As this year began and my husband died, I wasn’t sure I could muster my creative spirit to sew. Sewing brings me such joy and is such a special outlet for my creativity. I wasn’t feeling a lot of joy and even the beautiful fabrics (well over 500!) in my studio couldn’t lift my spirits. But 4 weeks of making masks…I made about 350…for my community, made me remember what sewing and making art quilts means to me.
I had a few inquiries about custom quilts early in January and I apologized but just couldn’t accept the orders. By February and March I was rethinking my life plans and quilting plans and started accepting custom orders. I’ve been making and selling art quilts since 2012 but never in those last 8 years have I had SOOOOO many requests for customs! I think my list has 7 at this point. This is so many, often big quilts which take a few weeks each, that I’m not even asking for the down payment at time of order. I promise to get back in touch with customers about two weeks before I will start on their quilt for us to finalize their order.
In some ways, making customs instead of challenging my creativity on new designs has been a good segue back into sewing. Sometimes between customs I may sneak in one of my own creations but my Etsy shop is still looking a little light on inventory.
Here are photos my first two customs made in 2020. The Tree custom was 34″W x 42″H and a bit tricky so as not to get the trees too tall and linear in the design. The sun quilt was a 3′ x 4′ enlargement of one of my small 1’square quilt. Right now I’m working on a custom in predominately reds and greens. I’ll be writing another blog in a week or so on this quilt. I’ve never combined reds and greens without Christmas being the focus!
I’m going to try to get back on a schedule for blog posts.
Have a great day!