Culture
My first episode -starting at the beginning
In this inaugural episode of 'My Creative Corner 3', the host shares their journey into the world of creativity, focusing on quilting and the various artistic endeavors that have shaped thei...
My first episode -starting at the beginning
Culture •
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Interactive Transcript
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Welcome to my creative corner 3. This is the inaugural podcast and I wanted to
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talk about why my creative corner, why quilting, and a little bit about my life
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in a northern town. It all started probably blogging about eight years ago the
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title my creative corner was something I wanted to show that I was really doing
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all kinds of art and craft projects at the time. And quite honestly I picked
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my creative corner my creative corner one and two and then when I got to three it
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was a title that wasn't already taken. So I stuck with my creative corner three
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about eight years ago. I decided to blog to show progress on projects I had
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made to keep track of tutorials and ideas that I had. It was also a way to
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document finished projects and unfinished projects and a little bit about what
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was going on in my life for family who lived out of town. Sewing was something
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that I didn't really have a big passion for until recently but creativity was
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something that I always had done. As a child we'd go to the library I check out
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books make projects do all kinds of coloring arts and crafts and I did have a
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sewing machine at a young age made clothes for my Barbie doll dolls and
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eventually did take a four-h class on garment making. It was about that time that
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we had a very long winter and I missed nearly a month of school due to
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blizzards. This was in the mid-70s. So polyester fabrics were very very
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popular and my mother inherited a very large scrap bag from family or friends
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people were having babies and we made very simple square block quilts. Nothing
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but squares that were probably about six inches in size. We sewed them together. I
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did a lot of ironing and my mother tied them off and we sent them out. I do
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happen to have one of those quilts in my collection. I knew that people in my
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family quilted because I had seen blocks that were not completed into tops by
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one of my mother's great aunts at my grandmother's house. It was a blue and white
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lone star and I always thought that it was quite fabulous. I did learn how to knit
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and crochet from my mother, my grandmother's and great grandmother's tatted and I
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eventually taught myself how to tat out of a book again. Remember this is all
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before the internet became every day and YouTube is where I learned to do
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things correctly because believe it or not I left handed taught myself how to do
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many of these skills and I did them backwards. So crafting was always part of
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my life. Eventually I started music lessons and creativity then for many years
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until my late teens was devoted to studying stringed instruments. But in my
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late teens with the learning how to tat everyone kept telling me you know
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that's a lot of art and craft that's being lost and it bothered me to think
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that a craft could be lost because not many books were out there on tatting.
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There were a couple unknitting and crocheting and some magazines and I thought it
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would be a great thing to do to learn all kinds of things that that way it
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wouldn't be lost because it could be passed down. I even learned how to do all
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kinds of domestic things such as canning and gardening during my childhood and I
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knew that that was part of a collective knowledge that we had but with
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technology advancing I was afraid that many creative endeavors would be lost.
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It was about 17 at the time and I kept perfecting all kinds of those handcrafted
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projects. In fact I made all kinds of gifts because number one I wanted to but
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number two because I didn't really have a lot of money to go buy things for
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people. So creativity has always been part of my... that was basically free time.
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However drawing wasn't something that I was very good at and in fact one thing
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that was said to me and I remember a middle school by an art teacher was that I
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had to see minus in the class. He said because I wasn't even average at being
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able to draw things. I remember having that really sting and I remember
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also thinking I would never say something like that to anyone as I taught
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other people how to do some of these skills and crafts that I learned. Well I
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got married pretty young and we moved to New Mexico because my husband was in
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the military and I didn't have a sewing machine. I didn't have any fabric and
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in fact I didn't even have any craft supplies and I didn't have a job. I was
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going to college and had a lot of free time on my hands and had no idea what I
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wanted to major in because we moved a couple of times and I knew that I wasn't
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going to live somewhere where near a four-year university. So during this time
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period I just didn't really have much direction and during the lunch hour I
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met someone who was about my grandmother's age who was going back to school
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because she wanted to. And we chatted here and there but one day she brought a
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book in about quilting and she shared her final English paper which was a
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research paper about quilting in America and the book she had in fact I got a
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copy of it in recent years it was Great American Quilt some 1988. It was so
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inspiring and talking to her and reading in her report I told her about those
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loan stars that my grandmother had. She said she would love to see them and I
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acquired two of the eight. I was even invited to her house and she said she
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would teach me how to quilt. She had a Bernina sewing machine, a studio and in
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New Mexico she had a log home in a place where she had water rights and it was
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just the most lush green and surrounded by trees quite a retreat. This northern
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girl missed the pine trees and the heat of New Mexico was something I wasn't
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used to and we did all kinds of sewing in her studio space. Quilting became
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something I really enjoyed. Of course the first thing I wanted to do was learn
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how to sew a double wedding ring quilt after I showed her the stars. She said
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why don't we start with making one star into a wall hanging which is what we
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did on her Bernina sewing machine. I didn't know anything about sewing machines
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and I didn't know anything about Bernina's except this was a fabulous machine.
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She taught me how to hand quilt and I love that because it really fit into the
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creativity that I enjoyed. I liked working with my hands, I did embroidery and
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this was a skill that I picked up quickly and in fact I hand quilted several
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quilts for sew while I lived there. We did go on to make a double wedding ring
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sampler. She said why don't you try it. Curve piecing is not easy. We had cardboard
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templates, we cut them out and we used her fabulous machine and I did make a
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four ring sample and I hand quilted it. About that time I knew a baby was
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coming. So I subscribed to a quilting magazine and I made a tea tiny little
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pinwheel quilt. I had a sewing machine that was given to me and it didn't work
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very well. The seams were wonky and I in fact finished the top and I threw it away
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because I just thought it looked horrible. This quilt is made out of scraps from
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my childhood. My mom had a lot of fabric saved. I bought some fabric and quite
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honestly most of the yardage were some things that came from the craft box. We
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had back home at my parents house. I let it sit in a trash can in my sewing room
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for a couple of days and I got it back out. Probably about the time of year the
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Charlie Brown Christmas was coming out and I thought well this little top
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doesn't look so bad. I finished it. I hand quilted it, bound it, used it and
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actually doesn't look too bad even looking back on it now. Well due to a lot of
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circumstances and family and getting a career started I didn't do tons of
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sewing and didn't make very many quilts because sewing was difficult when you
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didn't have a machine that was very good. I did a lot of hand work, cheater quilts
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and things as my family grew and I had a lot more money. I became more
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interested in fabrics. So about late 90s, a lady at church and I had read an
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article about a woman in a small town who made quilts for every graduate in
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their church. We thought it was such a great idea. Quilts should be given to
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other people and a charity group was started at our church. In fact the lady
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who co-chaired this committee she invited me to her house and she showed me how
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to use a rotary cutter. I was thrilled because I had only ever used templates and
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hand sewing and cutting each piece out with scissors and it was a very long task
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and being left handed many of those things were not always easy. I was hooked. I
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used quote blocks and I still have them hanging up. They're a little dated but I
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was very proud of that work and that launched me into a second love with
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quilting and I set up block exchanges with my friends and as they say the
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rest is history. I've made a lot of quilts over the years and I really enjoy
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all aspects of it now. I've dabbled around in designing my own quilts. I like to
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do all types of quilting. I have to say that I have decided over the years that I am
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not necessarily a traditional quilter. My big inspiration during my childhood was
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1976. The Centeno year quilting was big. Learning lost arts was being pushed
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and I really wanted to be part of all of that. As I got going along I realized there
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were lots of fabulous collections of fabric that were in all kinds of colors and
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my tastes have changed. I'll have to say over the last few years I've decided
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that I am a fusion quilter. I take every experience I have and kind of bring it
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all to the table and it fuses together into an idea. I really enjoy modern quilting but
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I'm not going to say that I am a modern quilter. I still like to make some
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traditional quilts. I also like to do some things that are kind of a modern and
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old twist together and I like to do improvisational piecing so I have to say
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fusion quilting is where I live. I do long arm now. I can't do all the hand quilting
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that I used to do or even the handwork. I played stringed instruments as a child
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and through high school and most of my college years I played a bass and my
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hands have a lot of arthritis in them. So I started thinking about how I could
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make it faster. Well my mom bought a long arm and she and I have always had a
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quilting journey together. Ever since my childhood and we've lived next to each
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other for many years she had the opportunity to buy one and set it up in a
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studio she shared with my dad and we started long-arming. Made some long-arm
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customers from our friends and some referrals from our local quilt shop and I've
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been doing a lot of long-arming over the last few years. Well believe me I still
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do a lot of piecing too. So that's how I got started quilting. I thought we'd
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start at the very beginning. I have to say I do a lot of other types of creative
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endeavors and the biggest one that's helped me in my journey is Zentangle. I took
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some lessons on that three years ago and I chair a local Zentangle group and
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that has helped me with my free-motion quilting. I exclusively do free-motion
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quilting and it's also helped me to relax my muscles and be able to think
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clearly while I'm trying to problem-solve moving from one place to another
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on a quilt. I do knitting and crocheting. I have also been working on a cowl with
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my yarn of the month club that I've joined for the last year. I made a cowl
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and a table runner. So believe me a three out of twelve projects I have only
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been completed so it shows you how fast of a knitter I am. I do like knitting but
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I don't like making three-dimensional knits. I like making blocks. I like
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putting them together as quilts or to do strips or make simple projects to
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relax in the evening after work because I do have a job full-time in health
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care. Cowls are great because they are swift projects and they don't require
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a lot of concentration. I haven't done as much tagging in the last few years
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because it takes a lot of tension in my hands but I still do get it out from
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time to time and work on them. But currently coloring books Zentangle are
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doodling because it's not all my drawing is Zentangle and I do it because I
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want to get over a statement that was made to me in middle school from an art
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teacher who told me that I got a C minus in the class because my drawing was
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below average. And I thought you know what if I still think about it after all
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these years then maybe it should be something that I get over and I found that
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I actually can do Zentangle. It's patterns. It's simple, it's step-by-step. Life in
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my northern town, well it's late summer, today is August 20th and we have had a
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very long hot summer. One thing about being in Michigan is that the weather
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changes often and I'll have to say I really complain about it a lot. It has been a
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hot hot summer. We've got very little rain and the trees have already started
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their early maples in the changing to autumnal colors. It probably won't hit peak
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season until late September but that has brought me you know to a very real
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thought that summer is coming to a close. We have a couple weeks and Labor Day is
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the end of the tourist season because I live in a tourist town and it's a bit
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or sweet thought to think that fall is coming because that means winter's
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coming. However the reward is that the tourists don't come to town as much
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until it starts snowing and we get a lot of snow a year and the tourists will
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come back for snowmobiles and skiing. Maybe we usually get about 180 I think is
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our average snowfall about 180 inches a season. Sometimes it all comes at once
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sometimes not. I don't particularly like driving and currently my drive to work
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is two miles except for two days a week I have to drive 40 miles one way.
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Hoping I've done that for the last couple years and I did that for a decade in
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the late 90s. Hoping that my work situation settles down to I don't have to do
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so much but overall it's made me realize that you know what you can do anything
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you want to do and I think that's what all of this is about blogging has taken
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me to social media and then something happened this year. They got me inspired
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to try something new. I turned 50 and I wanted to try something different in
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the world of making my blog relevant again and I thought podcasting might
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be something I can do. I didn't realize that people
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podcasted from home. I thought that was only for the big international quilt
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stars. I found a group that were all international quilt stars and I thought
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this is a great way to put show notes on my blog. There'll be pictures. I do
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talk a lot about my everyday events on Instagram and that's also linked on
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my blog. I have a few tutorials. With this podcast I thought it would be a
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great way to be interactive with people in the world with not very many
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quilters being in my area. Believe it or not I live in a really small town and
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there aren't tons of people that I meet who quilt. I will talk about my creative
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inspirational quote group and another podcast but I have found a group of people
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to meet with monthly for that too but it's taken me years and years to get to
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that point. So hot August rain fall colors coming and it makes me realize that
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September is around the corner and that's when this podcast is scheduled to
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launch. September always feels more like new year to me because it's always been
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the school year more than January and that marked time faster and more
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noticeable and than anything else. So September is my new year so this will be a
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start to something new and we'll be talking more about what I'm working on in
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the next podcast. The swaps that I have been involved with. A lot of it hit
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they're all online swaps in social media where I find inspiration. So thank
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you for listening.