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Distractions
Dear Esteemed Happy Members of the SHQA. Welcome to the first ever SHQA Blog.
I’ve decided to entitle this as ‘Distractions’ because I certainly have had quite a few lately!
The first week in December, I had right eye cataract surgery and then the first week in January I had my left eye done, and well that was a huge distraction. Coping with having 1 eye done, and 1 still to be done was a lot, and at times my brain could not cope, but I got there and then when I had my left eye done, the difference in my eye sight was just amazing. I must admit that I was incredibly distracted in my thoughts about the impending operations but all went well and I am very happy it’s been done. Although apparently as I’m a brown eyed person, my eye drops carried on past the usual time scale as brown eyes take longer to heal (that’s a fun fact)
However, during my surgery and recovery it got me thinking about how valuable eye sight is and I started to wonder how we can bring the mindfulness of quilting to the partially blind, blind or even people who are colour blind, so I’ve started investigating this, I will keep you updated on that, because this distraction lead me to feel the fabric more and appreciate the warmth and coziness of a handmade quilt. Wouldn’t it be amazing to share that and welcome more Happy Members, who live with a form of blindness?
My next distraction has been an incident that happened to myself and a colleague early this year. Sometimes things happen in life that you are really not expecting, you go into a meeting or an event thinking it is going to go a certain way and then it completely changes on a turn of a penny, and it appears to be done to try and take the wind out of your sails, and knock you from the path you have been working so hard to create. I must admit that for a few weeks, my sails had great big holes in them, but with the love of family, support of good friends and the valued advice of comrades, those sails are fully stitched back up and happily sailing in a much better direction.
Then I’ve had a huge distraction of my wonderful American friend Laurie who came over to stay with us so she could come to my 50th birthday party. Laurie is not a quilter nor even sews, my daughter and I know her from another one of our hobbies and loves which is Dolls. I was completed honoured that Laurie would want to come all the way from Arizona for my celebrations. Whilst she was here, I gave Laurie a good tour of Sussex, showing her the usual sights of Eastbourne, Seaford, Brighton, Lewes and even taking her over to the Isle of Wight. Laurie said my knowledge of Sussex was ‘awesome’ and ‘phenomenal’ and that I should be a tour guide! How funny I thought, I never realised I knew so much about our lovely County of Sussex. I must admit I did feel like I was taking her on an excursion with all the stops we did along the way for photo opportunities
Laurie was very funny though because in my party invitation I asked for just 1 x fat quarter so I could put everyone’s fabric together and create a beautiful quilt from it, and Laurie said to me ‘surely you don’t just want a small piece of fabric for your 50th do you?’ oh dear she really doesn’t know a quilter does she! Ha ha
And of course, my actual 50th Birthday, it was literally amazing, I had the best party every with 40 truly wonderful and very special female friends, we all just had the best day ever. I thought you would all like to see my birthday cake, it was designed with a bit of a nod to my 12 years as a florist, with the flowers which I made, and then the patchwork as a nod to my love of all things patchwork and quilting now. With the help of a few quilting friends, we also made 300 patchwork butterflies which were around the room. Can you spot the single patchwork butterfly on the cake?
So how has my ‘distractions’ affected my progress with the Bridgerton quilt I’m making, which you might of heard about before? oh, dear well yes that’s been distracted as well, I have made a few more blocks and I did dig out the Blue ribboned Bridgerton Liberty fabric as this is going to now be my backup, I will soon start to cut up this beautiful fabric to create the blue background blocks.
But I really did get distracted in that, if you know me well, you know that I always have a Lucy Boston’s Patchwork of Crosses quilt on the go, so it got me thinking I wonder what would happen if Lucy Boston stepped into Bridgerton? and what that quilt would look like, so straight after thinking this, I got out my Liberty Bridgerton scraps so far and some Hexiform honeycombs (made by Ashmead Designs go google that amazing company) and set about making a block, and I absolutely love it, so I’m now going to be making my ‘Lucy meets Bridgerton’ quilt along side.
I was also recently hugely distracted by a very stunning quilt that I saw at the Downland Quilters Quilt Show, which was run alongside the Doughty's Roadshow in Peacehaven. The quilt that I saw was all fussy cut, and I did think ‘wow so stunning’ I don’t usually do or like fussy cutting as I think it wastes too much precious fabric, but I realised that actually I have been doing some very small bits of fussy cutting on my Bridgerton Quilt because I’ve been purposely been leaving words in from the bottom part of the fabric. Like Tana, Italy, Lawn, Liberty. Its going to be very interesting to see how the quilt comes out with the words from the make of the fabric subtly spread throughout. I ll keep you all updated on how both handmade quilts are coming along.
My final recent distraction is that I’ve recently returned from Quilt Con in Phoenix Arizona, which was the most amazing distraction ever. I am going to give you a full run down of my whole trip in a separate blog, but just as little teaser here’s a photo of the truly well-deserved best in show.
So, whenever you feel too distracted from everything going on around you, then like me recently, find a nice cosy welcoming home with a good friend inside, just like these amazing house quilt blocks and step on in!
Yours Truely,
Rachel D'Ambrosio, CEO/Founder of The Sew Happy Quilters Association
