The first letter I ever remember receiving was a beautifully illustrated letter from my grandmother that combined words and homonyms that were illustrated. There was a picture of a deer and then my name which as a 9-year old I understood as Dear Weeks. There were so many other charming picture and word combinations that I remember crying when I found out someone had thrown it away. Another of my favorite letters is one I received from a friend right after the September 11th terrorist attacks in the US. In lieu of the beautiful handmade Christmas cards he usually makes, he wrote individual letters to everyone he loved telling us what they meant to him and what he had learned from each of us. I was so touched by the letter I received that I read it over and over.
This is why I was excited to learn of Felicia Sullivan’s new challenge to encourage letter writing. For me the process of writing a letter is a bigger commitment of time and energy so I think more carefully about what I’m going to say. I don’t want the letter to look sloppy so I have to slow down so my penmanship conveys the sincerity of my thoughts.
The most meaningful letters I exchange right now are with the foster family in China who took care of our adopted daughter for the first 300 days of her life. They write to us once every year or two in Chinese and we have a friend translate their letter to us and our letter back to them. Although someone else has to write the Chinese part, I save the English translation and the English version of the letter I write in a handbound book so we have a record of our correspondence. Usually we send a small photo album with pictures of our daughter and have our daughter, who is now 5 write a sentence or two and draw a picture. I cherish each of the letters we receive as well as those we send because I know their family will open our letters with as much excitement as we open theirs.
Whether or not you participate in this letter-writing challenge, I hope you will take a moment and write someone a letter this week–not just so they can receive it but also because it feels so good to send it.
When I graduated from graduate school my parents asked me what I wanted as a graduation gift, “More design education!” I answered. So I signed up for a week at the Maine Photographic Workshop. It was like summer camp for grown-ups wanting to learn various aspects of photography. All we did all day was take photos, develop film and print. I loved the total immersion.
When we started FunQuilts, we decided to create a similar immersive environment for quilters. One week–totally focused on quilt design. There are lots of one-week summer programs in the US so I thought I’d post information about a few I’ve heard about. Some of the classes offer housing and meals and others refer you to local inns and restaurants.
Arrowmont offers courses in basket-weaving, clay, fiber, metals, drawing, woodturning and stone carving. Penland has classes in book-making, clay, drawing, glass, iron, photography, printmaking, and wood. Sievers has classes in weaving and quiltmaking (one of which is taught by one of our students). The Maine Photographic Workshop has classes in everything from basic black and white photography to operating very expensive cameras used for making movies and even courses in lighting. There are a number of classes and travel opportunities offered by Shaw Guides.
For quilters, Empty Spool Seminars offers classes in California by well-known quiltmakers traditional and contemporary. We will be teaching this summer at Quilting in the Pines near the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Quilting by the Lake in Upstate New York and at our own Design Camp in Chicago (which is almost sold out).
Perhaps readers in other countries could post information about similar classes in other countries.
I grew up in a time when kids were divided up pretty much in kindergarten into the kids who could draw well and those who couldn’t. I fell into the latter category. In graduate school I was determined to overcome my insecurities about this and devoted myself daily to improving my drawing.
A year ago when we were planning our fabric line that came to be called Mendhi, my husband Bill and I decided we would try to combine hand drawing and a layering process in Photoshop to create a rich, collage-like print. I was more than a little scared to stake a fabric line on my drawing skills but decided that it was time to get over it already. Bravely I hand drew the elements and Bill took the lead on layering. It took both of us to color the 28 prints because some patterns used 16 colors. We spent months designing this line. When we received the sample fabrics we were thrilled as they looked exactly how we imagined they would. The D1600 series (the wildflowers) we loved the most. We both declared that we would make shirts of those fabrics some day. D1604-632 was supposed to be made into curtains for our daughters room.
One month after the fabric came onto the market, a quilt made with this fabric appeared on the cover of American Patchwork & Quilting. For about 6 weeks we received 20-30 orders a day for this fabric. When we called Westminster (the new parent company of FreeSpirit fabrics, which had originally printed the line) to order more fabric, we were told that despite the fact that the line was selling out quickly, Westminster decided to discontinue production just two months after the line came on the market. We bought all of the remaining inventory and began to fill the 500+ orders we had. We knew that we were running out of fabric and it was hard to decide whether we should keep some for ourselves, but in the end we didn’t. Everyone who called seemed so excited about it that it was hard to hold anything back. This morning I cut the last piece of D1600-411, the fabric I had planned to make a shirt with. Bill and I were so sad. While we’re excited that the fabric was so well-received and has been shipped all over the world, it is sad to see a fabric we worked so hard on have such a short life. We know there will be more lines but I miss this one already.
The response to my post You Show Me Your Heart And I’ll Show You Mine was astonishing. I received so many requests from worthy charitable projects from around the world. With the help of a wonderful student who is also a retired social worker, we sent out 7 large envelopes of fabrics to addresses around the world and have a few more that are awaiting addresses.
Now it’s your turn. If you have crafts supplies that you would like to donate to a worthy charity, consult the list on dotdigital. Feel free to post here the email addresses or website of other charitable organizations needing craft supplies and contact them directly.
Thanks for all of your inspiring work.
Happy Valentine’s Day! So here’s my valentine to whipup’s readers: free fabric for a good cause. Post a request for the fabric you need to complete a project for a charitable cause. Tell me a little about the project and what you need. For example, “I need a yard each of red, blue and yellow fabrics to make a raffle quilt for our son’s school. His teacher’s are so great and the proceeds are going to buy books for the library,” or something like that. Give me some guidance about general colors, (specific colors, pastels or brights, multicolored prints, or you can just say “send me a nice palette of five fabrics with total yardage of 5 yds”) and I’ll send you what I can. You may receive scrap yardage but it will be high-quality quilting cotton and will look good together. We’ll choose the requests that best match up with the inventory we have. Be sure to tell me how receiving this fabric will benefit the community or a charitable organization. We’ll even pay for shipping anywhere. So get going!
