a small world afterall

I've been meaning to write about a wonderful coincidence that happened several weeks ago when school began, but I keep getting sidetracked. Let me just begin by saying that it really is a small, small world. Here's the story.

At kindergarten orientation this summer I signed up to help with Art Volunteers in the Classroom, which is an exciting elementary school program in our district that enables parents with a background or interest in art to go into the classroom to teach. Very cool. Anyway, at the start of the school year I went to a meeting at the coordinator's house. It was a cute farmhouse-like home just a few blocks from mine and although I had never seen it before or met the woman hosting the meeting, I had an odd sense of familiarity. It was strange, but I had the feeling that I had seen the inside of this house before.

After dropping our kids off for kindergarten that afternoon, I chatted with the woman in whose home I had been. I discovered that she was an artist and then asked her if she liked to visit blogs. After a few moments, we realized that not only did we visit many of the same blogs, we had visited each other's blogs! In fact, I often visited her blog and, in pictures, had seen glimpses of the inside of her house. But I had no idea that she - Emily - lived anywhere near me. (I do, however, remember my friend Ann telling me about Emily's blog and saying that she thought Emily might live in my town. I just figured, what are the chances of that? And how would I even find her if she did?)

Most of what I knew about Emily was that she was an excellent knitter and that she dyed yarn (gorgeous yarn) and sold it in her Etsy shop. But a few days later, upon further investigation of her blog, I discovered that she also sews art quilts, incredible ones. As I perused Emily's art quilt website, I began to get that familiar feeling again. I knew I had seen these quilts before, and I had! Emily was one of the featured quilters on a PBS special I had watched on DVD called The Art of Quilting. How crazy is that?

I, wannabe quilter and aspiring excellent knitter, get to loiter on the school grounds waiting for the dismissal bell with this gem of a woman who is every bit as down to earth as she is talented. Every day I look forward to seeing her and talking to her. I guess you could say I had a blog crush that completely unexpectedly is becoming a real life friendship. Lucky me.