Hello all, Mary Ellen here.

Beautiful morning today. It’s the first morning in a long while when I did not need a hat or gloves while dog walking. Sun’s out, I spotted lots of tulip and daffodils peaking through the soil. Even saw a few snow drops opening up. Definitely teasers that spring is coming.

Once again I’ve got some unrelated links for you.

fun stuff for quilters, great T-shirts: click here

I can relate, but I’m working on it: click here

Just finished listening to one of the free QuiltCon lectures over at Craftsy. Because I subscribe to Mary Fons’ blog I got a nudge to go listen to her lecture, billed as one from a member of a Quilt Mafia family. I think she was truly great! Mary spoke for about 45 minutes, with very few visuals, and kept my attention the entire time. She is very eloquent on a topic about which she is passionate. You may be surprised at some of what she shared (she did not sew until she was 27 years old), and what she says about the future of the quilt industry. She makes some very valid points about the beginner quilter–how the beginner now is very different from the beginner of 20 years ago (when many of us in our guild started to quilt). I took some of it to heart as a quilt teacher myself. Points were made that never had occurred to me before. Lots of food for thought, and perhaps some points we should consider for the future of our guild. Where do we, the active guild members, want to see our guild going in the years to come? Hmmm…

I gave a lecture myself yesterday and spoke just briefing about designing your own quilt– Taking my class and not ending up with a quilt just like mine. Scary for some new quilters and exciting for others. The expressions on faces as I looked out to the ladies listening were varied. But I do think many of them want to make THEIR quilt, not MY quilt. So here’s to Mary Fons who pointed that out, and I promise to try to help make that happen.