Sparkles Family Update

How are y’all holding up out there? What a crazy, mixed up world we’ve found ourselves in, eh? I hope that the majority of you have found a way to stay inside and lock the door tight! Mr. Sparkles and I are both working from home (if that’s what we’re gonna call it), getting our meals through a weekly food delivery service, and working our way through Netflix. I assume you’ve watched Tiger King? Ever wondered what growing up in Oklahoma was like? Not exactly this, but also, not that far off! 

I’m somewhat terrified at the thought that some of the Glitterati might be sick, suffering, or even worse, may not be with us anymore after this terrible pandemic. My heart hurts even thinking about it. Please look out for each other in any way you can. 

You’ve probably heard by now that we had to cancel our wedding. Mr. Sparkles ate the last Tim Tam, so he had it coming. I kid. Mostly. Thankfully, we could see the inevitable coming, so we had already made the decision to cancel before we were forced to cancel. That meant we were emotionally prepared when I finally hit send on that email to the venue. Oh! It still hurt, but at least it was on our terms. 

We’ve managed to postpone the whole shebang for a year without much penalisation. Thanks to our wedding partners and a global fucking pandemic. So now instead of it being held on our 15th anniversary, we are gonna try for our 16th anniversary. If you thought there were going to be sparkles before … lordy. My latest request to my wedding stylist: a giant rotating, mirrored disco ball above the dance floor. Let’s make it happen! I’m seeing all of this as a blessing in disguise; a chance to make our event even bigger and better. Hopefully, after a year of further savings (and no where to go), our next level wedding will be hidden bonus level material!

Have you used up all of your fabric stash yet? Not to brag, but I’m making some serious dents in mine. Clearly, I did not have as much fabric as I thought I did. Honestly though, I have been making strides to shop my stash as much as possible. The only intake of fabric has been gifts from other people, which is alright by me! My aunt recently gave me a whole fat quarter bundle of Tula Pink’s Slow & Steady, and my mother-in-law gifted me 16 metres of an airplane logo print. I’d say both are pretty stellar gifts, wouldn’t you? Don’t be jealous of my boogie, y’all!

Right now I’m contemplating busting out my string scraps and seeing if anything happens with them. Like maybe they’ll magically iron themselves flat, and then combine themselves into the most ridiculously gorgeous quilt ever? Instead, since I have all the time in the world, they’ll probably expect me to do most of the work. I’ve been saving strings since 2012, so you know there’s going to be some wild thangs happening in there. At this very moment, which is subject to change in the next very moment, I’m thinking of hitting up some improv. Just letting the fabric dictate where it wants to go along the way. Seems like a good way to let the chaos of the world channel through me into my artistic output. If you know anything about me, you know I’m unafraid of a hot mess. 

I gather there’s going to be a lot of ingenious quilts come out of this time. We are all locked in, bunkered down for better or for worse, and what better way to spend our time than unleashing it on our fabric stashes. Those quilts shops better hurry up and get themselves listed as an essential service or there’s gonna be a lot of angry quilters without their fabric fix!