Hi everyone! My name is Sarah, and I work at The Whimsical Workshop behind the scenes doing social media writing, scheduling and posting, etc. While I've been working with Heidi a lot since March when I lost my full time position in Marketing, the truth is that I've been circling around the studio for most of my life. Heidi's husband and my father are cousins, but Heidi has always been much more of an older cousin, best friend and mentor to me. When I was 7 or so, she took me for a ride in her bright red convertible and no one has ever been as cool in my eyes since that day!
While I'm not very talented behind a sewing machine, I did work for a major fabric company for three years and learned a lot about this whole wonderful world from a unique perspective. I feel it prepared me really well for the work I now get to do for the studio, and I'm so grateful to have had that opportunity.
When Heidi asked me to pull together a list of some of my favorite quilts, I was honored and overwhelmed. They're all my favorites in some way because they were designed by one of my favorite people; so how could I choose?! I quickly got to work narrowing it down to a small set of 30. I'm still working on narrowing it down even more... But I'm so excited to share some of these with you and why I like them so much.
One of the perks of being related to a talented designer and studio owner like Heidi, is that I'm pretty high up in line to claim quilts that need a new home. My husband has also been enjoying that benefit, and has inherited an absolutely stunning quilt that tops my favorite list; Pencil Box. He's a middle school teacher and has this huge, kind of cold, classroom. Bringing in such a bright, fun quilt instantly lifted the room and made it a much more welcoming space. While his students are still learning remotely, I can't wait to hear about their reaction when they get to see it for themselves! All classrooms should have a quilt like this in my opinion.
Another recipient of Heidi's generosity is her soon-to-be-born nephew, joining us in the world this coming Spring. When I found out that my husband and I were expecting our first child, we were originally planning to keep the news a secret until I entered the second trimester. However while at an early visit with my doctor, I accidentally sent a video of the baby's heartbeat to Heidi instead of my husband - Whoops! There was no explanation, no fun surprise announcement, and I felt terrible. Luckily, Heidi was thrilled to find out in such an unconventional way and has sent me a huge stack of baby quilts that are now hanging up on the walls of the nursery. While in full on baby mode, and as a sucker for cute appliqué, of course I had to include this totally adorable Baby Shower quilt in my favorites. How could I not?
And finally, the last quilt I'll share with you as one of my favorites, is this jaw-dropping stunner, Rising From the Ashes. This project will always have the most special of places in my heart because it was one of the first times Heidi and I got to collaborate as co-workers in a sense. I was working in the marketing department of the previously mentioned fabric company, and part of my job was to solicit pattern ideas from quilt designers and studios to showcase new fabric collections. We had this overwhelmingly large collection of Batik solids that were being re-branded and introduced back into the market and our initial idea was to ask Heidi to produce a quilt depicting a volcano erupting in color. Heidi came back and said that design wasn't really coming together and how would we feel about a rising phoenix instead? Of course we gave her the green light, but we had no idea just how amazing the finished product would turn out. The sample she made included a delicately placed crystal in the phoenix's eye and caught everyones attention immediately. It hung on the main entrance wall for months! I've tried to lay claim to Heidi's version whenever she's done with it, but I have a feeling I'll be fighting off everyone else in our family for it...
