One ringers

I am thankful for my many friends. So many of you have given me support and inspiration.  I appreciate your wonderful blogs, Facebook posts, emails, and calls.

During my mom and dad's fifty year marriage, they went to Marriage Encounter.  This was a Christian program designed to make good marriages better.  One of the things they heard about was the "one-ringer."  Friends would encourage each other by calling on the phone and letting it ring once to let the person receiving the call know they were in the caller's thoughts and prayers.  Over the months following Marriage Encounter, there were lots of one ringers at our house.  Sure, it was corny.  And it really was kind of annoying at times. But it was kind of up-lifting too.  And during those times when I was down, it was kind of like a ray of sunshine to be at my parent's house and hear a one-ringer.

Life isn't easy.  Neither is quilting. It isn't easy when you are trying to take cloth and thread and dyes and batting and make it say what is in your heart and soul. There are lots of lonely hours. And lots of doubts. Quilter friends understand this about each other's work. Like some of you, I have chosen the very difficult path of putting my work in quilt shows to be judged. Of the awards that I have won nothing compares to the Viewer's Choice award. This award for me is like a whole bunch of one ringers coming in all at once. I cannot tell you how much I have appreciated them.

A solitary pursuit - Stitch by stitch

                                                                



Dear friends, please keep writing and posting on Facebook and emailing..........and maybe give me a one ringer once in awhile.  And I will do the same.  Just to let you know I am thinking about you too.

Poppy's Rainbow debuts later this year.  After spending hundreds......no thousands of hours on it, I don't know how it will do.  To my friend Beth Anderson, I say thanks so much for your visit to my house and studio last week.  Thanks for saying Poppy's Rainbow is beautiful and unlike anything I have ever done before. I don't know if it is any good.  I don't know if it is beautiful.  But I have sewed my soul into that quilt. I have told my dad, my kids' Poppy, that I loved him and that I honor his memory by making that quilt.

My dad and mom, Jack (Poppy) and Marti Sherman, dune buggying in Anza Borrega desert, California, 1985

Thanks Beth for the one ringer of your visit. It made my whole week. And thanks for the beautiful vase you gave me. Even though you were already a fantastic quilter, you have also become quite an artist with your pottery.  The shape and glazes are so beautiful. It has a place of my honor with my other prized possessions in my china cabinet.  It never ceases to amaze me how many talents my quilting friends have in other creative pursuits.

Beth Anderson's beautiful pottery

 Mark
www.remarkablequilts.com