Oh, the humanity

Of me, that is... At great risk of all of you opening your eyes to the fact that my perfection is overrated philosophy extends into the rest of my life now and then and comes back to haunt me, I must take this opportunity to admit I unwittingly have confused at least 12 quilters in the last week and possibly more depending on how far reaching the problem became, and now I am confusing all of you so let's get to the True Confession: I discovered yesterday afternoon that my latest "pattern stuffing while watching 'Dancing with the Stars' and drinking some shiraz" session resulted in my leaving the cutting chart out of about two dozen Syncopated Ribbons patterns that may well be flying about the country as we speak. I know many of them are centered in the Irondequoit NY area, where I was a guest of Irondequoit Quilt Club this week and made many members fall in love with and purchase this incomplete pattern. As for the rest, I have no idea where they may have landed, and if you have one, please contact me immediately for that page and more grovelling. Because that is always fun for everyone. I absolutely apologize for the omission of this vital page. So please, if you are a victim of my stupidity, please contact me immediately! Thank you!

Diamond Dazzle part 3 - Kickin' it Old School

This past weekend I finally got to start putting together the Diamond Dazzle group quilt. If you've been with us now for 8 weeks or so, you will know what I am talking about. If not, go right ahead and check out the Diamond Dazzle part one and part two updates, along with the announcement of the group quilt project back in January/Feb timeframe. The rest of us can wait.......

While we are waiting for the newbies to catch up, can I just be really uncool for a moment and admit that it gave me a small thrill to have Mark Lipinski comment on my FB status the other day? The man has 5000 plus friends, and I am such a nobody compared to him; really, I just felt very special and this paragraph has proven I am a total geek with possible stalker tendencies.

Everyone all caught up now? Okay then! So for several weeks now I have had all these gorgeous diamonds hanging out in my house, as well as being the caretaker of a lot of gorgeous diamond blocks, and have been so busy writing the pattern, dealing with a mostly dead all day computer (a Quilting Hottie pin to the first commenter to correctly identify that movie reference in the comment section) and attempting to decipher the new carseat guidelines that I just have not had the chance to devote to sewing together my share of the close to 500 blocks total I was sent for this project. A crying shame by any stretch, I tell you. But last Friday I finally decided the time had come, and come hell, water in the sump, or a non-napping preschooler, I was going to start it.

The first thing I did was to go through all the envelopes and grab one of each unique set of diamond blocks (you may recall if you read for content that each participant was to make me four sets of blocks - if you didn't read for content or just pretended to read at all, well then, don't yell at me if you are confused). This alone was enough to send me into fits of ecstacy as I once again got to see how gorgeous all these blocks were. I lay them out on my living room floor because my design wall wasn't nearly large enough for the size quilt I was clearly going to get, which I would like to technically refer to as "big-ass". It's actually somewhere between full and queen, but isn't big-ass more to the point?

The next step was to sew the rows into strips; this part always goes really fast and gives me false hope that I can finish the entire thing by dinner. In reality, it's still not quite put together several days later. It was really fun to play a little game with myself as I sewed and tried to guess who had made each block based on style and fabric choices alone. I was about 75% right, which is pretty cool considering I only know about 25% of the people who contributed blocks. Call it more proof of my stalker-esque tendencies if you will, but I prefer to call it photographic memory mixed with exceptional name recall.

At some point during the day on Friday, my four year old non-napping preschooler who goes variously by Monkey or Greta to her face and Your Lovechild when we are passing the childcare buck, came walking by the layout on the floor and randomly announced to me "Mom, that's old school." I truly have no idea what the heck she meant by this and couldn't ask because I was too busy drying my tears from laughing so hard. Did she mean the colors? Did she mean because I couldn't fit it on the design wall so I was reverting to the floor, as in the days of yore? Did she simply mean to try out this phrase Daddy says all the time? In any case, it was highly amusing for it's complete randomness and she may have named that particular version of the quilt.

Old school or new school, I have to say the thing is stunning. There are so many fabrics in there that your eyes just keep moving, searching for

your new favorite every few seconds. One of my personal favorites is this pink and orange floral fabric, which has a little silvery thread thrown in to give it a fun metallic edge. But the most shocking thing about this fabric is....the maker of this block bent the rules and used (gasp!) FLANNEL! Yes, it is flannel. And while it wasn't in the rules as to whether or not flannel could be used, if I had been asked, I likely would have said no, please keep it all quilting cottons. But then I would have missed out on this awesome fabric which I absolutely love. Maybe being a controlling psycho for this project wasn't the best attitude to take after all; thankfully I was saved from myself just by being kept in the dark.

I also love this blue swirly fabric with a little teal and lime thrown in. While it reads a little lighter than the medium blue I specified for this project, I love that it lightens things up a little in its corner of the world. In fact, there was enough straying from the base colors of hot pink, orange, and blue into the worlds of lime, yellow, teal, and even a little purple that at first I was concerned about the overall effect, but once I put the top together these extra colors really became total poppers! Just another happy quilting accident.

Once my strips were together I had to determine fabrics for the framing diamonds and the borders. I had shopped for some basics in blue and orange prior to getting the blocks back, so really the biggest thing to decide was which fabric would be for which quilt element. I decided on the dark blue flowers ("Nobu" by Kona Bay) for the framing diamonds, and the dark orange mottled (Robert Kaufman "Marblelous") for

the border, and set about adding them to the strips so I could sew them together. And look at how well they came together once the strips were sewn together with the most perfect 1/4" seam allowance at the points! It's almost like I am a self-proclaimed professional or something.

So where is the photo of the entire quilt top, you find yourself wondering I am sure. The answer is: I am not showing it to you. That would necessitate that it be completely done and I don't want to have to admit to you that it is not completely put together yet and is still missing a very important element. So we are all going to pretend together like you have seen all you need to see and are incredibly impressed with my progress so far. And look at it this way - it leaves the door open for Diamond Dazzle part 4.

3 pieces of advice that changed my design career

2011 marks the sixth calendar year that EPQD has been, well, EPQD, rather than just "Beth sewing in the basement like a drone". Not that sewing in the basement like a drone doesn't have its place and its joys, especially when in doing so one is allowing one's husband to take over the childcare for an hour or two. But, as usual, I digress.

So much has changed for this little design company since I took the Quilt University online class called "Make money quilting" or some such thing. It was a fabulous class and I really enjoyed getting perspectives from all sorts of quilt would-be professionals. The class homework centered around creating your business plan, and if it weren't for being forced to do it, I am sure I never would have started off on such a relatively strong footing, knowing what I wanted to do and how I was going to go about it all written down for me.

Now I look at that business plan and it is pretty outdated, and yeah, I should take the advice of the instructor of the class to rewrite it for my current business goals, but who has time? I'd rather quilt, frankly. So that's some advice that I am choosing NOT to take at this time. But as for the best pieces of advice I've received.....those are with me every day, and I would love to share them with you.

1. "Just because you are new doesn't mean you aren't good."

This bit of wisdom was shared on a yahoo list for quilt designers of which I am a member, and it was in relation to a discussion about how much to charge for trunk show lectures. I only wish I remember who said it. It came at a time when I had been lecturing for about 6 months, had worked out several kinks from the first few shows, and was getting praise and sharing joy whereever I went with my lecture. I had started with a pretty low price, comparatively, and was considering raising it a bit to be more in line with most lecturers I considered to be my compatriots, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to do so quite yet. This advice kicked me in the right direction. When I considered the feedback I got after each lecture, I knew that yeah, I was new, but people seemed to really enjoy me, so I couldn't be completely bad. I decided to go for it, and raised my price all of $50. It's funny the things that you stress over sometimes!

2. "Free is not a business plan."

Also some advice recently found on the designers list, this one I do recall was shared by Maria Peagler. I think most quilters and quilt designers are nice people in general, and we just want to please our customers. I would like to think I am no exception, and I will admit that I have a hard time saying no to requests for pattern or book donations when I receive such things. But I am getting better about being pickier about who I give them to, because, well, free is not a business plan. (And if you see my lead in paragraphs, it's pretty much the only business plan I have right now.) I also no longer feel guilty when I insist on upfront payment for first time wholesale orders or any retail orders. With this bit of advice I know better than to give away the farm, and can see EPQD sales for what they are - commercial, just like Amazon or Overstock.com. And THEY don't send you products unless you pay first, right?

3. "Beth, they don't know. Just bull$%^ them."

Perhaps my favorite advice of all time, although the one I use the least, is this tidbit from my friend and the owner of Bunkhouse Quilt Shop, Wanda Makela. I was getting ready to make my Perfection is Overrated trunk show live several years ago and I was justifiably nervous that people would not take me seriously as a lecturer because I was not an expert in all areas of quilting. Not only did Wanda make me guffaw when she came out with this, she was right. No one is an expert in any area, and I can only talk to what I believe and know about quilting. If they ask something I don't know, there is always an option to make something up. Although I have to admit I don't believe I have ever actually made anything up, I remember this advice every time I stand in front of an audience, just in case. :)

I would love to know if you have any sage advice from others you keep in your back pocket for use either in quilting or your quilting career. The best way to learn is from those who have been there, after all!

A test you can't fail

I am proud to say that every pattern I have published has been tested by at least one other and generally up to six other quilters, as well as checked over by a technical writer. This ensures several things:


1. I'm representing myself and EPQD in the best light possible.

2. As many quilters as possible will be able to read, understand , and sucessfully follow my patterns (I'd like this to be 100%, but since we all learn differently and relate better to certain styles of writing than others, that just isn't going to happen. Hey, I'm a realist.)

3. My inbox will not be deluged by angry quilters telling me I suck as a pattern writer. Here's hoping.


I personally could never skip this step because I know I am human and mistakes are easily made when creating a new quilt. Testers are an easy way to avoid sending a pattern out with stupid mistakes (we all make them, you know), random typos (even spell check doesn't catch it all, after all), and unclear wording. One of the reasons I like working with Quilt Pattern Magazine is that it is clear to me that they have the same commitment to pattern quality I like to think I have.


Even if you've never tested a pattern for a designer before, I urge you to check out http://quiltpatternmagazine.com/testing/. This new online magazine, for which I and several friends are doing some design work, is always looking for quilters of all levels to test the submitted patterns before they go into the magazine. At the link I just gave you, you can check out photos of the quilts that need testers, and choose to sign up (or not, there is no obligation) for any that look interesting. There is generally about a month turn around time to make a top, so if you are looking for a quick project and/ or another UFO, this just might be a great idea for you! Plus you get to get a preview of what might be coming up in the magazine (hint - one project up for testing is one I created, did you guess?) and you can feel really cool when it comes out in a few months and say "Hey, I already made that because I am awesome." And don't we all want to feel awesome?

What we did over February vacation

After the rigorous challenges of 13 full days of school between December 23 and February 18, it was definitely time for a week off, otherwise known as Febrary break. I hate to think how overwhelming it might have been for our children to have a full week of school rather than a full week off. But I complain and digress. And in an attempt to have a positive attitude about the situation, I will list the positive attributes of February break 2011:

1. The house did not burn down.
2. No one threw up.

3. The girls and I drove to see my father and stepmother in Rochester NY, where we got to visit the National Museum of Play. Why is this National Museum not housed with the rest of the National Museums in Washington DC, you ask? No idea. I ask "If it is a National Museum, why isn't it free like the rest of them?" but I won't complain about this too loudly as it was a grandparental treat.

Anyway, the museum contains lots of cool kid friendly exhibits, such as the miniature Wegmans grocery store where kids can shop for, ring up, and restock all sorts of groceries. Those of us who grew up with Wegmans as our grocery store who now have to settle for Market Basket or Hannaford find any sort of Wegmans sighting or experience manna for the soul, so we spent quite some time in there buying pretend celery and wheels of blue cheese.

Greta manouevering through the throngs at Wegmans.

Now, quick quiz....who out there knew that Mama Berenstein Bear was a quilt shop owner? Anyone? I'll admit my children and I never read a lot of those books, so maybe I am the only one, but this was perhaps the most exciting thing I learned at the Museum of Play. In fact, the entire Berenstein Bear village was housed in the museum, but like the good little daughters of quilters that they are, my girls were immediately drawn in to the quilt shop, where they donned their aprons and attempted to sell me some quilts.

Some quilts were priced as high as 99 cents. Clearly I have much to teach my daughters regarding the worth of handmade quilts.

There was even a little area where you could do some designs with tiles and a light box. Paige, who is my little artist (of the three, anyway. She's cute, but she's no Van Gough) enjoyed that very much.

The Museum of Play - something for even the vacation weary quilt designers.

So did ya see it yet?????

It's likely in stores this week, so you no longer have any excuse whatsoever not to have read the quintessential article in The Quilter (April/May 2011), "Strength in Numbers".

Let's review.

This is what the cover looks like:

Bright, cheerful, screaming to be thrown into your basket at your favorite fabric store. Don't let the lack of mention of the article you are seeking out on the cover fool you, it's in there. Page 82. Did I mention that?

I so appreciate you all humoring me. But today I want to share just a little about how and why we ended up writing the article in the first place, and how it got into such a fantastic magazine, besides just plain old luck. I promise it's actually a pretty interesting story.

Last August, NEQDC was vending at Maine Quilts in Augusta ME, a fantastic show if you have never been to it, and our next door vending neighbor was the fabulously talented, incredibly funny, too darn cute and sweet for words, and let's face it 9,000 times more famous than us Jo Diggs. We got to know one another a bit and she was very impressed with us (who wouldn't be, really?) that we had taken the concept of shared vending and run with it so successfully, a concept she had never seen pursued before in the industry. She suggested that we write an article and submit it to some magazines for publication because it was a new fresh idea. We knew we had something great, but really hadn't considered that we were doing something others might be interested in learning more about. But we told her we'd do it. And when you tell Jo Diggs you are going to do something, you do it. (Here I am totally kidding. The woman is truly adorable and not fearsome in any way.)

A few weeks later my children finally went back to school for the fall and gave me a moment to collect my thoughts, and in those thoughts was the idea of a magazine article. I volunteered to head up the project and no one else in NEQDC objected, which means one (or both) of two things:

1. They thought I could do a good job.

2. They didn't want to do it themselves.

So I was hired. I collected photos from everyone as we wanted to include at least one quilt from each of us to show how we all have very different styles, asked for some quotes about why we thought we worked well together and what worked for us at vending sites, wrote the copy and included photos, sent it out to NEQDC members for approval, rewrote where suggestions for improvement were made, sent it out for approval again, again rewrote where suggestions for improvement were made, sent it out with the declaration that I was not rewriting anything else because I had other things I wanted to do with my life than cater to these people (again, I am totally kidding and without their help this article would never have seen the light of day) and was granted the go-ahead from all to start sending it out to some magazines because by then they were afraid of me (yes, kidding again).

But who to send it to? As a group we had thrown around several names to start with, and The Quilter became our first victim for several reasons:

1. Most of us were familiar with it and liked it.

2. It had a good mix of patterns and quilter-interest articles.

3. I am FB friends with one of the associate editor, Natalie Rhinesmith. Had no clue if that would help us, or if it had a thing to do with anything, but the point is FB is a great networking tool. And Natalie is pretty funny.

Off it went to Natalie via yousendit.com, which I shamelessly plug here because it is awesome. Within hours Natalie responded that she had forwarded it to Laurette Koserowski, the editor, and I went on to do other things in my life after promising to the other NEQDC members I would let them know when I heard something, figuring it would be a year.

It was two weeks. We were told they loved it and wanted to put it in the Feb/March issue. From there it was just some copy proofing, contract signing, and joyous jumping from all of us. We were a little bummed when they had to put us off an issue due to space constraints, but no big deal and certainly not unusual in the industry.

Two weeks ago I received my advanced copy and could not even believe how gorgeous the real thing turned out. Even better than the proofs I had seen. I cannot say enough nice things about working with The Quilter - they were so professional, kept us apprised of every step and deadline and change made, and really just made the whole experience of having our first article published a really positive one.

So there's the backstory! We hope to see you at a show this spring or summer!