All together with both of my boys and both sets of parents.
Add some extra friends and we had an interesting, well fed afternoon. I cleaned non stop as my husband cooked the turkey, pork, two homemade stuffings, sweet potato gnocchi, mashed potatoes. apple cake, and pumpkin cheesecake.
My immediate family obviously knows what I do for a living/hobby and my parents stop by my shop often. Everyone else - not so much. Some of our guests had never been to our home so they had to get educated. Piles of quilts decorate chairs throughout and bowls of Wonder Clips and thread sit on tables like a candy dish at Grandma's house. It's after we show them around the house and they walk in to my craft room/ studio and walk around as if it's an unkempt cabinet of crafty curiosities that an explanation becomes necessary.
Spend some time with me and get me talking about my shop and my passion for what I do and it is clear how much I love it. I can talk for hours about the quilt industry and all of it's variety and possibilities.
One of my husband's friends seemed to appreciated the creative chaos. His ex wife was apparently a crafter. When he saw my sewing machine he said "wow, that's a dying craft." I love the fire that lights and continued to tell him how many billions the industry rakes in every year; the worldwide popularity; the international visitors to my shop who gush at the choices and displays. I pulled out different quilts I had made and the collage quilt that I am binding until I felt that they 'understood.'
After my speech and show-and-tell we all sat down for a digestive chat and my dad brought up a recent post I shared on the StitchCraft Facebook page. It was the process of artist Susan Carlson and the creation of her huge fabric collage crocodile. A pretty amazing video and I was please that even the non-quilter was intrigued enough to watch. That prompted me to bring the discussion to the true artistic aspect of our world. The website of David Taylor is a favorite gallery of inspiration and the reaction of my son and his friend was as expected. "That's a quilt Wow." Like the end of a Thanksgiving feast, I was satisfied.
