Chilling with Weeks and Bill

Guess who I got to Skype with last week?! The Internet is such a beautiful thing, you know it?

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last, oh, seven years or so, you’ll know it’s Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr up there on my computer screen!

I have long admired Weeks and Bill’s work. Their book Modern Quilt Workshop was the very first quilting book I purchased when I really got into sewing in 2005. The book had just come out and I loved so many things about it. I think I’ve made the Plain Spoken quilt so many times I’ve lost count! They write instructions and discuss color and design theory in a way that makes everything seem approachable. They really make it feel like it’s something that everyone can do, given a little guidance.

Fast forward to this summer. Weeks hosted a big giveaway on her blog, Craft Nectar, to celebrate their new book, Quilts Made Modern (not to be confused with their even more new book Transparency Quilts). They gave away just about everything possible, including some Skype sessions… and I won! Between our move and their giant renovation and recent move, we had to delay a bit. With my kids tucked away at preschool, we got to talk about everything from the modern quilting movement and picking fabric to the fact that the Girl Scouts have discontinued the sewing badge. Perhaps someone at Girl Scouts of America isn’t clued into the resurgence that sewing is experiencing. Oy.

Weeks and Bill were just as full of energy and wit as you would expect from reading their blog. It was a great chat and I am so, so thankful for the gift of their time. (And Skype).