margins were filled with my handwritten notes of ideas and sketches. This is the book that taught me that “Oh! It’s just a GRID! Patchwork is just like a design on graph paper!” And from that moment there was no stopping that train ---

Once you’ve been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the ripe young age of 50 --- just where is there to go now?

I guess I’ll NEED to bone up on the Senior Citizen Texting Code ----Get my Quilter’s Assisted Living Home ready ---there’s nothing left to do now but retire!

LMDO ((Laughing my Dentures Out!)) LOL!

Seriously --- thank you from the bottom of my very patched up and quilted heart! Click HERE to view all the other awards given! And thank you to Sew Cal Gal for the efforts she put forth in pulling this together!