I’m excited to share that I am offering my first-ever self-hosted, live virtual workshop! Quilt Your Life: Milestone Quilts for Every Moment is a quilt planning workshop scheduled for December 19, 2020 from 7pm-9pm EST.

I will be hosting the workshop via Zoom and have listed registration in my Payhip shop. I’m super excited to be taking this first big step into being able to share my creative process with all of you while everyone stays home and is safe in the face of the rising COVID-19 cases in the US.

There has been so much talk about “pivoting” businesses because of the pandemic, and to be honest, March brought so many family changes, stress, and uncertainty, I instead opted for the “put the business on the back burner” course of action, and focused on helping my kids through virtual school, working through the emotional toll of having all five of us home all the time with no outside help or friends fully in our bubble, and finding the new rhythm needed to help all of us meet our emotional needs and be gentle when someone is having a rough day. This is hard. We spent a LOT of time outside, hiking in remote locations, hitting up the secret beaches, and working in the garden. It’s been hard work on everyone’s part, but I think we have actually begun to find our stride. Only took 280 days or so, but I’ll take it!

Now that we are getting back into the swing of virtual school once again, I’m ready to dive into this next step. This workshop is designed to introduce you to the idea of creating Milestone Quilts–quilts that document some aspect of your life–and help you create a plan to create your own such quilt. 

I have been exploring the world of Milestone Quilts for the past 5+ years, beginning with Finn’s Milestone Quilt made during the first year of his life, and I have learned so much along the way. I have also confirmed the powerful positive feedback loops that can be created by making a quilt like this, especially this past year when my 2020 miles quilt kept me running despite the upheaval of life as we knew it.

As we are entering the final weeks of the year, my 2020 miles quilt (#my2020milesquilt) is still getting me out in the below freezing weather to run. Without a single race since January 1st, I’m pretty happy with the fact that I’ve met my goal of running more than 500 miles this year. This quilt has also helped document many other important aspects of the year, from the group runs with my fellow running quilters at QuiltCon right before the pandemic began, to the first days of lock-down, to the week I joined a virtual Womxn Run the Vote relay and logged 50 miles worth of activity, including 29 running miles–my longest mileage week by a lot. This quilt will tell a story, that’s for sure!

Even with fairly regular running, I’ve been slacking on my cross-training exercises, and my body notices. For that reason, I began a short, one-month-long milestone quilt tracking plank. push-ups, and Russian twists, to help motivate myself to do even just 1 set per day during the month of December.

Nearly halfway through the month, and it’s working! I’ve done some amount of exercise every day, and I haven’t woken up with a sore back or neck since! Positive feedback loops are the best! Note: I am making two versions of the same quilt, with different color assignments, so the photo above shows progress for both. Same data, same length of time, same block pattern, same fabrics, just different color assignments for the activities and intensities. Pretty neat, huh!?

If you are interested in learning more about Milestone Quilts and how to make a plan to quilt your life, I encourage you to join me for my virtual workshop this Saturday evening. It’s going to be loads of fun! I’m also working on creating printable pdf planning documents to help you track and plan your activity, so keep an eye on my Payhip shop for those. In the meantime, I hope that your sewing is bringing you peace and that you are staying safe, at home as much as possible and masked when out and about! Be well, my friends.