I may not have come right out and said this yet, but as I type this, I am 37 weeks pregnant with our first child. I’m kind of a private person when it comes to this kind of stuff and social media, so there haven’t been any baby bump pictures or ultrasound photographs or “facebook official” posts.
However…I have to talk about my “tribe”. The group of people I didn’t even know I needed until I found them. I also have my church family to lean on and love (thank God for that!), but there is something to be said for your sewing friends that other groups don’t relate to.
I’m a member of the San Antonio Modern Quilt Guild, and have been for a little over 2 years. From the first meeting I attended, I looked around the room, and I could feel something different about the group. It was mostly (I think ALL, then) women. They were talking about things they made with their own hands, and they were supporting and encouraging each other. There was laughter and gossip and friendship. And they were all very different in their own way.
Sewing can be a very isolating hobby if you don’t have a tribe. And I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I went to that first meeting. I immediately joined and can’t believe the friendships I’ve made in that short period of time. There has been laughter, tears, good times, and bad. And sometimes there wasn’t any sewing going on during this. My point here is that sewing/quilting friends are the BEST. They get it. You can be talking about your dog dying one minute and the new quilting technique the next, and they don’t bat an eye.
I feel like I got a little derailed there, so let me get back to my point. Our MQG has a tradition that someone will head up making a baby quilt for expecting moms in the guild. So several of the people in the guild got together and put this amazing quilt together. I love everything about it, and it couldn’t be more perfect. They had even finished piecing it back in August. Which is the month our guild had booked Karlee Porter to come do a graffiti quilting workshop for us. Somewhere in all of this, they were discussing the baby quilt in front of Karlee and discussing who would quilt it. (I have to say here that Karlee is hands down the most authentic Sewlebrity I’ve even met. She is real and such a great person to be around. And AMAZINGLY talented.)
And Karlee volunteered to take it home and quilt it. NUTS. Not only did she take it home and quilt it, she couched my baby’s name in the center of the quilt with metallic yarn. This post is more for me than anyone else. I want to always remember how special I felt when i received this. Emily presented it to me at our October guild meeting, and I had no idea that it was finished. I wasn’t expecting it, and lately, I have been nothing but a bucket of raw emotions. So they told me how they put it together, the amazingly special people that planned it, gave fabric for it, gave their time for it, and arranged for Karlee to help as well. And I lost my shit. (Pardon the french. I don’t cuss on the blog, but there it is.) I cried so hard that I nearly couldn’t recover to do the rest of the meeting (I’m currently interim President). Ugly tears were seen by all, and I didn’t even care. Because this group is my tribe. And wouldn’t you know, I’m crying again while I’m typing this. Seriously, I can’t wait for these pregnancy hormones to be gone!
Anyway. I’m totally overwhelmed at the thought of being a new mom and have no clue what to do once Gemma gets here, but I know that she will be SO loved. And already is if this group is any indication.
