Oh, the blog...

Hello all,
I’ve had starting a blog for The Quilt Idaho on my to-do list for a few years now. Then covid, and kids, and jobs, and life happened.

Well, baby #2 is weaned and suddenly I have a little more time in my life. This is my attempt to do what I want to do with that time - I’m restarting the blog! Hopefully it won’t be too many years of writing to myself before it gets some kind of following.

What’s also motivated me is that after 3 years of having the retreat open, we’ve started to have some genuine relationships with some regular groups. They have been with us when we first opened, through covid, and probably most impactful, through two babies and the transition of becoming parents while trying to start a small business in the boonies.

We’ve been home a lot (see recent events above). This year we made a big change; we bought the glamper. It’s not technically a glamper, but it certainly is glamping compared to our college glory days. We want to be able to use the flexibility we created for ourselves by starting our business and Blake transitioning to remote work. Our goal is to quilt-travel when we are able to leave the retreat (i.e., during the slower bits when we don’t have to be nearby all the time). We’ve worked hard to get to this point and honestly, I need to get out.

There’s a great online presence for RVers, quilters, and now - RV Quilters. I’m super excited to get to know this new subgroup. The quilting rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper and I love it for it. There’s always more to learn and explore.

We want to use these valuable early years before the girls are in school to expose them to travel as well. This winter, while the retreat is down for the season, we’ll be traveling south to explore some national parks. My big goals are a significant stay at Saguaro Nat. Park and The Grand Canyon. Being from the upper midwest, I never got to know the Southwest enough to appreciate it in ways I do now. Having an ecology background and living in the high desert since 2015, I see things differently than I did as a kid on a very, very long road trip we once did with my parents and “baby” brother.

Right now we are working our way up to the panhandle of Idaho for a family event. I’m making time to work on some neglected Quilt Idaho computer work I want to do (such as this blog), and working on a surprise quilt that I can’t share now, but will soon. I am both excited and disappointed to say that this week I got to being 99% done with the Serendipity quilt that was The Fat Quarter Shop’s 2021 Make-a-wish fundraiser. It’s a lot more piecing than my typical style, but the bold navy negative space appealed to the modern-traditionalist quilter in me. Anyways, I’ve been side-eyeing this thing for over a year, knowing I needed to just get it done and I was almost there this week… until I found out that I’m needing a strip of about 30 x 4.5” to finish the last boarder. (Note: this had nothing to do with the kit I purchased, I just made a lot of cutting mistakes which seems to happen when I work on a project so intermittently). I have the fabric on order and hopefully it’ll be at the retreat by the time I get home from this trip.

Side note: one really nice perk about having the retreat and our living area on the same property is that we can leave for a week without worrying about break-ins because retreaters ain’t just gon’ be letting someone mess up their retreat if you know what I mean. They’ll cut you! Good neighbors and a friendly UPS guy helps too.

Hopefully I’ll be able to get some sewing time in tonight or tomorrow and put up some pics once I am at liberty to share. I love giving gifts and so I don’t want to risk ruining the surprise.

Finally, I learned something wonderful ya’ll. My girl, Bonnie Hunter (I love her)… her MOM lives in Garden Valley, ID people! I just found this out (we own land in Garden Valley that we hope to put a retreat on one day). Maybe some day the stars will align and I’ll get to have Bonnie come tour my retreat out of it. It’s only a short drive from her mom’s house after all!

Love you all. Danielle.

August 31st 2022. Four Corners Fire outside of Casecasde, ID. Not close enough to put us in danger, but still a site to see when driving past.