Mary Lou Weidman–2 Days of Creativity

It’s Sunday morning, I’m sitting in my living room, drinking a cup of coffee and reflecting back on the last 4 days.  Wednesday, Marilyn and I packed the car with all our “stuff” and headed to Ontario, CA for the Road to California  Quilt Show.  We managed to stop at 4 quilt shops along the way before meeting up with 4 of our friends to start our annual trip.  

Thursday morning, bright and early, Marilyn and I headed over to the convention center to begin a 2 day class with Mary Lou Weidman.   The class we took was Story Quilts.  If you don’t know Mary Lou, you are really missing out.  She is absolutely delightful, full of energy and a true inspiration.  Her style is very folk art, whimsical and humorous and tells a story. 

Typically Mary Lou teaches this class as a 5 day workshop so this was a  2 day snapshot.  The first day was spent working on our borders, making  Hoochy Mama Blocks.   We then moved on to start planning our own stories.  This is the part I have the most difficulty with.  I have my story and I now have to work on actually drawing it out so that I can continue the process. 

Here’s several pictures of some of Mary Lou’s quilts and a picture of some of my Hoochy Mama blocks.

I’m not thrilled with my blocks although I love Wonky blocks.  After looking at many of Mary Lou’s quilts, I’ve decided to make my border out of Wonky log cabin blocks.  I have my “Story” thought out and have some tentative ideas on how to lay it out on a quilt but this is clearly a long term project.  For now I’ll start working on the border blocks and continue to work on what exactly will go on the quilt. 

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about Saturday’s class with Bonnie Hunter. 

Enjoy,