A Singing Heart

The quiet joy of anticipation bubbled over into great excitement yesterday when the mail man left a package at our front door. I knew straight away it was much more than the mentioned nondescript "little something". Look what was inside! A beautiful copy of Sarah Fielke's new book Hand Quilted with Love, thoughtfully wrapped in a fat quarter of Sarah's latest fabric range. Even the cotton twine matches, half of which has been squirrelled away already by one of my teenage daughters (just spotted some around an ankle...).

Sarah's book is about far more than hand quilting, in fact several of the 16 quilts shared in this book have no hand quilting on them at all. There is a great variety of designs, something for every level of experience, all beautifully photographed and presented.

Quoting from Sarah's Introduction: 

Try new things, be adventurous, and crack your own quilting code. 

Don't be hung up on whether something is right or wrong, 

or on whether you are a "modern quilter", a "traditional quilter" 

or even an "art quilter": 

just be a QUILTER, be creative and love what you do.

Sound advice for many areas of life.....

Most of my quilts contain a lot of different fabrics. 

I don't usually use one or two greens when I can use 30.....

I don't ever get stuck finding that PERFECT fabric. 

(Sarah, page 8)

So where did this wonderful parcel come from? From someone I've never met who lives hundreds of miles/km away, the very thoughtful, generous and talented Bloom whom some of you no doubt already know. As well as being a devoted wife and mother, Bloom stitches beautifully, designs, quilts, sews, blogs, produces unique project articles for Australian Homespun magazine and has the most amazing garden.

With my parcel came the discovery that Bloom also makes beautiful cards! Filled with kind words Bloom's card sits here on my Sunlit Treasure quilt which I made from Sarah Fielke's previous book Quilting from Little Things (North by North East design). 

No wonder my heart is singing! Thank you Bloom!