We meet once per month to create journal quilts. During this process we share our passion for textile arts, try out new and interesting techniques and give ourselves "Permission 2 Play." Who are we? We are the members of a newly created quilting class, "Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting." This is a FREE class offering for cancer diagnosed patients. No Experience Required. All supplies are provided for everyone. Rather than record our thoughts and feelings with pen and paper, we create our journals with fabric and thread. Most quilters know just how therapeutic the process of creation can be. We gather together with a positive attitude, a willingness to try something new and allow ourselves permission to play. These photos are from our classes. We have made gelatin prints, free-motion quilted, embellished, melted crayons for printing. In one of the photos Emily is spreading paint across the molded gelatin. You eventually see the two prints she made that resemble a sea horse. Kathy is using a rubbing plate on the gelatin to stamp the design directly onto the fabric. Two of our instructors, Nancy & Kathi are assisting Emily at the sewing machine with her very first try at free-motion quilting. During this 3 hour class we share our ideas, inspiration, enthusiasm and laughter. I notice as we leave the quilt shop, we don't walk out the door......we float. The pressures and stresses of life are left behind, if for just a little while. Yes, we leave with a tangible journal quilt, but the real gift we have received during this is we have given ourselves Permission 2 Play.
Special thanks for JanniLou Creations Quilt Shop in Philomath, Oregon who generously allow us to use their large classroom space, to our quilting friends who supply and donate all the materials used in our classes, to our instructors who donate their time and materials, and most of all to our students who join us each month and teach us more than they will ever know. This is a class created from Love.
Please contact me if you are interested in developing a Living Well with Cancer and Healing Through Quilting class. Click on the comment link below this post and leave me a message. I will reply.
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My Heart is Full,
LuAnn