Your Story Begins at Home

Welcome to the Story party! I was so excited when Carrie (Bloomston, of Such Designs) asked me to make a project inspired by her new line for Windham Fabrics, Story, and I'm even more excited to be sharing it with you today. It turns out this quilt took on quite a story of its own. First, though, a bit about the fabric line.

From Carrie's post: "Story is about community, connection and the essentials of life: home, family, love, garden, nature, stars, moon, sun, animals, friends. In Story, you’ll find archetypal building blocks of your personal narrative. What is your story? Tell us. Share it. Add to it. Make it yours. When we share ourselves with the world, we become whole."

Not only did Carrie ask me to make a quilt with this beautiful line, but she invited it to be featured in her lookbook to help showcase the line. To be included, the quilt had to be back to Carrie in time for the photoshoot. I quickly sketched out my design and set myself a (very aggressive) timeline to get the quilt made and off to be longarm quilted in time to send back to Carrie before leaving for a 2.5 week business trip to Australia. It was going to be tight, but I was certain I could do it.

With a fabric line so chock full of stories, I immediately knew that I wanted to make a sea of houses and build a patchwork town or city. Made from two very simple shapes -- rectangles and flying geese -- the quilt is abstract enough for anyone to inject stories of their own into this little patchwork town. I absolutely loved making it.

Well, towards the end of construction, I was really down to the wire. The quilt top was (of course) taking longer to complete than I was anticipating, and the Saturday night before my business trip I settled down for a long night of sewing. As long as I got it to Mark and Suzan at Singing Stitches to work their quilting magic on Sunday, I could keep to my schedule.

But at around 11PM I started having some pretty severe back pain. I've had back pain before, but this was like nothing I had ever felt before. And no matter how I moved or sat, there was no relief. To make a long story short, I ended up driving myself to the emergency room at 4AM to learn that I was experiencing my very first bout with kidney stones. It was NO FUN.

Aside from the physical pain of the ordeal, there was no way I was getting the quilt done before leaving for Australia. I had to let Mark and Suzan know that I wouldn't be bringing them the quilt the next day. And I had to let Carrie know that the quilt would not be ready in time to be included in the lookbook photoshoot. I was really heartbroken, but also excited to complete the quilt once I was home without the stress and discomfort that I was beginning to associate with it.

And so I present "Your Story Begins at Home". Like life, the story is both about the good and the bad. Though the story of this quilt so far has had more downs than ups, I am sure that will change as it makes its way to Quilt Market and does its part to showcase Carrie's beautiful new fabric line. And once it's home, we'll be sure this quilt is well used and well loved.



Be sure to check out all of the amazing Story projects, posted by your party hosts:

April 13th - Tia Curtis, Brooke Sellman, Jill McNamara

April 14th - Shea Henderson, Giuseppe Ribaudo, Jenny Kelly, John Q. Adams

April 15th - Verena Ehrhardt, Karen LePage, Rachel Gander, Sally Keller, Cristy Fincher

April 16th - Jules Goldin, Amie Petronis Plumley, Bonnie Bobman,

April 17th - Daniar Listyasari, Kerry Green, Ramona Burke, Kerry Goulder