Checking Off The List

Things related to fiber are what feeds my soul. I don’t work outside the home and my kids are getting older. As my kids don’t need me as much, I find that I have more time to create. Earlier this year I created a list of goals. Kind of a bucket list, if you will.  It included a multi year plan and a one year plan. On that list, towards the top….

Have a quilt hung at Houston Quilt Festival.

Enter a quilt to Houston Quilt Festival.

Enter a quilt into a show.

Then the MQG announced that they were going to have a showcase at Houston of Modern Quilts. I’m not sure that I am a modern quilter, but I’m not traditional and not art, so I guess I could be modern, right? (Between you and me, I don’t think I’m cool enough to call myself modern, but I’ll pretend). I actually started the first quilt (“Refracted Sunset”) to enter it into a flickr challenge to use Tangerine Tango (the pantone color of the year) in a quilt. Someone asked me if I was going to submit it to the MQG showcase. I hadn’t thought about it and after a bit of research found I could enter it in both places. So I figured, why not? Just to further my path to insanity, I decided that since I could enter two quilts, that I should, just to increase my odds. I had “Stackable” sketched out for months, on a whim, while my husband was on a business trip, just days before the deadline, I started and finished that quilt. Let me tell you, I almost gave up a few times because I was sewing way past my bedtime and had to be up to get kids to school. With just a few hours left I photographed and entered. Oh and the entry form was kind of confusing for me, I just tried to do my best. I considered them each different, so I thought (hoped) one would make it in.

Last week there were emails that I showed up in my inbox from the MQG Showcase coordinator. I couldn’t open them fast enough. I was on my phone, so the formatting was weird. I hastily skimmed and saw, “Congratulations” and “Refracted Sunset” in the first paragraph.

I squealed!! It made it in!! Of course I knew the other email was the rejection letter for “Stackable” and I understood. I had completed that one in just days. It still had threads attached to the back when I photographed it.

So I opened that email and saw again the words, “Congratulations” and “Stackable” in the first few words. At that point I was confused. Perhaps they were congratulating me for just entering. Yes, that must have been it. So I had to go to my computer to pull open the emails. Nope, BOTH quilts got in!!

Out of 33 total quilts, I have 2 in there. {insert shock, fainting, stunned} I couldn’t believe it. I had my husband read them too and he said, yes, I got both of them. I’m in awe. I’m incredibly honored. And now I have to pack the quilts up to be shipped (this involves tissue paper, I don’t even wrap presents in tissue paper). But I can also check off one goal from my list once I see them hanging in Houston. Whew.