The Back Door

New adventures are many things, fun, exciting, thought provoking and most often for me, a learning experience. My adventures usually involve moving half-way around the world.
As an Air Force wife I have “setup a household” 12 times in 24 years. Four have involved international moves most with three children. Our youngest is just a teen and the longest she has been in one school is three years. She will have four high schools on her transcripts. We have lived in nearly every climate and after our next move we will have lived on four continents of the world. Three of which our children would need to return to future high school reunions in foreign lands. We believe in the adage, “Home is where the Air Force sends you.” “Where are you from?” has always been a hard question for our children to answer. They most often identify with the “home” we last left and their last best friend will be their BFF.
In every home there has been faith traditions and quilting.
We have been richly blessed to have our religion in every country. Even in Egypt we found comfort in a congregation of saints. Our traditions such as favorite dinners on your birthday and a paper curtain to break through on Christmas morning made the most alien locations feet like home.
Then there was quilting. That is what I have found to be my constant. I made my first nap quilts for our children at Edwards Air Force Base. Quillows came next to carry along the long trip to Lajes Field, Azores, Portugal.
While in Utah I began The Nine Year Quilt that took 11 years. That story will be best told in its own posting.
I first taught quilting in Spain. In Egypt quilting is where I found rest from a very demanding job. Mexico is the first time I have made quilting a business venture.
As I move again I hope to begin writing more than sewing for others. I love to quilt but I have found that quilting for dollars isn’t fun. I love to teach and talk and share my love of quilting with others and my designing work is the best work I have done. I have found a local quilt shop in our new “home” but I am headed back to the nine-to-five. Sewing eight hours a day will not be possible. I do plan however to continue writing. I never knew how much I enjoyed writing until I was no longer in school. I’d like to return and study creative and technical writing but that must wait until I can return to the U.S.A. Until then I hope you will enjoy reading as much as if not more than I enjoy writing.