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| Mending a Broken Heart |
This week's blog giveaway is one of my Mending a Broken Heart hearts. I started making these as gifts to send to friends who had heart attacks, divorces, break up with significant others, loss of pets and children, any time a heart was broken. I decided to add it as one of my Bending Quilt-As-You-Go (my technique) workshops and for a few years I traveled the country teaching it and I have to admit I was surprised when it was the most requested of my workshops. People were always surprised that they went home with a least two completed hearts and often four. It also gave me an opportunity to teach rope making (very addicting). And as quickly as this workshop was popular, it stopped being requested. I have no idea why. However, I continue to make and send these hearts to family and friends.
"Home is where the heart is," the old saying goes. It is not a mistake that "art" is a predominant part of the word "heart." Our homes are our refuge, the one place where we can truly express ourselves. I collect things that I cannot do myself. I love things made out of clay so I have a collection of pots and sculpture. I also have a small collection of quilts, many from friends whose work I love. I collect rusty sculpture usually incorporating rocks (another love of mine) for my garden. I still remember the high school student whose moving rock sculpture I purchased at an art fair in Geneva, Illinois. It was such a thrill to provide validation to someone just starting out. Again they are all things that I simply could not have made and yet, speak to me. What do you collect and why?
Winner will be announced ob Monday, November 7th. Followers get three chances to win because I love my followers!
I collect fabric postcards. As a trading member of Postmark'd Art, I've acquired a fabulous collection of art in a tiny format. Recently, I've begun a collection of foot-square quilts. There are many artists I admire and this is a size I can afford while supporting SAQA.
ReplyDeleteI love leaves, and used to collect huge red/gold ones and mail to my mom. They stayed pretty for weeks and she would tape them to her kitchen wall! Many of my fabric art pieces have leaves as their subject. Your "broken heart" is a wonderful gift to cheer someone.
ReplyDeleteMy DH gave me a frosted glass owl for my birthday. I bought another at a store in Stockholm -- and the next thing I knew I was collecting owls! I have them in a wide variety of materials, sizes and places of origin. Some are even quilts-- potentially anyway. If nothing else it has helped my family when buying gifts for me!
ReplyDeleteI collect shells and also rocks that the ocean has churned for years into wonderful hearts.
ReplyDeleteThe shells I use to line window sills with, they for some reason give me comfort.
Your hear is wonderful!
I love your heart! In addition to my fabric addiction, I collect Glass and Plants. I began collecting wine glasses, glass plates, vases and more while still in high school. I have shelves full of glass decorating my livingroom (most survived 3 sons growing up) and various windowsills (anything in Cobalt blue glass looks great on a window). My other extensive collection is in my gardens... I have been collecting perennials, trees and shrubs for 27 years.... I have one Hibiscus plant I started from seed the year I got married and it has moved every time I have.
ReplyDeleteI love your heart too Karen! Some four years back when my darling husband died a lot of my online friends organised to make and send me "healing hearts" mainly in CQ but some were patched and others stitched. The feeling of the outpouring of supportive love lifts me UP when I feel down.
ReplyDeleteAs for collecting! FABRICS! Threads! Beads! Buttons and THIMBLES.
Oh! Did I forget fabric and fibre postcards!!
I collect books, of whatever my passion is. Currently they are fiber art books. I love to be able to hold, read at leisure and go back to them. Before fiber art, I collected gardening books. And earlier I collected bird books, and many of these are now in the NC Arboretum library. And before bird books, it was cook books. I gave over 100 of them to a professor who taught cooking.
ReplyDeleteBooks need to be read, not left to idle away on shelves. So once the passion cools, I try to find someone else who has that particular flame burning.
Your broken heart quilts are lovely. Wish I had taken the workshop.
Nancy
Karen...the heart is wonderful! So much to be said for the heart and the hands that created it....the pieces of every fiber creation that go to make the thread of connection between creator and receiver of the work forever intertwined.
ReplyDeleteI am so thrilled to have won one of your masks and look forward to it living on the wall in my home.
Peace by piece.....Kristin
Love the heart. I collect antique quilts especially those made in Pennsylvania from 1840 to 1860. It is amazing to reconnect quilts that have been separated for over 150 years as I did recently.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoy reproducing my antiques in miniature.
I'm a follower.
Thanks.
Thanks everyone for sharing! With gratitude, Karen
ReplyDelete