Friday, July 20, 2012

A story sometimes creates a story

Stories have a way of creating a story.  Take last years bummer summer.  I got launched off my boat, broke my wrist on my right hand, had surgery, broke my pinkie finger on my left hand, still hurts and had a black eye for 6 weeks! which led to my husband, hanging himself up in a hemlock after cutting sections of it down, with me, 3 weeks after my surgery, cutting the rope which dangled from my husbands wrist with a  5' section of the tree attached, heavy, getting hit by the section of the tree, which flipped me behind the ladder, both of us hanging by our limbs!  Now it is fodder for my Selvedge Queen talk that has been very rewarding and I get paid to talk about myself for 1 Hour!!?

Now, I talk about past stories of my ever evolving life and one includes a story about a talk while talking about one of my stories.  Whew! I did a talk and a lady in the front took offense to everyone laughing at my garments during my Runway Show.  She came onto the podium, told the audience they were rude and to take me seriously.  The problem was I am a comedic quilter and the coat the model was wearing had a tail on it!  How serious is that?  Not!  Then she took the wireless microphone, clipped it to my shirt, picked up my Selvedge Queen vest and grabbed my pants elastic waistband and shoved the mics battery down my pants and then sat down.  I had a quilt in my hands, a very silent audience that needed to laugh for me to be successful, so I opened the quilt.  It was a Challenge that Material Girls Quilt Guild had sponsored over the summer where we had to use the first 3 letters of our name, Jessica, so JES.  I did not want to even talk about this quilt after what had just happened and did not want to alienate the group but JES stands for, "Just Everyone Shutup"!  You can imagine my thoughts and the never ending shock on the faces in front of me as I stood on the raised platform and then one brave women in the front asked, "DID you 2 coordinate this?".  Shocked, I said no but it was bad timing already having that quilt in my hands but the group rallied on and were a great sport!

A story that creates a story.  Isn't that what we should try to show in our quilts.  A lot of my talk to groups is about imagining what you could do and just do it, personal experience shows in every quilt we create,  garment  or accessory we create.  It delivers a piece yourself every time you show it!  That's the best part of sewing as I can show people, yet keep something of myself behind.

Please think of me when booking your events.  I will be adding another lecture, a Slide Presentation as my children have bought me a projector. Also I will be adding a  Power Point Presentation for those places that are computer compatible.

No more bummer summer and hope your is great!

Cruising
Jessica