When the quilting community where is you live is so small, it makes it worth your while to take the extra effort to make real connections happen. I think that it's safe to say, that the majority of my quilting friends and connections have come via the Internet. The even more exciting part of that, is that I've had the opportunity to turn many of those online connections to real life ones.
I have actually followed Rachel's blog, Stitched in Color for quite some time now... falling into the all too common "silent reader" category, and only later on Instagram commenting back and forth more frequently. Since she has recently moved to Europe, we now have the commonality of both being American expats. I have to admit, that I am really glad that I have some of those challenges of living in a foreign country already behind me. Each step was a process, and I know exactly what she is going through having made the brave leap.
Recently my husband and I traveled to the Netherlands for our anniversary. In the days before our trip, it dawned on me that Rachel could be somewhere close by... when I googled it, I realized it was only about an hour from where we were staying!?!
Since I had been mulling it over in my mind for months to send her one of my quilts, I decided that our travels would take us too close to not see if an in-person hand over would be possible (how awesome is that, that your husband takes a detour to listen to you "talk shop" on your anniversary trip?!?)
I found her to be very warm and pleasant, exactly as she comes across on her blog. I got the feeling that she really cared about the quilting that she was doing... especially since she knew that this was to be a very personal quilt, and planned to be used frequently in our living room!
Needless to say, I am super over the top excited about how the quilt turned out. Since I am more into organic and natural shapes, the plumage design was my first pick. I had the idea to make the design a bit bigger to give it a more modern feel. It was actually very helpful for me to talk it over in person, not to mention that we had some other fun quilty conversations too.
Welcome to this small, but open quilting community here... you might have to dig deep to find them, but when you do, you'll find that they are gold!
... and if you happen to be in Europe, Rachel is offering a €20 discount on her quilting services this week! Just use the code: jumpstart.
My favorite time of the year in Germany has to be April/May... it's when the grey veil finally rolls back, vibrant touches of spring flowers have ushered in the season, and fields of gold are to be seen everywhere you look.The golden canola blooms bring with it the beginning of the best meal that you can find in Germany... Spargel! (white asparagus.. read more about it here)
Living in the country means that such color delights for the eye are just at your back door... literally. I told my husband last week that this field, just a mere matter of steps from our house, is too perfect to pass up the opportunity for a background for a photo shoot. And what could make that field any lovelier, but a quilt in front of it... or is it the other way around that the sprawling blanket of gold is what makes the quilt lovelier?
In any case, Nadelwelt is this week, and in spite of the fact that I've been considerably absent, I wanted to share this quilt top that I finished a while back... perhaps more than that, I just wanted to share the view from my sewing room.
If you are even just a tiny bit involved in the quilting scene, then like me, you wait for the "big" quilting events like Quilt Market and Quiltcon to come around. During the event you scour the internet like a hungry lion for little sneak peeks and glimpses, and think to yourself... "oh, how I wish I was there."
It was more than a year ago that I started planning that I wanted to go to Quiltcon 2019... it fit perfectly - my cousin is in Nashville, and my family on the East Coast! But when the time to register came around, I was half way around the world on vacation, and missed my window of opportunity.
So I did what any good quilter would do... indulged myself in a consolation prize. Had I gone to Quiltcon, I would have signed up for a class with Victoria Findlay Wolfe. I immediately fell in love with her Cascade quilt from her Modern Quilt Magic book... but since I won't be Nashville bound, then I decided that her book, acrylic template, and a couple of her fabrics would be a good way to console myself for being a day late and a dollar short.
Over four weeks of idle fingers is somehow the perfect storm situation for starting a new project... just gotta cut into those newly acquired bought-while-on-vacation-fabrics. But the biggest twist in the story is that before I knew it, I had a finished top on my hands that came together faster than I could post about it. How did that happen... especially since this is curved piecing?!?
Now I've got a self imposed deadline, so this might be finished sooner rather than later. Well, keep your fingers crossed... make no promises, tell no lies, right? Do you have any come-together-faster-than-you-can-blink projects to share?
