This month I celebrate a decade of blogging at Stitched in Color. Wow!

I’ve been sitting here thinking about how life changing this medium has been for me. I started my blog in 2010 mainly to gain access to a community of others passionate about sewing. Back then, blogging was the way to join the conversation. Plus, it would create a record of what I’d made before I gave it away or it got used up. Wouldn’t that be nice to have?

Little did I know.

my first quilt and one of my first blog posts

As a blogger I became part of the movement providing free information online. I love that! I believe in that. It’s how I learned all the basics of sewing and quilting!

In time my blog became the cornerstone of a business. That business is at the root of so much goodness in my life, including our recent ability to move overseas.

I think I’m only beginning to appreciate how precious my blog is as a record. The artistic stuff is nice to have, but it’s the facets of my family life that I’ve captured - homeschooling, Eleni, moving abroad - that are most dear.

And, each week, each month, each year, my blog is a reason to keep learning and growing and just sewing something - to always have something to share.

Blogging is no longer the way to access the quilting community online. I think that’s Instagram these days. But it still holds all the other values I’ve listed. I’m planning to continue this practice, three times a week, for the forseeable future. I hope you’ll stick with me.

Who knows what the next decade might hold?

A Decade in Review

2010

Favorite quilt: Good Folks Colorbrick - my first quilt

Milestones: I begin do. Good Stitches, an online quilting bee making quilts to donate to charities around the world.

Life at Home: Our first year of “homeschooling”, with Aria preschool age. I enjoy it very much and feel it allows my child to thrive.

In the Community: Publish my first tutorial and host my first quilt-along - Colorbrick: A Beginner’s Quilt-Along.

Modern Meadow Colorbrick, made during the quilt-along

2011

Favorite quilt: Beach Riot, a super-simple picnic quilt attached to many family memories. Here’s a tutorial I share in 2017 for a similar rainbow version. (Close second favorite 2011 quilt.)

Life at Home: At the beginning of 2011, I give myself one year to make Stitched in Color a small business or find a new job. My previous business (an online maternity clothing store) began failing as of 2008 and will eventually close entirely. 2011 is the last year I take income from my old business.

Milestones: Several of my projects are published in magazines, like a quilt I made for Liam called Alphabet Soup. It feels really soon to be taking this step, so I am nervous turning in my work. Luckily, all is well received! I also offer my first digital quilt pattern for sale. By year end, Stitched in Color provides advertising for a growing group of sponsors who pay in cash, rather than fabric.

In the Community: my Bottled Rainbows quilt-along is a big hit. It’s all about using tiny scraps and enjoying color. Hmm - do you spot an early trend? I also publish my Zigzag binding tutorial - that’s a good one.

Bottled Rainbows blocks. Stitched in Color.jpg

2012

Favorite quilt: Oodalolly, created for Curves Class and inspired by Sherri Lynn Wood’s improv style. It exudes joy!

Milestones: Instead of writing a book (which I hear isn’t so lucrative), I create my first online class called Curves. It releases January 2012 with surprising success. Later in the year I release Handstitched, another online class. I update my Makeup Roll pattern, to make it more professional. It’s my only non-quilting pattern and still a good one. My free journal cover tutorial gets used far and wide. I share the process of preparing for a craft show.

Life at Home: Thanks to the success of these online classes, I get to stay home and continue homeschooling. Woohoo! I’m so very, very grateful! In August of 2012, Liam is a kindergartner and Aria a second grader. Very special days!

In the Community: I organize a Scrap Attack quilt-along event with several other bloggers. The Scrap Attack page still has links to a variety of scrap-freindly tutorials written for the event. Later in the year, I organize the Valued Added quilt-along, another collaborative project designed to help quilters explore value. I create my first fabric mosaic contest, Softly Against Black.

2013

Favorite quilt: Oooh, it’s really hard to choose a favorite for this year. Vintage Tangerine is high on the list, such a simple but satisfying quilt. Here, the color scheme is key. I’m also drawn to charming Pixie Churns. I would go on to use that quilt with both baby Eleni and baby Elora. And then there’s Starbright Stars, which represents scrappy, rainbow awesomeness. Sorry, can’t choose!

Milestones: The original Penny Sampler class! And quilt. It is an encouraging success! Two of my quilts hang at the first QuiltCon event.

Life at Home: Our family is at a high point, enjoying our ordinary days so very much and excited about what the future might bring. My attitude is encapsulated in this post: Make Something Better. Thanks to the success of Stitched in Color, we can afford a surgery that will enable us to try to have another child next year. Life changing.

In the Community: I host another beginner-oriented free quilt-along, inspired by my Vintage Tangerine quilt. It’s called Penny Patch. I’m thinking about redoing this one someday, with a few corrections. I share a Quilt-As-You-Go tutorial that remains my most-viewed page today.

2014

Favorite quilt: Chai Rose Ikat quilt. I love the color play in this quilt and felt touched when 10-year-old Aria claimed it for her bed. I go on to release it as a pattern.

Milestones: This year I create Color Intensive, an online course about color for quilters and Angled Class, about all things patchwork-with-angles. I really enjoy this format of online-teaching. It allows me to provide a content-rich product right from home, ideal as a homeschooling parent.

Life at Home: I become joyfully pregnant mid-year and we find out it is a girl. Meanwhile, homeschooling Aria and Liam becomes increasingly complex as they grow older. I organize a homeschooling cooperative with some friends, that meets our needs for the year.

In the Community: I host the Purge-along, a quilt-along about making something from your unloved fabrics. I’m still an active member and key organizer of do. Good Stitches, the charity quilting bee. It’s been growing since 2010 into a fully international organism with circles all over the world.

2015

Favorite quilt: Sour Pickle, a scrap quilt sewn mostly away from home, while processing loss. Or my Tipsy improv quilt.

Life at Home: Eleni is born on February 28 and suffers a birth injury that causes severe brain damage. Everything shifts to survival mode. I am often away from home for out-of-town therapy or to be with baby during frequent hospitalizations. Family and friends and readers gather around us with love, but Eleni suffers so terribly. Our family is deeply wounded. She dies early in 2016.

Milestones: Upon Eleni’s birth I switch from a 5-day-per week blogging schedule, to a 3-day-per week schedule. It fits. Improv is a tool for working through strong emotions. The red slash in this quilt marks the unexpected turn of Eleni’s birth. And a series of improv quilts based on The Improv Handbook follows.

In the Community: I host the Clambake quilt-along early in the year, before Eleni is born. Thereafter, I step back a bit, and mainly share a few tutorials like Herringbone and Plus blocks. I do continue to create color-oriented fabric mosaic contests, which are a regular feature for my readers.

2016

Favorite quilt: Doodle, Doodle. At the time I didn’t much appreciate this quilt, but it’s grown on me. Now I think it’s one of the best I’ve made.

Life at Home: After Eleni’s sudden and unexpected death, our lives go on. We begin to heal and smile again, tentatively. Aria needs more and more from us academically, which becomes expensive and increasingly impossible via homeschooling. Elora Faye is born at the end of the year. Such joy!

Milestones: I release my most complex quilt pattern yet, which teaches y-seams. My new class, Patchwork from Scrap, doesn’t sell nearly as well as usual. I wonder, was it the wrong topic or an overly saturated market? I make this quilt in Eleni’s memory.

In the Community: I host 30 Days of Quilt Design, my first Instagram challenge. This one I definitely plan to repeat! There aren’t as many sew-alongs around the web, as so many have abandoned blogs and migrated to Instagram. I post an important tutorial How to Assemble and Finish Quilt-as-You-Go blocks.

2017

Favorite quilt: Love in Butterflies, a collaborative do. Good Stitches quilt. My bee-mates made the collection of butterfly blocks. I put them together with orphan blocks and other sewn scraps into a lively hodgepodge baby quilt.

Life at Home: Our family is soaking up Elora’s peaceful and healing babyhood. Aria tries public school, with disappointing results. She soon returns to homeschool via expensive online classes and self-study. This will be the last year that I homeschool Liam, who needs some space from family life.

Milestones: I pitch a book to Lucky Spool Media and it is accepted! Meanwhile, I create another new online course, Stitched Holiday. This time I invest in a new course platform and more professional video. Unfortunately, this course too is a disappointment from a business perspective. At the end of the year, we buy the longarm to diversify Stitched in Color’s income stream. It’s a big risk. We also start thinking about something crazy - moving overseas.

In the Community: Building on last year, I host another Instagram challenge. 30 Days of Fabric Stacks is lots of fun! I also offer a very simple Rainbow Picnic Sew-Along, testing the waters.

2018

Favorite quilt: This is another year when it’s really hard to choose a favorite. Some winners: Indie Geese (should I make a pattern?), Dear Dottie (now a pattern!) and Plum Pudding (which I kept).

Milestones: At the start of the year I begin two major projects - learning to be a longarm quilter and writing my book, The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color. It is adapted from Color Intensive, circa 2014. Luckily, I love longarm quilting and it fits perfectly with my existing business. What a blessing! I also start a new color-oriented pattern series, Color Mentor, and begin rejuvenating my existing patterns.

Life at Home: It’s not too long before we commit to the goal of moving overseas. The logistics are intense, but it feels 100% like the right choice for our family. Liam attends public school, while Aria homeschools herself. Elora is perfectly charming and so easy!

In the Community: This is the year that I realize quilt-alongs are still alive and well! I organize The Big Bed Quilt-Along (for finishing any large bed quilt) and co-host the Kingfisher Stitch-along with Tales of Cloth. At the end of the year I step out of do. Good Stitches, in anticipation of our likely move abroad. This is my last quilt with a U.S. based circle.

2019

Favorite quilt: Brave, an improv word quilt was inspired by Sara Bareilles' song called Brave. So meaningful in this time of monumental transition.

Milestones: I start my Expat Chronicles series, with the first post sharing our news in February. I move my longarm business with us to Europe, starting on customer quilts in July. My book is finally published in October, but it does not become widely available until January 2020.

Life at Home: Our house goes on the market and sales just in time! We move at the end of May. After a sometimes boring and sometimes busy summer, shopping for a home and completing all the necessary immigration steps, we are all happy to begin our new life in The Netherlands.

In the Community: I cohost the 2019 Gypsy Wife Quilt-Along early in the year. Such fun! Then follows two quilt-alongs based on patterns I offer for sale: Drummer Boy Dresdens and Dear Dottie, both co-hosted with The Makings of Joy.

2020

And what will the new year bring?

I’ve rejoined do. Good Stitches, now in an EU circle, and I’ve launched Quilter’s Color Quest to encourage people to really use The Quilter’s Field Guide to Color. I’m sewing-along with those who are making the new Penny Sampler, via our 2020 pattern club. I’m so glad you still enjoy sewing together! This month I’m scheduled to teach a workshop for the Dutch quilting guild, and later this year my After the Rain quilt will be featured in a European quilting magazine, Simply Modern. Busy times!

As always I am forever grateful to you for reading along, purchasing my patterns and classes, sending your quilts, sharing encouraging comments and caring for my family through the good times and bad. It’s been an incredible ten years! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here’s to more color, more fun, and many more memories to be had!