Goodbye! So long from Kit at Diva Quilts

That's it! June 15th, and Diva Quilts is done.

I had so much fun here, from my first quilt that I ever made - proudly blogged about to no one, as far as I could tell (lol), to my my third quilt, that everyone saw (thanks to my participation in Amy's first Blogger's Quilt Festival).

I made about 60 quilts over the 2.5 years that Diva Quilts has been around - and for those of you who have been with me from the beginning   - you know that they were widely ranging.

From the one that confused me  - because everyone loved it -

( this quilt has more than two thousand hits on it - and I was all "Dude! It's just circles!")  to the one that I loved but no one else seemed to:

(at only a couple of hundred hits I was all "Dude, it's AWESOME!")

to BSP's favourite quilt:

to quilts about my family  (Oma's Pocketbook, Strawberry Sunday and others) and the quilt about my struggle with depression.

I made a quilt on which I finally learned how to free motion quilt:

(Seriously, you hafta click on that pic. One year before that, I did my first free motion quilting, with the feed dogs down (heh) (I was all feed dogs? What the heck are feed dogs? Dum de dum...] to THAT. )

And here, I made my first real art quilt (I don't count Coneflowers in Leslieville, because, although it spawned what will be a life-long path, I didn't make it on purpose)

And here is where I struggled to find my artistic "voice". I made schizophrenic art work in the same way I made schizophrenic quilts - exploring very different kinds and ways, making pieces that were pure expressions of love and hope, until finally I began to see glimmers of the path to finding my way.

When I started Diva Quilts, I had a secret, ridiculously, grandiose vision: even though I'd only made three quilts when I started the blog - I believed that some day I would make luxurious, luscious, one-of-a-kind, high-end quilts, and that I would leave law and support myself by selling those quilts under the company name, Diva Quilts. I even bought the name, the domain, registered the business and got a GST number!

But then I made that (damn) Coneflowers In Leslieville, and I found myself pulled in another direction. I had no idea that by following instructions from my dream self, I would open a Pandora's box that would change my life's course!

And as I struggled with that, I struggled with blogging. I didn't know whether I wanted to make quilts, or art; I didn't even know if what I was making was good enough to be considered art. I felt like I was fooling everyone; myself most of all.

You  may remember that in January I posted that I was going to start a whole new regime of making what I wanted without worrying about my perceived "audience" and blogging in the same way. I didn't know where it would take me, and I certainly didn't know it would kill Diva Quilts - but it turns out that I don't want that dream anymore; so I'm letting it go for new ones.

In January of 2012, the Diva Quilts domain will come up for renewal - I won't renew it, and in fact, will probably delete this blog - but I have already moved all the content from here over to my new home. (Funny thing happened when I exported it - all the comments come up as being me talking to myself!) 

And in my new home, I'm going to continue making quilts - quilts that are beautiful to me, and that may fall into that "Diva Quilts" category; but I'm also going to continue learning and growing in making textile art/fiber art/quiltArt - but not as someone who dreams of opening a business making quilts for divas.  So I need to leave this phase behind.

But before I do - I wanted to say thank you.

This isn't some Oprah goodbye - "You made me who I am and go with the God of your understanding" etc; but really, I do truly thank you.

Knowing you were there, reading, commenting, checking in now and again; motivated me to keep on working - sometimes when I didn't want to.  And that process really has made me who I am.

So, thank you.

And I hope you'll join me in my new home: Kit Lang Fiber Art

Ciao!

Kit