Sometimes influences and chances conspire so that two people are creating the same thing at the same time, say the Wright Brothers and Richard Pearse all getting off the ground within a short space of time but on other sides of the world. It can be that there was a unifying influence or they all just thought of the same thing at the same time. This quilt could be said to be the result of a perfect storm of inspirations. While I was stitching away in one little corner, I had no idea that there were so many others doing the same.

I started this quilt last September, cutting strips and sending them out for friends and have recently had the chance to stumble upon the Liberated Amish Get Together hosted by the lovely Lazy Girl Tonya . It could be an opportunity for a down hearted sigh, thinking that I was the only one doing this, thinking that I was being uniquely creative only to find, I wasn’t. Instead it is an opportunity to say, “Isn’t it great?”. I’m not the only one and there is till so much more to discover.

I had been inspired by the cover of Gwen Marston’s “Liberated String Quilts”, my mother’s 1980’s collection of Roberta Horton books, especially “An Amish Adventure” and then spurred on by the opportunity to have a selection of blocks made by my ANZAC Bee friends.

The quilt along was similarly inspired by the works of Gwen Marston, but also takes in liberated letter piecing and appear to have been spurred on by the publication of Liberated Quiltmaking II earlier this year.

Now I’m left with a quilt top that still has me buzzing. There is also a long list of possible inspirations to look up and hunt down, knowing that they are guaranteed to appeal. With a both diverse and shared influences, we have ended up in the same place. I’ve discovered people who are just as fired up about the possibilities as me, a truly perfect storm.