I had a wonderful evening yesterday, I went to a trunk talk by Sarah Fielke. Sarah is the designer of my Down the Rabbit Hole quilt which I made last year as part of her BOM and I’m now (slowly) hand-quilting. She lives in Sydney, Australia and she mentioned on Facebook a couple of months back that she was coming over to the UK to do a couple of talks and classes in two locations, I couldn’t believe it when I found one of them was only 30 miles away at Simply Solids! I booked as soon as tickets became available and persuaded a friend to come too.
Of course I packed my quilt into a bag to take with me, but I also took a couple of squares of fabric and a pencil as I had a plan!
I had no idea how big or small an event this would be, when we arrived it was clear it was a small, select audience of maybe twenty ladies, so it was a lovely personal talk. The two ladies I sat next to had also brought their DTRH quilts so at least I wouldn’t be the only one!
Sarah brought lots of quilts to show us, talking us through her life in quilting, quilts from her books, quilts given as presents, quilts with a story behind them. They were beautifully made, most were hand appliqued and hand quilted.
At the end she showed us her Down the Rabbit Hole quilt, it was wonderful to see it for real! Her applique is as perfect as it looks on the videos! She asked if anyone had made the quilt and of course the three of us said ‘Well, yes, actually…’ So we all took turns to hold ours up, it was fascinating to see how different they all looked with the different colourways. I think she genuinely loved seeing our quilts, especially when we mentioned we’d not done needle-turn applique before. Here’s a photo from facebook which Sarah shared of my quilt, it’s a terrible photo of me though, I look like Mrs Merton!!!
After the talk we all milled around the quilts, chatting and admiring the craftsmanship. I took my fabric squares out of my bag and asked Sarah to sign one of them (I thought I’d give her a choice of fabric!) she signed in pencil, big enough for me to embroider over for a label to go on the back of my quilt. This evening I embroidered over her writing so I now have a designer label for my quilt, just have to finish it!
I managed to get a photo of the two of us, I’m grinning like a cheshire cat, it was a great evening!
thecraftycreek 
Isn’t it wonderful to meet someone you admire and you like them too.!! What a fun evening.
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She’s so lovely, it is a bit strange meeting someone you only know from the internet as you almost feel you know them, like they’ve been in your sewing room!!
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what a lovely time you had!
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It was wonderful 🙂
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Your quilt is lovely, Margaret. xxx
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Thanks Ann xx
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Oh wow how wonderful that you got to meet her and see the beautiful quilts in person. I am surprised that it was a small group that came to see her
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It was a great evening. I wasn’t sure how many would be there, it was only a little room, I think also she isn’t that well known over here and I’m not sure how it was advertised, I only found out from a comment Sarah made on facebook.
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What a glorious night for you two! So nice to read your report. Thank you!
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I had a great time thanks Del
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Your quilt is Gorgeous!! just like you thought it would be I think, and you are a lovely woman and Sarah looks like she would lots of fun too! So luck you getting to meet someone that is so genuine and accomplished. Happy Sewing from Iowa
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Thanks Melody, Sarah is lovely, I had a great time 🙂
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What a great evening and she certainly had some beautiful quilts to show – yours definitely being one of them! I hope you were proud of yourself – it looks amazing. I hadn’t realised your rabbits were so huge – I didn’t get that impression from your blog photos.
BTW you’re the only other person I ‘know’ apart from me who uses the verb ‘to mill’ when talking about, well, milling. 😊
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It was a wonderful evening, DTRH is a seriously big quilt, it’s not easy taking photos of it at home so the scale doesn’t really show. Milling is probably quite a northern word, never thought about it before, it’s funny how some words are so localised.
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I can feel your excitement just buzzing from this post and allow me to assure you that you don’t look like Caroline Ahern or the Cheshire cat, you just look suitably happy and filled with joy.
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Ooh, I was just soo excited!
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How lovely – looked a splendid evening. I am very envious as another DTRH from Scotland, and also loved Sarah’s videos. Love her applause method too. Signed up for Coming Home – oh wasn’t goi g to do a big project but stars and houses 💕💕
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Thanks Jane, I wasn’t planning to do any BOM’s next year, but I couldn’t resist the little houses!
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Wow – this was a really exciting post. I am so glad you had her sign. That was the icing for this project!
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What a wonderful evening, and only 20 of you! WOW, that was special!
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Lovely to see what you look like too! And get more of an idea of the scale of your quilt!
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It’s a seriously big quilt!
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What a wonderful opportunity! So glad you had such a great time.
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