Creativity Makes Us Happy and Makes for Good Health, Smiles and healthy Cells

One may wonder what they are looking at but you are seeing all of the plaids from a line I designed awhile ago. Plaids add light and these plaids are designed to bring light to your quilts just like any painter who is an artist wants to bring light to their paintings. WHY don't other quilt teachers teach this????Anyway, kathy Collins, one of my dear friends and long time students used the plaids together for a Mary Lou Quilt she made me. :0)

Above is the very happy and colorful quilt. I LOVE this!

Last week I was in Tahoe and it was so pretty and I met with 10 friends and we had great sewing and creative time together. The photo below is of me high up where we took a hike and below is the Lake....so beautiful!

Above, Kathy Collins who has done many wonderful story quilts is beginning a new quilt with skiers and things wintry, hence the cool colored border blocks done Hoochy type! GREAT fun!

Kathy Collins also brought a great book done with wool ala' Sue Spargo.
I am doing a super wool and cotton folk art fish for the cruise to Panama in February. I will show it as soon as it has more done....Walnut shells will add alot of fun to this!

In many of my longer classes we do what we call fairy gifts. The fairies (students) leave little gifts on people's sewing machine for fun. A fairy named Molly put these darling pumpkins on our machines _ LOVE this!
One of the fairy gifts I got were these cozy and cut Halloween socks....we shared lots of cool gifts...address books, fabric, pens, bags with starbucks cards and candy inside and I need to look and see what else...there were lots of cool items....Fun! I made handmade button bracelets for everyone.

OK I want to share the cows I made and this cow is covered with crystals and I have a peace sign or two to get on him...one for the ring in her nose. She is quite darling and colorful and fun! If you haven't done a cow from the "Out of the Box with Easy Blocks book, you are missing out..........they are addictive and super fun. My friend Dawn Tonoili just made a bundle on one of her cows for a nice charity.

Halloween Inspires Us to Come Out and Play with Witch Blocks! FUN!

I tried to load this last but alas, the blog thing would not let me. Anyway, I bought this amazing fabric and wanted to make wild and fun dresses for my witch. Fifteen friends decided to make fifteen blocks and we gave ourselves one year. Pretty wonderful. This week we swapped and it was so exciting!

Here are 12 of my blocks all put together just to see how it would look....cool!
I told people at first I wanted sashing in between but I think I like it this way with a border...I would love comments and what you think...please!

Below is Deb and Kathy who are best friends and both do fabulous work with two sided quilts...I think they will do a fabulous book. Anyway, they are showing some blocks that they are giddy about and who wouldn't be? SO fun!

The girl above Deb and Kathy is Tina who should be called "Tina Talented!" She is standing in front of her bags that she made up of her block and some See's candy inside...naturally hers is my favorite...boy, how can you beat See's candy?
Tina might be cooking for my next retreat in Idaho and I am very excited about it since she LOVES to cook and I have had her food and it is wonderful. The retreat is almost full....still have three spots.
Autumn is my most favorite time of year....there must be some poetry about Halloween and Fall isn't there?
PATTERN FOR THIS-I do not know where the pattern came from and I think my friend Wendy and her friends changed a garden girl pattern to witches instead. Since the pattern was given to me and I do not know where it came from I do not feel comfortable sharing it. I know many people copy my copyrighted patterns and pass them along thus leaving me with less income on something I have spent alot of time on. I do not want to cheat another designer out of money that she worked hard on-this may not be the case but I am very careful of this since I work hard and right now the economy is making it harder to earn a living doing patterns and books.
The pattern may be for sale somewhere or online....

Images of Autumn

I am leaving for Tahoe and wanted to leave you with some Fall images for fun....after I get home from Tahoe, I go to Houston for Fall Market...and then I am gone for weeks...........but I can still enjoy the beauty right in front of me where ever I go. What a beautiful country we have and so much to be thankful for too.

Student has comments about Story Quilt Workshop

Mary is alot of fun as you can tell from the Halloween shirt she wore-it says "what did you call me?"

A letter from Mary to my chatroom friends about the story quilt class....

Ladies, she wore me out or maybe it was the 1300 miles i drove. I came home so
full of energy, you know; clean my sewing room, organize all my scraps, sweep,
clean basement, clean yard, wash outside of my house, power wash deck and they I
realized I was exhausted and didn't do a thing for 2 days.

The class was so much fun, I never heard a complaint and I heard lots of
laughter. Wow the stories that were told in class would take a year to make. I
am actually working on my story quilt every day, today I got shoes on my feet
(my DD wondered why I had Duck tape on my feet) and a wooden spoon in my hand,
tonight it is time for the cat. Things just keep running around my head (lots
of emply space there). Tonight one of my DD called and said she thinks she and
I should make a Haloween quilt together. I said, fine, she can do the
emblishments.

I write like I talk, too much. I just want to urge every one of you to take a
class with Mary Lou. She will never run out of ideas.

Madeline Island Photos-More of the Magic of Madeline Island in the Fall

Here is a quick photo of part of the classroom and my Halloween Witch I did Hoochy style...if you like Halloween and witches and stuff, take my workshop next year on Madeline Island the second week of october-sign up now and save MISA (google it online)

Folk art is everywhere which is simply wonderful and so much fun! This fish was just one part of the lovely metal folk art on the island...

Sunflower Flower Power blocks were a happy and whimsical project of a few girls who were making story quilt borders....loved these for their free design and invention

Folk art is on all of the walls of the different rooms at Madeline Island School of the Arts....I took different photos and will keep posting wonderful free artwork to inspire you. I loved this mask.
There were lovely shops both on Madeline Island Wis. and Bayview which is where you catch the ferry for a quick ride across. The photos below are simply things in the cabins or artwork we made in class or places I shopped....all very fun for story quilt ideas....








Above A view coming into Madeline Island from the ferry....photos do not do it justice...that Lake (Superior) is ao vast and the colors are just magical!


Here is a nice assortment of photos of the buildings, there are many more... it is really clean and beautiful naturally and the buildings make for a really happy environment!

Below is a nice photo Barb from class took of everyone working and deep in thought in the workshop (Story Quilts)- I thought I loaded this photo first because it is so fun to see students hard at work.....and in such a nice setting with lots of light

Cats and Birds and Story Quilts Make for FUN at Madeline Island School of the Arts with Mary Lou

Above Mary has her blocks going for her quilt canvas for a story quilt...nice colors and fun designs.

Here the girls are hard at work making borders to set their color palettes on their story quilts...lovely, well lit room at Madeline School of the Arts. I will be back there same time next Autumn and the place is magical this time of year for inspirations and ideas.

Judy has her sketch of her husband and herself and many things to go into her story quilt about their love of each other and marraige-below her quilt canvas is almost ready for the story to go in. It will be a quilt with a nice story to remember and names and dates and such.


Above Mary has her drawing of her story quilt already to go into her ready made quilt canvas. Her story is a fun one which is no surprise because Mary is fun. It is all about her making stolen's for Christmas-70 of them for friends and family...I want one! She has her family looking in the window and waiting and her mixer, kitchen drawers, flour, sugar, her Mother's recipe and more. A family tradition becomes a family story quilt! Pretty wonderful.

And below is Barbara's border that is coming along piece by piece. She has a lovely color palette set for her story to go into (her quilt canvas). Barbara is a talented quilter and I was honored she came to take this class where you let go and free form piece and get out of the box.

Below is Sue Bright whose name is a story quilt in itself. Sue has lost over 50 pounds and I don't know many people who could pull of laying in this hammock. Sue hasn't eaten sugar in ages and given the choice for apple pie and cinnamon ice cream, she pushed herself away to get some sweet potato fries for her treat. That pie was wonderful. I didn't have her will power.

A lovely class of lovely people- all nice and nice to one another and FUN. We had some really good laughs and shared many stories with one another as well as fabric and other things.

Here Mary holds up her little bird that was so happy. We all cheered when we saw what she was adding to her lovely quilt. Mary has participated in many of my block swaps on Yahoogroups and her blocks are coveted by many of us! She is very talented at making happy things.


I am on my way to the grocery store but wanted to share this lovely photo from my last workshop of jackie who did a cat for her story quilt....isn't she fun? I love great blocks and smiles also...stay tuned for more color and fun from the workshop at Madeline Island...where you can take a five day story quilt class next year. It is in Wisconsin about two hours away from Duluth and close enough to Michigan and other Midwest places to come. You won't be sorry. Stay tuned for more....I need some time.

Mary Lou Speaks on 2nd half of Pat Sloan's Radio Program TODAY!

http://toginet.com/shows/creativetalkradio

I am so pleased that Pat Sloan is going to interview me MONDAY....I want to tell some things to people about my take on quilting and some funny things in my life...after all why listen if you can't learn something and smile while listening! Right?
Please come and visit....just "click" on her link above