Work in Progress - Priority Quilt

This is the inspiration:

And this is the beginnings of Mindful Moodling, X (Forsythia):

Doing ~ simply for the sake of doing ~ no right or wrong, just the pure joy of stitching...

For those of you who don't know about moodling, in the 1930’s, author Brenda Ueland wrote a book titled "If You Want to Write: A book about Art, Independence & Spirit.” I found her book in the craft shop at the John C. Campbell Folk School & I copied this phrase from it into one of my journals: “so you see, imagination needs moodling – long inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering”…

“Our society demands constant activity, constant achievement, and tireless motion. Anything done for fun, anything which serves no logical purpose is suspect... Moodling, which I learned from Brenda Uleland’s marvelous book, “If You Want to Write” is a precious gift we have sacrificed in the name of accomplishment. Children know how to moodle, they are natural virtuosos at it. You never see a child look up from his blocks to say, “Man, I really should work on my taxes soon.” You never see a young child stop to question the motivation of a game or joke. Children, precious moodlers that they are, have enormous powers of concentration... All of us were once moodlers, whether we admit it or not. But the art of moodling is drummed out of us pretty quickly... We put away our imaginary friends. We close the coloring book. We become...grownups... we lose the opportunity to see a castle in a pile of backyard twigs.” (original source for this quote is unknown)

I work on these soon-to-be Priority Quilts for the AAQI when I'm watching television, waiting for appointments, covering the front desk at work while the receptionist takes her lunch hours... One of my favorite times to work on these projects is during my own weekday lunch hours - it's soul centering and fat free!

As far as method: the scraps are laid down to cover a foundation fabric, then loosely basted in place. Once the hand quilting (my version of traditional kantha stitching) in one direction is completed through the top and batting only, I remove the basting threads and add the back fabric. I then "moodle" in the other direction through all 3 layers.

Because I have so completely fallen in love with this technique, I’ve created this web album for quick reference. I’m sure more variations and interpretations will follow ~ and I’ll continue to donate these little quilts to the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative to help accomplish a most worthwhile and personally meaningful goal: raising awareness and funding research through art.



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"Today we need colour more than at any time in history. Blacks and grays, both depressing, should be replaced in clothes, offices and homes with new colours that give inspiration, tranquility and happiness." (Linda Clark)