We had just come back from Quiltcon 2020 in Austin, Texas in February when the world was turned upside down. Quarantine, telework, face masks, and isolation were now words that have become normal. We made over 700 masks and are still making them, though not in the all-consuming way we once were. I worked from home for almost three months and it was hard to distinguish work life from home life. We participated in Editya Sitar's mystery quilt-a-long and I remember thinking, "will we get it done before this is over?". Wishful thinking on my part. It has been more than six months since the new normal started. Quilt shows were cancelled, I had an entry for the Lancaster show that had to get shipped back. Our local quilt guild show was cancelled as well as meetings. Our annual trek to the Houston Festival in October is also abandoned. Quilters are resilient though and the internet can accomplish a lot of things. Virtual quilt shows are popping up, and quilt guilds are holding zoom meetings so we can stay connected. Support is worldwide for quilters, shop owners and instructors. They are adapting too, online sales and curbside pickup, online classes and Facebook Live is being used a whole lot more. Industry leaders are getting personally involved. Scott Fortunoff, President of Free-Spirit Fabrics and Executive of Jaftex held  twenty weekly trivia contests to give away bundles of fabric. We never won, but it was fun to see people come together from all over the world to participate.

Since 2020 marks my 50th (can't believe it) birthday I decide I would support the quilt shops by buying from fifty quilt shops, and to make things even more interesting to make 50 quilt tops in 2020. Just the tops, they don't have to be quilted. 

After a period of self-pity for the cancelled river cruise in Europe and a return to a more reasonable work schedule, we are  putting together a quilt top every day or so. We have four or five going at the same time so there is always something to work on. We are also trying to do 15 minutes a day (after Victoria Findlay Wolfe's encouraging 15 minutes of play motto).  For Mom, she spends the day either sewing or in the garden, if its cool enough. I use my time after work to cut out pieces for her to sew or quilt on my longarm the mystery show quilt I designed. As of August 6th I already have 22 hours of quilting into it and almost a million stitches. I've started adding some intense fills and it seems like it will take me another 20 hours to get that done. 

We have been fortunate that our area seems reasonably in control of the virus and most people are wearing masks. We have an abundance of fabric so material for a project is not a problem. We miss seeing all our friends at the quilt shows and we hope they can weather this storm and be there when we can finally all get back together. In the meantime, I'll be going to the virtual shows, zooming at guild and quilting, quilting, quilting.

• Debbie

We actually have several rooms we use to sew and store fabrics. This fall we decided to redo the central room. The room started out as my playroom when my brother and I were young. I recall lots of fun memories in that room. It had an assortment of carpets throughout the room. The outer border was carpet samples put down with carpet tape. A piece of my bedroom carpet, even a bound carpet from my parents house when they lived in Utah. 

Over the years we've added and changed the furniture to offer more storage. Three large storage cabinets were on  one wall. We attached flannel covered foam board to the doors to be one of our design walls. Behind the doors are  fabric yardge sorted by color. See photos of our sewing room(s) over the years and the many transformations here.

In the fall of 2020 we decided we wanted a white sewing room to lighten up the space. So we began the process of moving all the fabric, books and other stuff out of the room. We started on the wall with the design wall cabinets and replaced them with cabinets from Ikea that we could customize with door and drawers. Those are going to be covered in foamboard and flannel so we still have our design wall. With one wall done we moved onto the next three walls. The shipment from Ikea won't come until late November so now its back to sewing the fifty quilt tops.

Grand Rapids, Michigan With Covid showing a decline and the vacinne/boosters seemingly to offer protection, we ventured out on our first extended trip to visit various quilt shops and the AQS show in Grand Rapids, MI. 

read more about the trip here

96 shops in two months! We are trying to go to all. Check back in September to see how we did.

Read more here...Mid Atlantic Shop Hop