Have you heard of Periscope? It’s an app for smart phones that allows you to live-stream videos straight from wherever you are. The idea is that you can discover the world through someone else’s eyes. This past week, a few quilt-blogger friends and I used it to lead tours of our honest craft spaces, and I got to peek into the homes of some of my quilty friends for the first time (and finally shared a peek at my honest–read: messy–craft loft). In the span of just over an hour, I was able to have a guided tour of seven diverse craft spaces across the country.

This started as just another crazy idea I was tossing around with my friends Stephanie from Late Night Quilter, Terri Ann from Childlike Fascination, and Daisy from Ants to Sugar. We decided to publicly (on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter) post an invitation to join us on an Honest Craft Room Tour in Periscope, and then just jumped in and gave mini, 10 minute tours of our craft spaces, mentioning the next person in the tour at the end of our scopes so that viewers could “hop” to the next video. Early in the tour, Mandy from Mandalei Quilts joined the line-up, and then through the course of the night, Silvia from A Stranger View and Kelley decided to spontaneously join us. It was so much fun to take a peek into the spaces in which these quilter friends create. Our spaces varied from small to large, slanty-roofed loft to basement, messy to neat, yet they all housed so much creativity. It was a night of inspiration and strengthening connections. And it was loads of fun.

While a firm plan is not yet in place, we plan to do these Periscope tours weekly, most likely on Tuesday nights beginning at around 9pm eastern time. Each week will have a focus; maybe one week we will share our top five favorite quilting tools, another week share our latest works in progress, yet another week talk about how we go about choosing fabrics for a project. The sky’s the limit! What kind of videos would you like to see?

Followers of your periscope account get a notification when you are streaming live and can join in, watching and listening, and communicating by typing messages and tapping the screen to create a cloud of rising hearts to show the “scoper” that you like what he/she is saying. If you’re interested in giving it a try, here’s a helpful post with technical tips for getting started with Periscope. Be sure to follow me @nightquilter so that we can communicate in yet another way! Perhaps I’ll see you (literally) through the Periscope!