APQS Canada / Sparrow Studioz Sponsorship (Or, How Kathleen's Life Is Super Awesome)

I don't even know where to start with this post.

I guess, the beginning.

So, as I mentioned in my FMF post yesterday (written on Tuesday though, so before this story started) I took classes with Claudia Pfeil in Edmonton at Sparrow Studioz on Thursday and Friday.  Which were so much fun. On Thursday I was quilting on an APQS Lucey, which is basically my dream machine. It's the one that when I bought my current machine, I would have prefered, but was out of my price range. Which is how I ended up with the machine I have now. Which, as many of you  know, tends to frustrate me to no end, as it is a lower end longarm, not really meant for the crazy quilting I do.

So in class, on the APQS Lucey, I was talking to my mom about how this was the first longarm class I have taken that hasn't just made me super excited to get back to my machine, which I can use, moves the way I'm used to, etc, but rather, I wished I could stay and use that machine forever.

So then during lunch, Bradie (who, with her husband Matt own Sparrow Studioz and are the heads of APQS Canada) asked if I could come upstairs to the office...

Where they proceeded to ask me if I'd be interested in being sponsored by Sparrow Studioz and APQS Canada... which would mean getting to use a APQS Lucey in my house for the next year... and so of course I said yes.

Which means... most excitingly for me, that I'll have a machine that works, that does all the things I want it to, that has a 26" throat... Which means that over the next couple weeks when I'm quilting like a crazy person for market, I don't have to worry about my machine dying on me (something I didn't realize was stressing me out, until it wasn't any more), and that my life will be wonderful.

It also means, I'm going to be teaching some longarm quilting classes at Sparrow Studioz during the next year (which you are for sure going to want to check out), and that I'll be posting on their Facebook page, and likely a few other things.

But mostly, quilting on a crazy awesome machine.

Which is going to be so amazing.

Mostly though, I just can't believe that this is my life. That this is happening to me. That people, who in all reality up until Thursday had no stake in whether I succeed or fail, believe in me enough to give me this opportunity... makes me almost as sappy as THIS. I just can't thank Matt & Brady & Joanne (Joanne, who constantly makes awesome things happen in my life, and who I must get to just follow me around at all times) for making this happen. There are so many quilters out there, and that I was chosen... I just... can't even.

So, I'm going to quit typing before I start crying at work.

Later days, Kathleen.