Phone A Quilty Friend

I oversubscribed to Block Of The Months in 2026--which will make 2027 the year that I finish the 2026 BOM's, but in the meantime I am pretending to try to keep up, and the single best thing for my quilting productivity is a group sew in on Zoom. I was saying at the last one I attended that this alone is worth the price of admission for me in my Modern Quilt guild. Do not get me wrong, I love the monthly speakers, especially the ones that we can record and watch within the next week if for whatever reason we cannot make the meeting. I am often so inspired by them, and occasionally go on to take a class or buy a pattern. I also love the access the the national Modern Quilt Guild's website--there is so much education and inspiration there I have yet to scratch the surface on what is available. And the list goes on. All told, though, the ability to sit in my sewing room--which I had to move to the dining room because my ability to sew in a small space expired sometime in the last decade. I seriously made my whole family eat outside on a muggy, cicada deafening night recently rather that clear off the table!--and sew with guildmates over ZOom is priceless to me. I have spent hours doing tasks that are hard to accomplish alone. The Pink Door Amish With A Twist quilt has squares that require a dozen or more different fabrics be cut out, who can face that solo, I ask you. And yet here I am, having cut out all the blocks for the current month while catching up with a friend wrangling her pink scraps--neither of us is done, but we both made progress and we caught up with each other as well. It is possible that I like it as much as in person sewing--the upside is that I do not have to move my stuff--I did get a cart a year ago to make the transport easier, and I do go to in person workshops and love them too, but at the end of the day, Zoom actually works better for me. I not only love it, I am inspired by it as well. Try it and see--especially if you are struggling to find your sewjo.