scottylover

is the next person who will be receiving a thank you package from us

we are thankful for all of you

today I had the great opportunity to be with a friend

that moved across the ocean

well

don't feel too bad for her

she moved to

Hawaii

but I really love our 'new tradition' of a day of

gift shopping

lunch

stories

during her visit to the mainland

for the holidays

sure I miss the days when she lived just a few streets away

and would pop over unexpectedly for coffee

but

seeing her during the holidays for this gift shopping + lunch + talk day

once a year

is a perfect way to say

hello, I miss you, so great to be with you during the holidays

this is why I wanted to have a

Countdown to Christmas

because I don't always get to see all of you

we may only touch base

a few times a year

I wanted to say

great to be with you during the holidays

please leave us a comment, tell us a spirit of the season

story

about someone you may only see once or twice a year

someone you treasure

leave a note for us on facebook

or post a cookie recipe on the fb page

or tell a friend!

be.do.create

natalie.

remember, we still have sale items on the shop site

www.beyondthereef.bigcartel.com

www.beyondthereefpatterns.com

A Quilter's Story

I wrote to  a friend recently.

Passing on some information about a private party quilt and fabric sale.

"there's a story in those quilts and fabrics"

I wrote to her...I'll share it with you one day

we all make quilts.

we all make quilts for different reasons.

we select fabrics, carefully,

and add them to our stash

some fabrics are chosen with specific people in mind

we think of those we love as we look at quilts or patterns

or fabrics

and they carry our love to them in the finished quilt

that they wrap around them

as they move through their lives

but sometimes we part with our intended fabrics, or quilts, or blocks

or projects

I hope when you receive that gift of a fat quarter bundle

or a quilt top

or a stack of blocks

that you will honour the person that first had these treasures

bless them

and give wing to their projects

put your own story

into those fabrics

that quilt

and pass it on to someone you love

HappiestDays

natalie

Friendship.

friendship.

friendship comes in all shapes and sizes

it is the family we wish we had

it is our inspiration

our accountability

there are times that we struggle with it

and those are the times, I have found, that you must remind yourself

that your friend may be struggling too

one day one of my best girlfriends and I were at an outdoor quilt show

she is 5'-0" olive skinned, I am 5'-8" and blonde/blue

someone overheard our exchange and asked, 

"are you two sisters?"

and before I could say a word, my friend simply and calmly replied,

"if she was my sister, I would have killed her a long time ago!"

have patience

and be thankful for whatever kind of friendship you have

for it is truly the best gift of all

that friend that makes us more than the sum of who we already are

and urges us to be more than we could ever hope to be

HappiestDays

natalie.

"You know who your real friends are..."

Maybe some of you have already heard this story.

I tell it a lot.

It's the story about a woman at a farm stand, late summer, outside of Omaha, Nebraska.  

It's a story about the most unusual of friends.

It's a thanksgiving story.

A woman stopped at a farm stand and gathered baskets full of produce - she was staging a magazine photo shoot in a 1910 farmhouse, and needed props for the shoot.  While she was gathering her produce, another woman, unusually dressed, came into the barn.  This unusual woman would wander through the produce displays, admiring the tomatoes, the beets.  She would beam at the carrots.  She would pick out a handful of beans, take them to the counter, ask about them, compliment how lovely they were and then return them. Then she'd pick up a small bag of potatoes, take them to the counter, ask about them, compliment how lovely they were, and then return them.  Finally, she asked about the okra that was growing by the barn.  "It's out of season," the farm stand clerk said.  "if you want to pick some yourself, you can have whatever you can pick, no charge."  So outside she went, to pick her own okra, leaving behind the beans, the potatoes, the expensive beets...  

As the woman from the photo shoot was checking out, she stopped to look back through the barn doors.  "Wait," she said, and went back through the aisles again, picking out a handful of beans, a small bag of potatoes, and some beets and carrots.  She told the clerk, "Add these to my bill, too."  The clerk started to wrap them up with the other photo shoot produce.  "No, these are for the woman outside," she said, "But don't tell her I bought them. Please just be sure to give them to her.  After I'm gone," she added.

it was a selfless act of reaching out - of giving - regardless.  It was a wonderful thing to witness.

So, for this week, Thanksgiving is almost upon us.  

And this Thanksgiving, I want to share with you, that in the last few weeks, I have been moved to tears more than once.

I have been moved to tears by people that have stopped, and looked at me.  

Seen me.

And realized.  

And then they have asked.

"What are you doing for Thanksgiving?" 

And then added, "Come with me on Thanksgiving."

They have looked beyond the quilting.  They have looked beyond the neighbor.  They have looked beyond the busy.  They have looked beyond the every day.  And Seen Me.  Just me.  Only me.

And then they have said, "Come with me - come be a part of my family.  We have room enough.  We have enough for you too."

What a way to find out who your true friends are.  Really.  

And like the woman picking okra in the field, sometimes what you find is that it is the most unlikely of persons that reaches out to you.  That sees you.  That realizes.  

This Thanksgiving, I would ask each and every one of you to be that stranger that buys someone those admirable potatoes.  

Be that person that looks at another and really sees them.  

Be mindful of others' needs.  

Thread a needle for a friend.  

Sew on a binding for another. 

Step out of yourself.

Open your home to someone this season.  

Open your heart to someone this season.

Because you just might move someone to tears with your compassion, your kindness, your selflessness.

And you just might get so much more in return by doing so.

This year, when I count my blessings on Thanksgiving, I will count you.

Thank you, my friends.

Natalie.

be.do.create

2008

 

 

creativity is messy

Someone recently asked me how I create.

I am a quilter, and  I had fabric spread across the worktable.

How do I create.

Hmmm.

So I responded quickly - looking down at the fabrics we had chosen - two different themes of fabrics,

"It's messy," I replied.

And then, before I sat to compose this entry, I realized, 

ART IS MESSY.

All art is messy.  Painting.  Ceramics.  Sculpture.  Collage.  Performance Art.

As designers (of anything, I believe) we need a lot, we have to pull a lot, we have unlimited choices of whatever it is we're doing - working in.  And we want to see it all, consider it all, try it all, and throw half of it out (or maybe more than half some days).

And in return, life is messy.  Our friendships are messy.  There are so many choices out there.  Who do we invite in?  What do we keep, what do we set free, or set aside for another part of our life?  How do we create a life? Life IS a blank canvas.  I think, if you have been reading along, you will know, I do morning sunrise prayers and evening meditations.  Every morning I ask, I plead, I call upon the Great (for me, God, for you, your choice), "Show me what it is that you would have me do today."  A blank canvas.  Every day.  Or as my yoga instructor says, "Begin again".  Except he might say it three or four or eight times in an hour and a half class.  BEGIN AGAIN.  Create again.  Messy.  And maybe, in life, we're really looking for someone that we can 'be messy' with. A safe place.  Like Creating.  Art.  (oh, yea, where were we....)

And so in this very short blog about, probably, you will say, not so much about quilting (however, I would say, read it again...) quilting is messy.  art is messy.  creating is messy.  life is messy.

How fine to be creative.  Messy is good.

be.do.create

2008

Thanks for thinking of

b e y o n d   t h e   r e e f

Natalie

natalie@beyondthereefpatterns.com

www.beyondthereefpatterns.com

"Don't grieve. Anything you loose..."

"Don't grieve.

Anything you loose

comes round in another form."

Rumi

It is a difficult task to Trust in the Universe.  God.  Faith.  Whatever you like.

It is a difficult task.

Some people do it with more ease than others.  Me, I practice.

Take the creative process of art, as an example

My table is a mess with fabrics, pieces cut, tissue overlays, enlargements, sketches, photographs, scraps of - well, my mind, as the case may be.  I am working on a series of landscapes of Hawaii.  One wonders if it will come together at all, or if it will all be lost.  

Faith.

Take the creative process of shaping one's body, as another example.

I took a yoga class from a great teacher yesterday.  She said something that really hit me - we were all in a new pose, and she instructed us to keep breathing.  

She said if we lost our breath, that PANIC would start to well up in side of us, and our pose would be lost.  Panic. Can you imagine?

Trust.

Take the creative process of Love.  Friendship.  Of lives entwined.  Another quote comes to mind, 

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."  Rumi

Can we loose friendship?  Love?  Lives entwined?  Dogs, are a great example of what we should have the greatest faith in...When we are apart from a dog, we miss them terribly.  Grieve their purehappy presence.  But when they see us again, it is like anew for them.  Brand new sparkling, pure, gleefully joyful tail wagging, giggling all over love.  Sooooo happy to see you again.  They do not forget.  That feeling they have IS forever.  Hold on to that.

And believe that softening, letting something go, breathing into something, does not mean that it is gone. 

You can trust that some things ARE forever.

That they can be.

Today, in this posting, I hope for you the pulse of the Universe, God, Faith, Breathe.

Maybe it is more passive than I believe it to be To Be.  Be.

be.do.create

2008

Thanks for thinking of 

b e y o n d   t h e   r e e f

Natalie.

natalie@beyondthereefpatterns.com

www.beyondthereefpatterns.com

www.beyondthereefpatterns.blogspot.com

Road to California - the gift of friendship

Road to California is a California Quilt Show.  Quilts are juried in to be exhibited and vendors are juried in to be a 'show shop' during the show.  There are classes and hotel rooms and restaurants, and taxis and airplanes and all the things needed to get this many people into one place for one thing. 

Quilting.

beyond the reef is pleased to be chosen as a vendor for this show.  We are happy.  Playful.  Joyful.  But I am a sole proprietor and you notice I use the word 'we'.

I must take a moment to thank my customers.  Who come and stand in the aisle and smile, looking at my new set and the booth.  Or comment on the new layout.  I must take a moment to thank my suppliers.  Who greet me once or twice a year as a friend, but who make, pack and ship their fabulous things to me in time to bring them to you.  Who make the bamboo batting - who bring us Amy Butler's new fragrance Sola.  Who year after year come up with great ideas for our industry.  

And I must take a moment to thank my friends - Suzanne who leaves her home in Arizona to come be a part of my home for a while.  Lisa, who cuts straight, folds well and is always of good counsel.  Jill, who made this - the largest show in southern california - her first quilt show.  John who drafted for moondoggie & gidget and who loaded bins and boxes.  Patrick who continues to push chain.  Jeff for my little red wagon, for the painting, and for the loading.  Greg, for his incredible talent, and for sharing it with me.  I am the sum of all of their parts, and I thank them for that.  

Recognize the gift of friendship - of sharing between each other.

And smile.

With our friends, we truly can be. do. create.

Thanks for thinking of 

b e y o n d   t h e   r e e f

Natalie.