The time honored tradition of teaching the techniques and skill of quilting has been passed down through the ages from generation to generation.  The teaching in and of itself is valuable, but you know what’s even more valuable?  Creating special memories within your family that will produce life-long loving memories through the produced quilted treasures is truly invaluable.

Everyone that quilts has their own special story behind how and when they learned their skill.  My wife’s story for instance is kind of funny.  Apparently, her grandmother Lillie’s home was a place for the ladies to gather and quilt.  When my wife was a little girl playing over at her grandmother’s house, the rule was that anyone misbehaving would have to sit and quilt for 10 minutes.  My wife sheepishly grins when she declares she had to quilt so often that that’s how she perfected her skills!

Fast forward to her turn to teach her granddaughter, Hannah.  I was downstairs listening to all of the giggles and “oohs and ahhs” of picking out a pattern for her first project and then on to picking the colors and matching up thread.  I thought to myself “wow, they’ve been at it for a long time but they seem to be enjoying themselves”.

Now that I understand more about quilting, I consider myself pretty lucky to be included in this particular family tradition and my heart-felt admiration goes out to all those wonderful quilters that continue to pass on the tradition.

I had originally planned on opening an Etsy shop when my wife and I returned home from vacation.  I was thinking maybe the end of February or beginning of March would be a good time to kick start a business.  Well, then the world changed.

We found ourselves instead preparing for self-isolation (because let’s face it, we’re both in the high-risk category).  We both also realized the drastic shortage and need for face masks and began looking online for the best patterns and how-to tutorials.  We set to work making masks for friends, family, healthcare providers, neighbors and folks in the essential worker categories (i.e. postal workers, garbage collectors, delivery drivers, etc). The first pattern we used was posted by the Deaconess Health System https://www.deaconess.com/How-to-make-a-Face-Mask This was very informative and easy to follow instructions with pattern.

Then, we came across a slightly different pattern using a serger that made making the masks a lot faster.  We found a tutorial on YouTube https://youtu.be/0dAQk-bQpvg.

We’ve had so many requests for masks that I don’t know if we’ll ever catch up.

We hope that the need for masks will be short lived and that our prayers will be answered that this global pandemic comes to an end.  Stay safe and healthy and know you are included in our prayers.