Planning a Quilting Pilgrimage/Road Trip
 

I just wanted to channel my excitement somewhere!

A very dear friend of the family lost his wife to cancer about four years ago. They spent the last several years going all around the country in their RV, even with her failing health, so it was very sad but also not unexpected.

Not long after she passed, he came down to visit us again in MD (he lives in CT) and the two of us got to chatting about her stash. Oh yes, she was a quilter. Was she ever a quilter! I had only just started quilting at the time, so I didn't really appreciate the magnitude of what we were chatting about - quilting, embroidery, machines, etc.

Fast forward four years - he has since remarried a wonderful woman and they're living together in her house while he slowly fixes up the house he shared with his first wife. Her stash remains entombed, larger than life. The two of them came down for his 70th birthday and we all went out to dinner, where the subject of fabric and machines came up once again. As a direct result of that conversation, I am now planning a road trip somewhere in the next few weeks or months up to Connecticut with my mother and best friend, both of whom quilt.

When we discussed the fabric, he said: "Let me put it this way. Do you want 100 cubic feet of fabric? 200 cubic feet? Just let me know." He also said that he had a Janome 10001MC sitting all by its lonesome, and he would be happy to send it to a new home on the condition that its new owner make the time investment to learn how to use it.

I'm just falling all over myself with excitement right now. It's ridiculous.

I need to get back to work! :p

Wonderful! So happy that your friends stash could find a good home.

Oh that sounds like so exciting!

How wonderful for all involved. Funny how things work out. It will be extra special to be sewing on her well-loved machine and including her fabric in your designs. Can't help but think she'd be very, very pleased to know that what she enjoyed went to a good home.

It great he wants the "quilters belongings" to go to someone he knows will appreciate these treasures.

Will your vehicle be large enough?! Have fun going through your friends sewing things!

How wonderful!!! Please keep us posted on how this unveils. It is so heartwarming to know a quilter's stash is going to another quilter who will appreciate it.

We stopped in Connecticut on our way back home from visiting relatives in Nova Scotia. We happened to arrive on my birthday, so it really was a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me (and Mom)!

Right now, we have about 10 large bags of super quality quilting cottons sitting on the deck, waiting for us to go through and organize them. The embroidery machine is tucked safely in its case in my bedroom until we're done organizing. I have a giant tote of feet, add-on accessories, instruction manuals, embroidery designs, hoops, etc. all together. And the thread and notions... and a Rowenta iron... I'm just so overwhelmed in the best way possible.

I'll try to get some pictures as we start going through the fabric. I'm so honored and grateful that her husband allowed us to provide a home for her quilting supplies. Going through one of the manuals, I see that she completed every exercise and one panel had her name and initials embroidered as a 'test' of the stitches. It's just so sweet.

You are so lucky! My BFF had a stroke and survived 5 years before she passed away. She had a sewing/quilting room with bookcases full of fabric on bolts - she worked at a quilt shop and was paid in fabric. She had a daughter and a granddaughter and a sister with 3 daughters - so no way would I even want to ask her DH what he was going to do with her fabric after she was gone. Imagine my surprise and shock and horror, when my DH and I went to visit him one day, about a year after she died, and he said that he had spent the past two days burning all of her fabric, etc. He knew that I was a quilter so I can't even imagine why he did that. Anyway, I was able to get her totes of fabric that was in her closet, flat folded fabric. I got about a truck load altogether. Guess he did not get around to burning it yet. I also got her quilting books - in another bookcase in another room. I asked where her thread and her paper patterns were and he said they had been burned.

If only you had visited 3 days earlier...so wasteful and unnecessary. Well, at least it wasn't all burned, and you got the rest. I'm sure your BFF smiles down on that. Make good use of it in her honor. (Whatever was he thinking??)