Hi ,

 

This week’s quilting podcast is taking on the fun topic – which is better, Experiences or our STUFF? I have a lot of stuff and I’m tidying up my craft room yet AGAIN as I share the story of an amazing experience riding a hot air balloon. 

I was definitely riding on a euphoric wave during this podcast! The morning I filmed this we woke up at 5:30, drove an hour and then took our first hot air balloon ride. It was amazing!

 

It’s hard to describe a hot air balloon ride. It wasn’t like flying in a plane in any way. We gently lifted off the ground, going around 4 miles per hour. The wind steers the balloon, but our pilot Marsha controlled the altitude perfectly. It was like standing at the top of a mountain peak, with no fear of heights, and gently moving over the landscape.

 

The experience was unbelievably relaxing. All the times I’ve flown on a plane have been chaotic and stressful, but this balloon ride was the complete opposite.

What’s funny about this story is how close it came to not happening. About 20 minutes after we left home, our security system called to alert us that the motion sensors had detected movement downstairs. I was driving and made the call easily – I’m not turning around.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my home and I really love the things I’ve made. I am a STUFF person. I think there’s at least a dozen episodes of the Hello My Quilting Friends podcast where I’m cleaning out stuff, organizing stuff, rearranging stuff.

So much so that sometimes I wonder if I own my stuff or if it owns me?

Well, this situation definitely settled this question! I’d much rather go have an amazing experience with my family than worry about my stuff being stolen.

And don’t worry! It was an awful stink bug setting off the motion sensor. No one was in our home.

 

For our final quilt block in the Friendship Quilt Along, we’re piecing the scrappiest block yet, the super scrappy Hidden Hearts block! Prepare yourself… this block is crazy scrappy!

 

I had a bit of a struggle with this block because it’s so scrappy. The Hidden Hearts Quilt Block could win awards in the number of scraps I used to create it! But this makes for a challenging quilt block to quilt because it’s so busy. So this leads to the question – are straight lines quilted with walking foot quilting good enough for this quilt?

 

 

I’ve had a marvelous time quilting along with you all this year! I love having my king sized Friendship Sampler finished and using it on my bed this winter. To finish your Friendship Sampler Quilt, please refer to the instructions in the Block 1 pattern. At the end of the pattern you will find a detailed cutting list for the binding strips needed to connect your quilt blocks together to create your crib, throw, twin, queen, or king sized quilt.

 

No, I’m not planning a new quilt along for 2020. This coming year I’m planning to share smaller projects and tutorials to focus on new techniques and crafts! I have fun projects from Mally the Maker planned as well as a new book in the works too.

 

But if you’d like to learn more about piecing and quilting and you want to build skill by quilting one block at a time, you can still join all of our past quilt alongs right here.

 

Let's go quilt,

 

Leah Day