Love Yourself Quilting with Jennifer Farsh, Episode #28
And you can also watch the video here:
Now a bit more about Jennifer: She’s doesn’t have a website or blog, but you can see her kindness and loving nature in every comment and post she shares on Facebook and YouTube. Honestly it makes my day, nearly every day, to see a message from Jennifer!
And that’s why I asked Jennifer to be on the show. I wanted to have a real life chat with this sweet person and get to know her better. Turns out, Jennifer in SC, which isn’t that far away from me, and I would never have known this if I hadn’t reached out and asked her to be on the show.
Never discount the power of a kind message. It might just help you build a new friendship!
Jennifer shared many pictures with me from the projects she’s working on right now. She’s working on a Flower Festival quilt for the Machine Quilting Block Party and already put the first six blocks together!
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And she’s also quilted this beautiful peacock panel:
You might be curious about Jennifer’s sewing room so this is her setup:
Jennifer has also been using quilting to help heal and transform her life. She thinks of an affirmation to quilt and stitches it out with free motion quilting:
I love these beautiful affirmations and I know just how powerful it can be to stitch out words like this onto fabric. Click Here to learn more about quilting with words.
She was inspired to try this after watching this short timelapse video I put up last year:
When I put this video up, it was mostly an experiment to play with the timelapse feature on my iphone, but I had also been feeling squashed under the pressure to constantly be DOING something. Painting this fabric was a reminder that I am enough and I can just be still. I don’t have to work at such a fast pace.
Talking with Jennifer reminded me how much I love to share this more personal side of my life, which sometimes gets lost when I’m too busy. It’s hard to be self reflective when deadlines are bearing down on me.
It’s also been a reminder to me to be true to that side of myself and not let it fall to the wayside. I love teaching quilting and I love designing and writing too, but the work that feeds my soul is my goddess quilt series which has been slowly shifted aside for other projects. That must change.
I’m so thankful for this conversation with Jennifer and I feel like this has reminded me of my deeper purpose – to teach you how to make quilts that mean more. Thank you so much Jennifer!
Show Sponsor
The sponsor for the show this week is Quilting a King on Your Home Machine, a fun quilting workshop that will guide you through all the steps to quilting a huge quilt on a small home machine. Click Here to check out this workshop now.
Now for what’s going on around the house:
I’ve finally shot the last photos for the new book on walking foot quilting and it feels great to finally have that responsibility finished. I still have some editing to wrap up, but that will be done by the end of the day. Yay!
But the Crafty Cottage had reached a state of epic clutter and it was time to clean up and clear out. Here’s the before:
I haven’t shot an “after” photo because I still want to hang up a few more hooks and holders to hopefully control my habit of hoarding around my machine. I’ll update this post with a nice cleaned up desk in a bit.
But of course, I shifted most of my mess back inside the house and now the entire basement studio needs to be cleaned up! Lol! Shifting from one spot to another doesn’t make it all go away. I really need to clean out drawers and make decisions on where things go, then use a label maker to label the drawers so I stop losing everything. Yep, it’s on my list!
For now I’m planning to take a few days to make new quilting tutorials, write, and generally relax now that the book photography is complete. That’s a seriously huge weight off my shoulders and I couldn’t be happier with how everything has turned out.
Let’s go quilt,
Leah Day
Love the peacock panel.
Such gorgeous quilting, as always. I just recently cleaned up my sewing/quilting area. They can get cluttered quickly, can't they? Lol 🙂
As a fellow hobby quilter, online taught, I really appreciated this podcast and could relate to it on so many levels. It was good to be reminded that it is not about the best sewing machine or the best fabric or tools, but it is about creating and making something you love. I think there must be people who appreciate quilting for the social aspect (classes, retreats and guilds), which is fine, but I agree with Jennifer, it is so much work to take everything with you and you might not have all the tools you need. Then there are so many people who talk, it will be hard to be productive. Thanks for letting us listen in on your conversation!
Yes! Most definitely! The joy of quilting is the actual QUILTING and making something wonderful. I love retreats, but find I get very little done and sometimes get over stimulated from being around so many people. Online learning is made for us introverts!
Absolutely! I've cleaned out every sewing space and now it feels like each space needs to be cleaned out again just to be sure I didn't just move things from one place to another. Lol!
I have been binge listening to your podcasts all week while sewing. I found listening to them on this site saves the battery on my iPad, as Youtube requires the screen to be on, even if it's mostly audio. But I did start out the first few on YouTube. I'm up to this podcast at the moment and this one has resonated with me the most. I'm also an online learner, quilt as a hobby with no intention to sell, introvert. I can relate to you and Jennifer. Every month I make up some reason why I cannot go to quilt guild that's only 3 miles from where I live. One day…. one day I'll go. Thank you for everything that you do! I thoroughly enjoy, and most of all, look forward to your posts, podcasts and videos.