Member Spotlight – Shawna’s Update!

Posted in

Shawna Hello Dear Quilty Friends!
First of all, I miss you! You are a lovely, special group of people and I miss having you in my life regularly! Since many have been asking, here’s my life update since August:
I did my road trip from Vermont to Colorado in about two weeks and no mishaps (yay!). I stayed with friends, catching up and visiting and checking out quilt shows along the way 🙂 (The Nebraska State Fair had a pretty large exhibit.) I followed my plan to explore places in Colorado and check out New Mexico and Northern AZ. I have the most connections in Colorado, which is why it was my first state to check out. It is stunning and wonderful, but wasn’t quite feeling right, so in September I booked an Airbnb place and drove down to New Mexico.
I am very much a small town person, not city, but I surprised myself by liking Santa Fe NM the most. (Well, I fell in love with a few tiny tiny towns in CO but you need to be a millionaire already to live there…) Santa Fe felt like the right place to be, and a month-to-month rental pretty much fell into my lap my second day there, so I decided to give Santa Fe a shot! I finished out September in Southwestern CO with friends, then moved to Santa Fe October 1st.
Thanks to the wonders of social media, Sepi connected me with several friends/family in Santa Fe, which has been fabulous. They’ve been super helpful welcoming me to the area, and through one of those women I got a bartending/serving job at a delightful little restaurant. It’s small and quirky with delicious food and a great staff, Joseph’s Culinary Pub.
It turns out other Vermont friends have friends here, so while I didn’t initially know anyone in Santa Fe, I’ve been able to meet quite a few people through friends of friends and indirect connections. I’ve definitely had lonely and low days but overall it’s been an incredibly easy move and transition. I’m a little flabbergasted with how simple it’s been actually! It’s been harder to find cheap used furniture in Santa Fe then it was to move across the country…
At the beginning of December I moved into a one bedroom apartment with plenty of space for quilting! My new landlady is a quilter, she is absolutely delightful. I wish you all could meet her, she’d be thrilled with VTMQG.
I went to one meeting of the Albuquerque Modern Quilt Guild in October, but they meet on a night I work so I haven’t been able to go back since. I joined the guild anyway for 2019; hopefully they’ll have events at times I’ll be able to attend. There is a very large, very active traditional guild in Santa Fe that my landlady is a member of, but I have not gone to a meeting yet. So far, from what I’ve experienced, the quilting scene is verrrrry different here. For one thing, I am by far the youngest person at any quilt event/show/shop that I’ve been to 🙂
I have made no new projects since starting my westward adventure in August. Too much life and not enough quilting has been happening but I have a whole list of things to tackle in January!
I popped over to Phoenix for Christmas to say hi to Kaitlin and other friends. You’re all welcome to come visit Santa Fe anytime, I have a very hard futon couch and air mattresses!
Your quilting friend,
Shawna
PS Did any of you send me a quilting tee?! It says “im a piecemaker” and it’s adorable, but I don’t know who it came from!