Anniversaries and Catching-Up

For the past ten years, my husband and I have celebrated our wedding anniversary with a motorcycle trip. Last year it was just a day out of the house, but this year we wanted to do a three-day trip to Prince Edward County. Unfortunately, the inn where we wanted to stay was booked the weekend of the anniversary and we had to postpone it until September. Luckily, last weekend turned out to be the best weather weekend for motorcycle riding this summer. Travelling through the old country roads along Lake Ontario felt so...normal. Or at least the old normal. And we are praying that with our high vaccination rates and staggered openings, it might also be what the future holds.

Not only was it my wedding anniversary but it also is the one-year anniversary of Karen’s Quilt Circle. In the past year, I have had the joy and privilege of interviewing quilters from around the world. Quilting has such a broad umbrella of skills. Every one of us can niche down into the area we enjoy the most but still be part of the bigger community.

Lara Motta of Make Modern is my 24th guest on the show, and our interview is now available on YouTube. And she has a bonus $1 issue for all my subscribers. Which you can find by clicking here. And I can't wait for you to meet all the quilters I have lined up for next year. If you want to catch up on all the interviews (or rewatch your favourites), here's a link to the KQC Playlist.

And I also did my 10th Stashbuster video this past week. In order for a pattern to be a Stashbuster - for me - it must be fast, easy, fat quarter friendly with little or no scraps left over at the end. For this Stashbuster, I challenged myself to make it with my travel sewing kit. I did use my medium-sized cutting board and my larger ironing mat which both fit into my Small Sewing Space Rack but the rest of the tools all came from my kit including the thread.

I had one of those middle-of-night lightbulb ideas a couple of months ago and realized that I should have a colouring page for all my Stashbusters. PreQuilt generously helped me out in making it happen. So now, not only do you see it my way, but you can now experiment with colour layouts before you cut. For easy access, I also redesigned my Stashbuster page on my website. You can download the pattern, access the colouring page and watch the video all from the same spot. You can click here to check it out!

This is also the 4th anniversary of my decision to take on Youtube full-time. Previously, I had made some instructional videos for my guild but I changed directions with 5 Beginner Mistakes. I decided to take on the challenges that all quilters have when they start and more importantly the challenges they have in the first 5 years. I thought I would be lucky to have 100k subscribers and last week I hit 270k. I love the support quilters give in the comments, both to me and to other quilters.

For those that want a bit more access to me, I’m having the first meeting of Karen’s Quilt Crew this Tuesday. It's our first one, and I'll be asking my members how they would like meetings going forward. If you'd like to join in on the fun, you can click here to sign up and become a member. (Please note that this is a monthly subscription). Take care, and I hope to see the Crew tomorrow!