You've heard of the term " Six Degrees of
Separation"?
The more I travel, the smaller the world becomes, and
lately I am thinking that Earth is just a series of connected villages on an
orbiting spaceship.
While on this last trip, I had some stunning
coincidental experiences. One of them had to do with the US Embassy in Rome.
While visiting
the embassy to give my quilt presentations, I made a new friend. She has
been there for 30 years. When I returned home, I went to Sam's school teacher
conferences, and started chatting with his history teacher. She mentioned that
she had lived in Rome as a child, then she said that her father had worked at
the embassy there. I thought, wouldn't it be funny if my new friend in Rome knew
this teacher's dad?
I emailed Rome and sure enough, Sam's teacher's dad
had worked with my friend at the Rome embassy years ago. Then on top of it all,
Sam's teacher turns out to have an adopted
Chinese daughter. We have mutual friends in the adoption community, but
somehow we hadn't crossed paths yet.
There was a similar experience on
the flights to Italy. On the Denver>Wash DC flight, I sat behind 2 ladies
happily anticipating their trip to
Italy. As we all got off at Dulles Airport, I said "Hi, I am on your flight
to Rome too!" and then we all got off for our short layover.
When I got
on the 2nd flight Wash DC>Rome, I made my way back through the aisles to my
seat, and who was sitting next to my empty seat? These 2 ladies! We started
talking and found we all live in Boulder, then discovered that we both have
connections to Engineers Without Borders,
and then it turned out it was the wife of the founder of EWB. I've been hoping
to meet him for years in Boulder, and somehow I ended up sitting next to his
wife?! We just hit it off and chatted the whole flight. I just had lunch with
her now that we are all back in Boulder. What are the odds?
Of course
this kind of thing happens ALL the time in the quilting world. We meet a
friend-of-a-friend and sit down to chat over
coffee. We start talking about quilt exhibits and classes we've attended. We
find some mutual ground and then start asking if the other knows this friend or
that quilt shop. Pretty soon we've identified a whole circle of mutual friends,
and shared experiences, and we feel like old friends who need to catch up! I
just love that feeling, don't you?
In a week I'll be off
to Houston, to see old and new friends at Quilt Market and Quilt Festival.
We all speak the same language of quilting, and we all delight in the mutual
experiences that give us such joy. Sophie and I will be at the Tuesday night
award ceremony, and I hope to see many of our eQuilter friends and customers
there! She'll be climbing onto the podium with me, to help announce the World of
Beauty cash prize winner. (Gosh I am so excited – can't wait to meet this year's
big winner!)
If you'd like an idea of what goes on at the Houston award
ceremony, check out our video page and
scroll down to "Houston Quilt Festival, Top Cash Prize Winners".
I am always amazed at these connections we make. With all the millions of people in the world it is still a small place.
This year is my first year attending Quilt Festival and I am so excited. The trip was a surprise gift from my family for my birthday. Can you say “spoiled?” Yup that is me! I’m looking forward to meeting many of the people I follow and talk to online. Perhaps I will even run into you and Sophie! Have fun!
This is a comment on the post for Oct 24. I didn’t see the newest blog posted about the Sci/fi convention. I have to say living with a whole family of Nerds and Sci/fi, Comi-con, Renfest people is very interesting. (My husband and I were NERDS before there were Nerds.) We are constantly watching interesting videos and shows and everyone makes jokes about things that have to do with nerds and computers and everything nerdish. Some things we have watched so many times I can’t count them. Right now we joke that certain members of our family are Sheldon, Leonard, Walowitz and Raj the biggest brainiest nerds of them all.
However, I am still learning a lot about quilting but have had to take time out from quilting to make a costume for my college student that will work as a Halloween/Renfest costume. It has a corset. Needless to say I have learned way more than I probably want to know about how to construct a specific kind of corset. But it has been very interesting. No matter what you are making, quilts or costumes, there is always something new to learn. Hopefully I will finish it today and it will FIT!! The costume is Red Riding Hood and the hood and cape are supposed to attach to the shoulders of the corset. It is a beautiful rosey red brocade. Anyway it has been fun. You can guess who her fiance is supposed to be.
Some of the most fun I have had has been making costumes for my NERDS for Halloween,Sci/fi, Comi-con and Renfest. There is usually no pattern so I have to go from sketches the kids make and looking at the character from various points of view and then seeing what we can use that we already have or searching for that illusive thing that will make the costume unique but more in keeping with the original concept of the character. That is often the fun creative part. They have often been stopped and photographed because people recognize who they are.
The first real Nerdy costume I ever made was Link from Zelda for the same daughter when she was 10. She wore it for Halloween and all the kids (boys mostly) had a fit. It had a sword and shield and the boots and the whole nine yards. We made all these things. You couldn’t buy them. This was before everyone knew who Link was. She looked just like him. I think the only thing we bought was some Vulcan ears (elf ears)!
The quilt I am making is for my future son-in-law. He has a major life changing surgery coming up. I used fabrics that reflect all his interests, photography, cars, pin-up girls,tattoos and art. He and my daughter(Red Riding Hood) are both art majors. Hopefully it will help him get through the rough time ahead.
I guess we make quilts to give comfort and to express ourselves and other peoples interests and most of all to show love for others. Kind of like costumes only you can wrap up in them and maybe whoever is using it can feel the love coming through. He is going to need a lot of love coming through during his recovery period. Say some prayers.