When one door closes.

Who knew...two years ago, a door would close in my life and I would lose my job. 

Who knew...8 months later, I would started a blog called While Wearing Heels and that in the process, I would discover this creative and artistic side of myself I never knew existed.

Who knew...Mary Janes Farm would discover, on pinterest, the United States Quilt I made.

Who knew...they would then ask if it could be featured in their January/February issue.

Who knew...that the philosophy I have lived by since that unforeseen door closed, the philosophy that saved me would become an inspiring quote in a magazine.

Who knew?   Not me.

It just goes to show, when one door closes it doesn't mean your story ends, it just means you have to figure out what your next chapter will be.

There is no telling where life will take you.

United Scraps of America Part 2

Can you believe it's been over a month since I shared how to start your very own United Scraps of America quilt?

Though I tried to lobby {out of laziness} that the United Scraps of America only needed to represent the continental states, in the end, I knew it wouldn't be complete without Alaska and Hawaii. So I dug through more scraps of fabric and there they are ALL 50 states.

Then, for the past month, I have painstakingly whip stitched each state down.

As I whipped stitched, I changed the thread matching it to each state's unique fabric.

So unless Puerto Rico becomes a state in the next few days, I'd say, I am done {with my part}. The only thing left to do is to hand this off to the Queen of Quilts so she can take my project and transform it into a quilt.

The United Scraps of America

As I've already shared, I am heartbroken over Picnic and their eminent closing. I am trying to find solace elsewhere. Though different than Picnic, I am becoming equally smitten with Block Posters. Block Posters is a free site that allows you to upload images and enlarge them {of course, I find this right after I invest in an overhead projector}.

I wasted no time uploading a high resolution image of the United States {found using google image search}. I enlarged it enough that when finished it printed on 5 sheets of 8x11 sheets of paper across and 3 sheets down.

What might you ask do I intend to do with a 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet map of the US? Well, I have been hoping to collaborate on a quilt with the Queen of Quilts {my mom}.

So I laboriously traced the mirror image of each state out on heat and bond.

Then I ironed the heat and bond states onto scraps of fabric...

When the heat and bond is affixed, it makes it easier to make precise cuts.

Some states I cut exact, others I left some excess. I wanted to be able to overlap the states so for a state that was cut with excess, the precisely cut state would lay over the excess of the bordering state.

When I was ready to piece my states together, I pinned the 3 1/2 feet by 2 feet printed pattern behind the white background fabric. I was able to see the location of the states through the fabric and lay them down exactly where they needed to be to maintain the accuracy of scale.

With the exception of Alaska and Hawaii, my United Scraps of America is pieced together.

I had hopes of handing over my part of the collaboration to the Queen of Quilts this weekend BUT she informed me that now I have to sew each state down. I thought about sewing them down with my sewing machine but I want to emphasis the details of the more detailed borders SO it looks like I'll be whip stitching each state by hand.

Can anyone guess what I'll be doing this weekend?