I like the colors.
Then I quilted this one for a topper customer. It is her first quilt. She did a wonderful job on it. Everything was nice and square and all pressed extremely well. She had a very good teacher too. It was her sister. Her sister is an excellent topper.
Not a cut off point to be found.
I had lunch with the three nice ladies again yesterday. Nice ladies are the nicknames I gave to Marilyn, Joan, and Emma. I kind of took over the conversations and talked about my dreams for the future; but, I really needed some feedback from them. I received much, much more from the luncheon than was apparent. They probably don’t even realize just how much they helped.
I know the nice ladies are reading my blog - thank you so much!
To my internet friends - let me tell you what I got from yesterday’s lunch. After lunch we came back to my place so I could brag a little about my works in progress and my organizing. I showed the nice ladies some of the quilts I’m working on and samples of my machine quilting. It was sooo much fun. I was sorry to see them leave.
Much of our conversations were about my desire to move away from a really bad neighborhood and open a quilt studio/gallery to sell my work. A big part of the success for a business venture is the person’s willingness to take a risk. Yes, I am very ready to take the risk. Talking to the nice ladies got me really pumped up and ready to do it all right now! I have no doubts about my ability. I truly believe I have it in me to be successful. I believed the only thing holding me back was knowledge about how to move.
Later in the evening I was talking with my daughter about the nice ladies lunch and our time here in my studio. Also about the conversations we had on how I could possibly move to Paducah to the Lower Town Art District to become a textile artist. My daughter already knows how much I want to start making quilts to sell. Then my daughter asked me some questions that really have me wondering.
She asked me “But Mom if you believe you can sell your quilts, why do you have to move to Paducah to prove it? Why don’t you make and sell a few first? You could use your proven sales as a reference when you ask for grant money to move.”
She had a very good point. Did I say my daughter is my very best critic? Having grown up watching me work all these years she can tell at a glance whether my work is right or not. I told her how I had a fear of no income while I got established in another city.
What my daughter said was “If you were to move to Paducah you would be starting off cold without any customers or income, so why can’t you do that here first? And in Paducah you would be neighbors with known artists where you would be competing for the tourists dollars. Just stop stressing out over long waiting lists of toppers, tell them you are taking some time off, and go for it” Wow, did she have another good point or what?
Then she said “Mom Louisville must have some type of artist relocation program too. Surely all those artists who have moved to the east end didn’t just get together one day and say let’s all move to that area? There has to be a reason so many moved to that area so why not find out about it?”
My daughter also pointed out that I live on probably only 20% of my income as it is. I give the rest of it away to whichever child or grandchild needs financial help. We lived on very, very little money when she was growing up and we all survived. So why don’t I just stop working so hard at supporting everyone else and go for the dream? Those who spend my money all the time should understand and start standing on their own two feet, right? That is including her.
Well it’s time for me to get off the computer and get into the studio. I have a lot of thinking and planning to do so maybe I will put a mindless quilt on the machine. Mindless quilts are the ones I can do Circle Lord quilting on. I don’t have to think about the quilting, just push the machine to follow the groves.
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