Talent all over the place

If you've been following my posts here and on Facebook, you already know that I'm really excited about my new project, Quilting Celebrations, which will be on newsstands in September. We've been working on the projects and enjoying the entire process (which, just for the record, is a process!). Much of the reason for that is the group of people who have become a part of it by spending time with us quilting up a storm to complete the projects I've designed.

I could make and quilt them myself or enlist the talents of quilting peers all over the world to help me finish them in time for the deadline but that's not what Quilting Celebrations is about. What we've chosen to do is get together with quilting friends and, as we do every month with Party with Patrick, work on the projects together. One of my favorite quilting clans is in Boulder City, NV, and we spend "work weekends" at the Boulder Dam Hotel there cranking out my latest designs.

If you're a quilter and go to retreats or day classes, you know how much fun it is to have the company of fellow creative-types and spend the time quilting, grazing on snacks and laughing. These friends have become very dear to me and I feel privileged to have their help. Groups of like-minded quilters exist everywhere and you're missing out if you're not a part of one. I have some photos of the gang I wanted to post here but realized that the projects show up in most of them and I can't show those to you yet :(

Just when I was counting my blessings over these friends, I had the good fortune to meet another extremely talented quilter. I had a great time this past Tuesday night speaking to the Night Owls Chapter of the Arizona Quilter's Guild. What a fun bunch of people. I took a trunk show of my stuff and we played show-n-tell and I told them bits and pieces about what it's like to do what I do for a living.

One of the quilters who attended is an extremely talented girl named Jessica who I had attempted to contact in the past about her work. I think fate brought us together because I really wanted her to do the longarm quilting on some of my larger quilts. This young dynamo has actually quilted over 4000 quilts! Well, long story short, I brought a pile of my tops to her last night and she's getting started on them. A couple of them will be featured in Quilting Celebrations but I'm not going to make you wait for the magazine to come out to see her work. This stuff is too good to wait that long for. Jessica's website and tons of photos of her beautiful quilting accomplishments can be seen here: http://www.jessicasquiltingstudio.com/ Be sure to click on the small "Customer Quilts" button in the yellow box to see all of the photos.

You're probably off to Jessica's page anyway so I'll end here and get back to some hand embroidery on a holiday project for the magazine. Have a great Friday, everyone, and spend some time this weekend with your quilting and creative friends if you have the chance.

And if you're in the Phoenix area and would like to become involved with Night Owls, here's their info:

Night Owls - Phoenix
St. Paul's Church
330 W. Coral Gables Dr.
2nd Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.

Guaranteed fun :)

Cheers!