Jun 6, 2014

Spreading Peace and Prayer Flag Love!


http://www.with-heart-and-hands.com/2014/06/spreading-peace-and-prayer-flag-love.html


I have been having so much fun with my love of creating my peace and prayer flags. But even more fun with all of my volunteer efforts to inspire others to make their own and pay if forward by sharing with others!

This week I was invited by Anne Gilbert Walton  to share the history of Prayer Flags with a wonderful group of women from our Mid-Valley Quilt Guild where Anne hosts art quilting get togethers at her  Zena Learning Center

Inspired by the beautiful Zena Springs Farm located in West Salem in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, Anne has created a learning center for young and old, alike, as she shares her teaching gifts and her beautiful 160 acre family farm with others. From home schoolers, and creative art projects to Willamette University students studying her farm and forest eco-system, it is a beehive of creative learning and fun.

We were greeted by a flock of chickens, two wonderful dogs, and owner/instructor Anne Gilbert Walton  and her co-teaching/artist-in-residence, Marnie Jeffers.

While most of the art quilting group had been together for several years, we were joined by several brand new visitors so it was wonderful to greet some of the ladies that I had previously met at the  Mid-Valley Quilt Guild and meet others who were invited by friends to join in. 

Zena Learning Center co-teacher, Marnie is a talented artist who spent several decades with some high powered greeting card and other art distribution groups, but she hadn't sewn in a while.  And this is exactly where this kind of project can be so much fun in jump starting not only sewing but the beginning elements of art quilting, as well.

Making peaceful prayer flags was just perfect for her  and as she created a prayer flag for her son, currently serving our country as a logistics coordinator in Afgh*anist*n using her own creative talent and her grandmother's sewing machine, her sewing joined the hum of a dozen plus others in our group.  

We had other wonderful quilters and art quilters and we filled the classroom to the brim, and still had spaces if we'd needed them, for more!  I talked (those who read here already can imagine just how much I love to share!) and shared my history and how it all tied in with my own focus on the making of art quilts transforming into my passion for creating prayer flags.

The melodic humming of sewists and artists at work was joined in by the inquisitive cackling of three chickens as they climbed up the steps and came in to check out the hen party inside! I was instantly reminded of my own experience with my three adult chickens in my post

Seriously?

 on chicken dinner not meaning chickens in the dining room. I think Anne's girls just knew that I'm a chicken lover. After all, right  now, I have.....

Edith, Dorothy, and Little Nell

in my dining room as deliberately invited house guests awaiting their growth into outside chickens instead of inside pampered pets!

Cats and quilts go together, dogs and quilts go together. But you should have seen me auditioning 4 quilts just for a bin warmer for my little chicks! And now, I know...Prayer Flags and Chickens go together (apparently!) as well!!!

Art Quilters and new friends! Thank you all for being so warm and welcoming, providing such a fabulous lunch,and great, great fun! I enjoyed teaching my Peace and Prayer Flags class and sharing with all of you! Thank You, Anne Walton for creating this beautiful and creative space in the rolling hills of family farms and vineyards.  

We all had such great, great fun!



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Michele Bilyeu blogs With Heart and Hands as she shares a quilting journey through her life in Salem, Oregon and Douglas, Alaska. Sewing, quilting, and wildcrafting, with small format art quilts, prayer flags, and comfort quilts for a variety of charitable programs. And best of all, sharing thousands of links to Free Quilt and Quilt Block Patterns and encouraging others to join her and make and donate quilts to charitable causes.   Help us change the world, one little quilt, art quilt, and prayer flag at a time!

1 comment:

Clare said...

Chickens and quilts? Whatever are you going to get up to next? xx