Happy Mail A Good Story and A New Project

Let me tell you a story.  Are you ready?  It’s a good one.  Early last week  I was flipping through my Reader catching up on the weekends of my favorite bloggers.  I came across this post by Amylouwho.  (Amy hosts a Sew&Tell every Friday which I have loved.  It gives me a lot of motivation to keep working on new projects each week.)   I have no idea how I found Amy.  She lives in Virginia, and that post I mentioned mostly talks about the wonderful snow that has been pounding the east coast.  So jealous.  Anyway, besides the snow she mentioned the grossness that is the glucose test (she’s preggers) and then she said this, kind of in passing (but with no photo).  And it has changed my life.

”  On the brighter side, I ordered a kit to make this quilt from Amy!  It’s so cute! “

[image shamelessly stolen from Amy’s blog]

Unfortunately those kits are sold out, but fortunately for me the internet is still a beautiful thing.  If you give a quick glance to that quilt, you will probably see a really cute quilt pattern/kit with a great back story (if you went to read it, which you should).  But, if you are ME and take one quick glance at that quilt you see a goldmine.  One glance and my breath caught in my throat and my heart started to pound and in three clicks of the mouse I was in Amy’s etsy shop and sending her a convo.  Nearly faster than the speed of light I had sent my pleading out through cyberspace to AmySmart.  And why?  Why was I not breathing and willing my fingers and the internet to fly faster and faster? (And then keeping a small flame of hope alive in my heart that maybe, just maybe this might work out?)  Well.  I’ll tell you.

The very first thing I noticed when I looked at that quilt was that she used some of  Sandi Henderson’s Farmers Market by Michael Miller and not only that… she had Orange Henna.

[orange henna image from Twins’ Garden]

And what exactly is so great about Orange Henna?  Well, if you click that link you will notice that the website is all in German.  As of last week there was exactly zero of this fabric available on etsy or on ebay.  (As of 5 seconds ago there was one yard on ebay.. but last week there was nothing.)  And not only does she have Orange Henna, she also had the green apples!  And the yellow henna!  And why am I freaking out about this?  Well, I’ll tell you.  These are the same fabrics I bought for Creamie’s nursery something like a year and a half ago.  And when I was finished I was so proud of myself for using up nearly all of what I had purchased.  And now I want to make curtains and a valance for the window.  And I didn’t have enough scraps.  So for several days I’ve had 18 tabs open on my interwebs browser looking for fabric that I could substitute for the pieces that were no longer available.  And then Amylouwho changed my life…. and AmySmart changed my life.

I emailed AmySmart and asked her if she had any scraps leftover from cutting her kits that I could buy from her.   Anything in a 6″x12″ block.  I told her my whole dilemma, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice and probably failing.  I sent her the link to the pics of Creamie’s nursery, so she could see I was not a psycho, but a real live person with a real live child and a real live window that needed a little something extra.  And then I waited.  Oh, and I checked my email about every 13 minutes for the next 24 hours.  And then she wrote me back.  And the stars aligned and the world was made an infinitely better place.  She had one scrap of Orange Henna in the size I needed.  One.  Plus, she had scraps of a few more.  And she mailed them to me.  And I got them today.  And I am in love.  And I love her.

So, let me break this down.  I have been stalking a blogger in Virginia (Amylouwho) who made a passing comment about a quilt made by AmySmart and I thankfully checked out her link.  And AmySmart is super nice.  And AmySmart has a goldmine in her scrapbox.  And she sent me some gold.  In four different colors.  And when the package came I discovered that she lives all of two miles from my house.  Yeah.  And the internet makes all of this possible.  And next time Amylouwho comes to Utah (her mother conveniently lives here… which I found out about a very long time after I started stalking her) I want to take both Amy’s to lunch for making my next project possible. (Seriously girls).

This is my rough draft for the valance on Creamie’s window.  And then she’ll have white curtains trimmed with the stripe and some pink the same as her bedskirt.  So, what does this very long story have to tell us?  It just goes to show that you should always provide links to the happy and beautiful things in your life.  And when you see those links, you should check them out.  You never know when your life is going to change.

And if you are like me and get this worked up about fabric and curtains for a baby you should probably not tell too many people.  They may think that you have absolutely lost it and are completely crazy.  But, if you think I am crazy (and I have just given you pretty good reason to think so) then just say something nice about how wonderful Amylouwho and AmySmart are, and how the internet is such an amazing thing.  Don’t tell me I am crazy.  I know.  I am aware.  And I kind of like it.