When I ran the Nationwide Children’s Columbus Half as part of my 52 half marathons in 52 weeks (in October 2012), I saw the coolest quilt place at the expo.
I wanted so badly to get a quilt from Keepsake Theme Quilts! But alas, I wasn’t done with the project. So, I took a business card and held onto it tightly until the end of my 52 half marathons.
But once that came around, I sort of got distracted (both money and time-wise) ordering photos from all the races. I also needed a week or two to kind of just decompress from the awesome year-long adventure. Plus then I did other stuff (such as The Price is Right).
I really wanted that quilt, but it kept going to the back burner. The quilt could always be made as long as I had the shirts. The photos would eventually expire. With only so much money to go around, I kept pushing off the quilt.
Then one day… as I was approaching the 1-year anniversary of the end of the 52 half marathons and really dying to wrap everything up once and for all before starting my next project… I got a tweet from Keepsake Quilts!
I kid you not. I didn’t reach out to them. They just appeared in my timeline.
Granted, I’d been thinking about them, for sure. I’d been looking at their website a bunch, trying to imagine what colors I’d want and what special features I’d need… I was thinking about them kind of a lot. Maybe my brainwaves made it across the country to them…
They tweeted me saying they heard my story and loved it and wanted to talk about making me a quilt!
I emailed them, and we had a great exchange. Sure enough, they set things up to give me a quilt I was beside myself with how serendipitously everything was working out.
I’d actually sent all my race t-shirts to my parents’ house while I was cleaning out my room so we could put them aside for the quilt. After all, the quilt place was in Ohio (which is where my parents are). And my parents have more room in a house than I do in my apartment. So they were willing to store them.
I called my parents and asked if they could tag the shirts for me. My dad kept saying “just come visit and you can tag them.”
I could see that in the end the only way my shirts were getting tagged was if I came by to do them. So, I hopped on a plane. This is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.