Final Photos of More of the Fun I had at Quilt Wyoming-YOU should go next year.....

The quilt above was wonderful and I wish I had such a quilt for behind my sofa....I would never tackle something like this. I am too free and whacky in my cutting.
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I thought this quilt was very pretty. Wish I owned it to hang in an entry way.

Another pair of Maggie's fun shoes...she finds leather shoes at the thrift store and paints them....she must have tons of shoes...all cool!


Below is photos of the assortment of gifts they gave to everyone at Quilt Wyoming and the prizes were unbelievable. No kidding. I have used this purse they gave me ever since. Soda is mined and made here. So many nice gifts...I came home and went through them over and over. Like Christmas and so very thoughtful.


I loved this quilt in the show. Talk about "Out of the Box!" Who would have thought about a pink buffalo? Awesome.

Sign outside the door of where I taught-this town (Rock Springs Wyoming) has an unbelievable collection of huge dinosaurs at the college-huge and fabulous


This image was taken from a lovely sampler (large) quilt that was all in black with black bugle beads and seed beads-it won best of show and should have -it was stunning

This is darling Maggie again who had a cute outfit on each day she showed up for class. Wonderful whimsy and a happy person who is infectious-we need more of her!

Plaid guy changes and more is added as I explore having a great time creating!

This was one of the plaid people-he has totally changed now and you can hardly tell how he started out-now the quilt has a clock, a porch, several trees, a beehive and the town neighbors who are gossiping....gee this is fun!
Gather some plaids and see what you come up with!

Plaid to Meet You Beginnings....

So, I have started a large (it is going to be) quilt that will be all kinds of plaids and graphics and a few dots thrown in. Plaid people and animals are the menu of the day but I wanted to show those of you who are taking my "Plaid to Meet You" class at John C.Campbell folk school that you can use all kinds of lined things that represent plaids-YOU are the artist and push the envelope when you collect what you are going to work with. You will find this is TONS of fun and will stretch you in fabulous ways as an artist and after all, all quilters are artists whether they realize it or not. Remember "God continues HIS creativity through us!" So, let's have fun and be creative! PS- don't forget to throw in some cheddar and some light givers too for spunk!

Mel discovers fabric -we look everywhere don't we?

I just got this photo from Mel who is on vacation before she comes here to finish up out book due soon. It must be really hot there since it is hot here in coldville. But isn't this a cute photo? Wonder what the shop looked like?

This and That for fun......

I stopped in Coeur d'Alene Idaho to talk to the bear Paw quilt shop about my retreat coming up and when our class could come and visit and if they would give us some kind of prize. :0) They are on the top shop list for this year and it is a fantastic shop as many of my past retreat people can tell you! So, I bought some new fabrics to use in samples for the new book and also some plaids that are weird to do samples for my John C.Campbell class coming up in Sept. Good fabric is a must for cool quilts. Some people need to reconsider their stashes. Just my opinion.
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The folk art face of a cane my Grandfather made. It has two eyes and is darling from the front view. No wonder I love Folk Art. It was all around me growing up!

Here is a cane my Grandfather made-read on....very fun and a little funny.

I remember my Grandfather collecting different kinds of wood and cutting little pieces and putting it into canes that he made. Fol Art! Now I wish I had many of the things he did. I don't. Bummer. But I saw a cane at my Aunt's and took a photo of it because of the memory. Fun!

Different vehicles in Montana crack me up.

I took the class "perspective" in college and I hated every minute of it. But this photo could have been a great piece of art. I took this as I drove because I loved the mountain straight ahead and how the trees grew up on top along with the lines of the road....cool-glad I didn't crash.

My friend Lillian in Libby Montana just had this shed built for "stuff"-wouldn't this make an adorable sewing space or antique library etc? Wonderful and too cool for junk like mowers and rakes.

Maeve thank you for signing up as a follower and those of you that did. I appreciate YOU. If you are coming to the retreat I finally bit the bullet and ordered real tiaras. I am hoping that Post Falls will treat us like the royalty we are. :0)

About Winning Fabric and Things on This Blog....

Hi Friends, I am just back from Libby Montana and visiting my Aunt who has been ill. We had fun embellishing her many Christmas tree quilt together. Today she dozed sweetly while I added more buttons and trims. Very fun and made me happy knowing she was sleeping so piecefully.
Anyway, I wanted to address a question from a lovely reader about why I would make people sign up as a follower to win things. Here is the deal. I love the opportunity to share and the idea of followers appeals to me. If you sign up, the only person bugging you would be me and I don't bug or bother anyone that is on the list. Some people have blogs and want you readers to follow them and others don't have to add any email or anything that could show someone how to contact them.
I only give away fabric I personally have bought. And I pay the full price for mailing out these gifts to people who follow my blog and read it anytime I post something. It is because they are willing to sign up, that I am willing to spend money and time giving them something nice. I am going to keep giving things away this summer and am happy to spend the money as long as you, the reader are willing to sign up as a follower. Hope I explained this well. I do everything with good intentions and hope you understand.
Tomorrow I am going to load some new photos on and show some of the fabrics and colors I am working with. What fun doing new hoochy blocks, new bird and flower blocks and new story quilts. The sunshine makes me more creative and I love sharing this with YOU. Thank you for visiting here.

And the winners are.....drum roll please......

Send me your address if you are listed below as you are a fabric winner for commenting and joining my followers list. I have five prizes ready and more piled up here to last throughout the summer!
Once I send these out, we begin again. :0)
Thank you for your lovely comments and reading my blog.
VickyF from Grand Rapids
Kim D from Arizona (please add my blog to your blogroll Kim)
Beth from Los Alamitos
Emily from Washington (Em as we know her)
Lynnot1
Please send me your snail mail address's for a package in the mail to you!

A Piece of History in a Wonderful Story Quilt-well done!

I met Marilyn Wall in a class at the John C.Campbell folk school a few years ago and after the class one over she took me to her home in South Carolina on the Lake and it was fabulous-just a slice of heaven. Her friend Ann had her husband cook a fabulous French dinner for my 60th birthday and they gave me a hand carved angel I keep on my window sill to look at everyday.
Anyway, Marilyn is a wonderful artist and does faces like no one else in fabric.
This quilt shows she and her husband Kermit and their children and Grand children marking their 50th wedding anniversary. I think it is the most perfect and wonderful story quilt don'r you? Marilyn you deserve a ribbon for this. And as I always say, this quilt will be here for many many years and in 80 years people will know something special about Marilyn and who she loved and something about her life. This is the value of story quilts. You need to do one about YOU.
http://marilynhwall.blogspot.com/ Check out Marilyn's blog too-her art in on there. Plus a photo of her laughing which she often does and she has a delightful soft southern kind of a laugh. She and her husband are wonderful people.

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS-Looks like I made it............

So the GOOD news is that when I got to Wyoming someone said, "hey you were featured in Quilter's Newsletter" magazine. I have been on the road for 21 years and I finally made it, haha. I knew they were going to do an article sometime and it is fun that it is now. My Mother has passed away and Dad too and so I have only a few people who really care. My friend Laurie Latta and Terry from West Virginia wrote nice notes as well as many of my Facebook friends. It is nice to have cheerleaders isn't it? I am going to Libby to be with my Aunt Bonnie who is now under hospice care and I will buy her a magazine as she is a lovely cheerleader and also my cousin Patty in Phoenix who was my Mother's dear friend and WWII buddy while the boys were at war. It is a different thing to see a story about you in this place or that. You know you have passed along the information and you wonder if this is really "who you are." But in the end, your students and the friends you have made and your family know you and that is what is so lovely about life. It is a nice thing to share your art with others and have them respond, be inspired and smile at something they find happy. In the end, that is what I want, to share "happiness." Isn't that what we all need more of? I think you will love the article and hope you get the magazine. Then come and take a class to do a story about YOU and who and what you love and learn how to do the hoochy mama technique of quilting! It is freeform and so fun!
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This is Becky the Pharmicist who was the chairman, Grand Poobah,leader of the conference and did a wonderful job with many people at the college in Rock Springs. They gave tons of fabulous gifts away to the people who came and the campus and school's architecture was wonderful. Stay tuned as I am doing more on the postings, cartoons, art work and sayings on the professor's doors. I was very impressed with what is there and you can tell it is a great school just from the bulletin boards.
I thought Becky's blouse was wonderful, hope you can see it and her pretty smile. It is always nice to see a smile on the person who works the hardest as this isn't always the case.

Here is the view out my window on the way to Rock Springs, Wyoming. I was born in Casper so it was nice to visit the State where I was born. I have taught in Heber, Utah.Jackson Hole and also Salt Lake which is close. The conference hosted gals from all over Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and many other states. It is a great conference and moves every year to five different locations in Wyoming.


Here is one of my two suitcases after my trip to Wyoming. Looks normal with a little wear and tear, I buy suitcases every six months or so.

This is my suitcase when I got it back from my flight. I would like to say it was a comedy of errors but it isn't that funny. I started out the day with pilots with an attitude on the shuttle to the airport from our hotel, a lovely girl at the airport who did all of the boarding passes etc., for all of the different airline companies and was busy for a small airport, had to put our luggage on another plane since we were on a small plane from Rock Springs Wyoming where I taught, then from my flight in Salt Lake to Spokane, we diverted to Boise due to someone having seizures (an ambulance came and picked her up while we watched our watches, got into my town (phew) and this suitcase was waiting as well as my other one with no damage. Then you have to stand in line,plead your case and hope they will listen. After asking him to call a supervisor, I think I will get a new suitcase and a small amount of money for new fabric, batting and machine quilting-"no" I didn't have this quilt appraised which was dumb as I would be getting it's true value.

Wouldn't you know it, I packed this quilt in the large zipper pocket on the front of my suitcase knowing it would be safe enough.
Don't do this at home, (and "no" I won't do it again though it would probably still happen since the top of my suitcase had a huge rip in it too-dirt all over inside and some minor damage to stuff on the top.) Well, you see what my suitcase looks like and now my lovely scarecrow quilt has tears, gross dirt and ripped binding. Bummer. It was like they poured dirt into my suitcase which you know didn't happen. Who wants to handle luggage for a living? Give them kudos if you see them.
Glad I got this nice photo of the class with the pre-flight quilt. Stay tuned as I am going to show the different students and how they used different fabrics and backgrounds for their lovely "Happy Crow Farms"quilt. This is a fun pattern and I had lovely, fun people in my workshop.
Luckily the baggage guy was nice after an exchange of back and forth. This airline is a nice one to deal with, thankfully. That is why I book my flights with them when I can.


Hey, all in all with my airline trips, I have to come home, say "I am safe, not harmed,had an adventure and the airline got me where I needed to be and I am in one piece." I tell myself this on every trip as I go across the US and other lovely places I get to travel and because there are airlines and people who work hard to do a good job and please the customer.

QUILTER'S NEWSLETTER HAS ARTICLE ABOUT MARY LOU!

I am on the road but just saw a nice four page article in the new Quilter's Newsletter with many photos of my things and a nice write up. Just thought you might like to read it.
Stay Cool,
Mary Lou

THE TREASURES OF OLD FRIENDS AND NEW CHILDREN AND FOOD (HAHA)

Above is a photo of people who started out in our gourmet club 30 years ago. My husband had to work so he couldn't come until the next morning when many of these people headed off for other things (nuts). Long ago, we all went to church together and decided it would be fun to have a monthly gourmet club. We first went through all of the countries in the world (italian, greek, french, chinese, japanese, thai, english, german, turkish, mexico, spain,etc etc., making their foods and then we got creative and did a nerd night, a toga party, a depression night (all things from the depression for dinner and checkers etc, for entertainment). We vacationed in the summer and we did some trips across the Stevens pass in Washington and also through Snoqualmie and the ferry system in Western Washington. Very fun stuff. We started out with six couples. Two of the couples moved away and we kept one of the couples who moved as they came to visit us fairly often and they invited a couple to join that they knew that lived here. We all became fast friends and we cannot believe it has been so long. We lasted ten years + and we still get together at least once a year. Now our kids are the ones that are the ages we were when we started and they have their little kids-see how we grew? In all of the years we traveled in the summer, no matter where we went, they always let me stop at the quilting shops while they paced up and down the street. Such fun for me who wanted more time.....Haha.
Below are five of my Grandchildren wondering where their cousin Bo is. They are waiting for someone to go and get him to join in the group for a photo.

Below is my Grandchildren (3 boys and 3 girls) and my oldest Granddaughter is holding a baby (Evelyn-2 months old)of one of the children of our gourmet club Curt and Joan's daughter Kelly who was a little girl when we used to get together and now she has little Evelyn. So there are seven kids here.

So, those six couples years ago became what is below....alot more people who love to cook, love to eat and love to be together. Time has gone on but our love for our friendships has stood the test of time.

I guess I forgot to say we had a memorial picnic in Idaho with all of our kids and we had a pot luck and Joan brought photos and we all laughed at hairstyles and glasses and how some of us have no hair now and how some of us have gained weight but all in all we think we look pretty good and we still have alot of good fun together.
I leave for Wyoming tomorrow and will be home Sunday-Monday morning I will pick the four winners of fabric from those of you who are followers and have commented in the past two weeks. I ran out of time but the fabric is cool and you will like the post cards I send too!
Don't forget that we have a little room at the Idaho Retreat which is going to be wonderful-both in where we work and where we stay. And the menu, give aways and patterns are going to be quite good. I plan to pass out some drawings this time in a folder for ideas and this is a first as well as the bags I designed. Hope you can join us-so far we have all fun people who signed up! Yippeee.

FEELING DOWN? FEELING DEPRESSED? FEELING BLUE? WATCH THIS, LAUGH AND COMMENT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaruNs_7okY

A Sneak Peek at What I am Working ON and Retreat Bags for anyone who came this year!

Here is the image below on a t-shirt and below that on the bag (the colors look great and the new bags are soft yellow so the picture will look even better. If you were at the May retreat or coming to the August retreat, you will get the bags when they arrive here.



Oh gimme me more plaids! They are so much fun to work with and give you such a different look in your quilts! Such fun!



I can't get enough of those little cute pinwheels done hoochy style!

Times a wastin' and I have piles and piles of projects that have to get done for the book which is due in Sept. 10th. Yikes! I just keep spinnin's my wheels-ever feel like that? But I have lots of show in my workshops coming up and that is always fun to share!



Don't forget to comment to be in the drawing for fabric and fun before I leave for Wyoming!

My Hippie days- art, fun and winning something here!

I just completed a quilt (full size) about the 60's and I did a large hippie girl, complete with a burning bra, a guitar and words plus loads of flowers and peace signs. I will show it once it is quilted and embellished-it'll be even better then. I have piles of jewelry with peace signs to sew on and the best beaded earrling to go inside the fabric ones on her ears. My daughter saw it today and put dibs on it. She said it is the coolest thing I have done! haha.
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I did posters to make money in those days and behind me is a poster I did for someone. I made good money doing posters for the fraternity guys that wanted full size posters of girls in bikini's. I also sold oil paintings to my Father's friends but I didn't make as much money doing that.

This is a photo of a photo so it probably isn't very good-Mark and I lived in this little apartment and this was me before I went to work-I remember watching the news about the Manson family....

My brother took this photo of me when I worked at the Bon Marche. I bought those bell bottoms and NO one here wore them yet and everyone thought I was nuts-I loved it

So I have four nice prizes that I will give away before I leave for Wyoming on the 15th. I will choose from people who leave comments in the next 10 days. You could win something cool.