Like me and many of my quilt friends, colleagues, non-quilt friends and family, we have all been effected by Covid 19 in 2020. Yeah, it's sad and heck.... just about everyone in my circle personally, professionally and wider has been effected in some manner or another and I will never make light of its seriousness nor its impact. However, I will say with complete honesty, that personally, I have felt its hit wholeheartedly from a personal to a business standpoint. But once I got beyond the "feel bad for me" moments, that's when I refused let it beat me down. Instead, I have committed myself to try and remain as positive as I possibly can. Now that doesn't mean I don't have days where I don't feel blue. And I am certain many of you understand what I mean...emotionally speaking of course. The only encouragement I can offer, is to wake up and to start each new day...as positive, and as hopeful and as grateful as you possibly can and to let the chips fall where they may.
This being said, I have spent the last 5 months seriously contemplating the online teaching platform. Many of you know that I am a fairly new teacher to the quilt industry. Recently, I invested some serious money and time, into equipment, into courses and other forms of training to figure out this new way of teaching because at the time, it seemed to be the right thing to do. And hands down, I know I could do it. But to be perfectly honest, this is not my desired path. This may let many of my quilt fans down and to each of you I am sincerely sorry. But we as professionals, have to seriously evaluate what makes us thrive, what makes us happy, what makes us want to put all of our efforts forth to teach and guess what? for me, it's not online teaching. What makes me the most fulfilled at this point in my life, is teaching in person. I long for interaction, enthusiasm, questions and (yes, even challenges). Teaching online does not offer the same fulfillment (for me) as teaching in person does. So I decided to hold out. I will still do my FB live presentations for Janome as a contributing maker but I do not plan to teach mosaic quilting in an online format at this time. However, once people start gathering again (and they will) because this is human nature...I will be out on the teaching circuit again.
Now onto my latest Moroccan quilt design. I am calling this quilt "Tropical Vibrations". It all started with a color palette. Perhaps, I was feeling warm tropical vibes. Yup! I definitely was!
Then off I went into taking one of my newest hand drawn Moroccan mosaic designs and loading it up with warm soothing colors.
Once my digital design was drawn and colored, I could began the process of choosing fabrics and cutting my design (the pieces were cut using a digital cutter). But quickly, I realized I was going off into the blues (which I adore) but that's not where I wanted this design to end up. So, do you see those gorgeous, electric blue pieces? those are the ones that needed to be swapped out for a teal/green color.
Now, I was more on track with my original design and once I laid these cut pieces, I was extremely happy that I pulled the blues out and put in the teal greens.
All that is left at this point is to quilt this 30" x 30" up! I will use a random, meandering quilt stitch and my favorite threads. What's left to decide at this point...because it just crosses my personal border...is if I will choose to quilt it on my domestic sewing machine or long arm. Since the quilt is on the medium size, both are a viable option, it really is just a matter of personal preference.
Stay tuned on my social media sites (under Heidi Proffetty) because once I get started quilting, I will be sharing more in progress photos. By the way, this quilt has only 674 mosaic pieces and is definitely doable to fully complete in two weeks time. Maybe just maybe... I should release a pattern as a kit? Let me know in comments what you think?
Onto quilt friends, oh boy! I could never truthfully know where to begin on this subject matter, because good lord, I know a ton of talented quilt professionals and friends. I have made so many quilt friends in just the few short years that I have been professionally quilting. But for this blog, I have chosen to share about one of my newest friends Sherry Rogers-Harrison. I was in need of some specific quilt help and she very kindly provided support. Do you all know of her? If not, you should! Here is one of her beautiful quilts. Just look her quilting and painting to it's ever most details. Ooh la la! which I love! Find out more about Sherry Rogers-Harrison at www.sewfarsogood.org
Cheers,
Heidi