About

My name is Nadine (Didi to family and close friends) and I love to quilt. I bet you didn’t know that, right? Sometimes I fit my quilting into my life, but mostly I like it to be the other way around, fitting life in around the quilting. Lately, it’s been too much other stuff, and definitely not enough quilting, and as my husband will tell you, I get really bitchy when I don’t quilt enough. It’s as necessary as breathing for me, I think. I make quilts, talk about quilting, write about quilting, read about quilting, take pictures of quilts, teach and take classes about quilting, and dream about quilting (really, I do, in color no less).

Contrary to what you might think, I do have other interests. There are just not enough hours in the day for everything…

Contrary to what you might think though, I do have other interests. There are just not enough hours in the day for everything I want to do. I enjoy reading (fantasy, a bit of sci-fi, modern or historical romance and fiction, some mysteries), music (pop, alternative, rock, some country, some new age, all of it really loud in my car or on my iPod), occasional movies, home decorating, other non-quilting types of crafting, techy, computer and Internet related stuff, and Web design and development, among other things. And yes, I can build a website for you, so you can have your own home in cyberspace, with a weblog, gallery, or an e-commerce solution. Building websites and programming has become another addiction for me (just what I needed), and I do some freelance work here and there.

I don’t mind cooking, but it’s not one of my passions, and I’d like it better if I didn’t have to do it in a one-butt kitchen to please two picky-eater kids. That of course leads me to where I live, because if we lived somewhere else, maybe I would have a bigger/better kitchen! It probably wouldn’t do a thing for the picky eater problem, though. I live in Germany, courtesy of my husband’s job. We rent a house, and it’s not a bad house, and it is fairly big as German houses go, but for all their love of food and cooking, German kitchens tend to leave more than a bit to be desired, from what I’ve seen. Living here has it’s ups and downs, and many of the downs are caused by having to deal with the US Army, but that’s another rant.

I love to drive my car, and going out for a drive with just me, my music and my car can improve my mood immeasurably if it’s been that kind of a day. Part of the attitude adjustment of the whole thing is directly related to the number of people who stare at the car with their jaw dropped as I drive by. *shrug* I didn’t think it was that big a deal when I bought it, but I guess here in Germany it’s a shocker, and there aren’t that many of them around so it definitely gets noticed. It tends to crack me up really, and how can you stay in a bad mood if you’re laughing? I lurk on the Mustang forums reading about all the mods I could do to my car and chuckling about all the “gimme more power under the hood” stuff people do (mostly guys, it must be said), but in the end will probably keep it fairly stock, except for a few purely cosmetic additions/replacements.

Back to the quilting (I never can stay away long…). I have thought for years that I would like to turn my hobby into a career, and this weblog and all of my other sites are some steps I’ve taken in that direction. I’ve published patterns and my Machine Quilting Workshop on CD, but there is probably more I could be doing. Being “in the business” has it’s ups and downs as well though, and I tend to spend a lot of my time feeling ambivalent about it all. At the moment, I make quilts, show my quilts at quilt shows and on the Internet, and wait to see where it all goes. This weblog is my place to share all of the “stuff” that makes up my quilting life.