Share this and win - and answer the age old question of "What's For Dinner?"

It's not really my style - asking for likes on my EPQD Facebook page. I figure if you care to see that much of me, you'll find it. But this month I apparently need an ego boost, because in a month that saw record gains in hotties reading this blog, I've only added a handful of new fans to my EPQD community. Since that's where I really feel like I can get to know all of you, I'd love to change that, and I am not above bribery thrown in with a smidge of self-promotion, something I also kind of avoid when I can. So if you are not above being bribed, read on!

Remember my post in June about these fun placemats that were appearing at the time in Quilt Pattern Magazine's June issue? Well, as of Saturday October 1, the pattern AND a kit is mine to add to my inventory, and I'm giving you a chance to win a kit to create this one of a kind tablemat for the messy kid in your life. Don't have a messy kid in your life? Borrow one. Trust me, they are everywhere. I have a few I might be persuaded to lend out if you really can't find one.

My inspiration for these cute oilcloth and chalkboard cloth mats was the ruination of at least one placemat a week by my girls, and, truth be told, once in a while when red sauce was involved, myself. As a quilter, I'd seen a lot of quilted placemat patterns, and while I think they are all fantastic and way fun to dress up a table, I also know that they are insanely impractical for many families like mine who have kitchens that look like a tornado hit after every meal. It seemed to me there was a niche that needed filling, and I set about to fill it.

I combined some simple reverse applique shapes of table setting elements with the chalkboard cloth and oilcloth and created a mat that has several benefits to messy families:

1. The materials are completely wipeable. Just a few swipes of a wet washcloth and you are done. You can even run them under the water at the sink for huge nasty messes. Oh don't give me that. You know you've had them at your house too.

2. Fabulous teaching tool reason #1: No longer will your kids put the fork on the right and the spoon on top of the plate when you ask them to set the table. They will not have any excuse to say "But I didn't know where it went!" The shapes are full size, and because they are reverse appliqued (which really isn't hard, I promise!), there is a ridge around each to prevent the different elements from slipping around on the mat.

3. Fabulous teaching tool reason #2: The chalkboard cloth allows you to write the day's menu right on the mat, and young readers can practice both reading and writing while they are waiting for you to finish playing Emeril in the kitchen. If your family is like mine, and insists upon discussing what will be for dinner within 10 minutes of waking in the morning, you could even hang one up on the wall with the menu for the evening on it all day long.

So how do you go about attempting to win a kit (contains patterned oilcloth and chalkboard cloth for one mat) and pattern to make these fabulous mats? So glad you asked.

1. If you aren't already a fan of EvaPaige Quilt Designs on facebook, become a fan. All my new fans every month are entered into a drawing for a Giveaway Extravaganza gift, and this month the tablemat kit just happens to be it. www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns

2. If you ARE already a fan, I sincerely thank you for your support and I love having you there. To enter the "current fan" drawing, simply share this blog post on your FB page, and leave a comment under the post on the EPQD page telling me you did so.

There's only one catch. If I don't make it to 375 fans by Saturday am, I'll only be able to give it out to new fans, not current ones. I need your help, hotties! The world needs to be free of stained placemats! Like and share and be well. Thank you!

Trick or Treat! I'm dressed as a Technologic Wonderkind.

It is a well documented fact among everyone who has ever met me, even briefly on the street, that I would have been an excellent 1950s housewife. Not, mind you, because I keep the perfect home, keep my children stain-free, mannerly, and unrumpled, and greet my husband each evening precisely at 5pm with a martini while wearing pearls. Hardly. More because my level of technological awareness and understanding is more suited to a typewriter and adding machine than iPads and Nooks (0f which I own neither, although the former is on the horizon and I believe the latter should be outlawed, but that is another post for another time). Thankfully, I married a man who was raised by a lovely couple who still do not have cable television and only recently got a tv with a remote. So he gets me.

"Syncopated Ribbons"

Now available for download on Patternspot.com

(Side note - our local grocery store is currently running a "Recycle your Electronics" campaign - Give us your old electronics, we'll give you a gift card. Joe and I just about needed Depends while we were reading the list of things they would accept for recycle, because every one of them was way more fancy than anything we own. You know that commercial where the family comes home and the house was robbed but the thieves left the computer? That's us. We're actually quite hopeful that we will be the charity to which all the recycled electronics will be donated.)

"Greta's Kaleidoscope"

Now available for download on Patternspot.com

So taking all of this into consideration, most of you should be sitting down when I make this announcement: I've not only had a quilt in a downloadable magazine this month (http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/ if you missed my previous post) but I now have three of my patterns available from PatternSpot, a downloadable pattern marketplace run by C&T publishing. I know. I too worry that I have actually been taken over by alien beings. www.patternspot.com/users/127 - there I am, with my three patterns.

Traditionally, I've been wary of the downloadable pattern. Not only does it rely soully upon the t-word, but for someone like me who likes to actually touch and feel my books and patterns on paper, it was way too bizarre to think about actually keeping them on a computer file. Or making a consumer print out their own pattern. The horror. But hey, times, they are a-changing, and it is time for me to move into the 20th century. (Not a typo, btw. :) )


PatternSpot.com is a gorgeous website full of fantastic patterns for all different skill levels by tons of designers all available at the press of your enter key (and a few other keys, like your paypal account access and/or cc for payment, but really, that's just details). I love the way the designer photos are all in B/W, too. Not only does it look classy, but it really hides a myriad of skin and/or brassy hair color imperfections. Speaking for myself, anyway.

"Confetti Toss"

Now available for download from Patternspot.com

The patterns I chose to include for starters at PatternSpot.com are three from either my "holy cow this is so easy my four year old could do it (or at least pick out the fabrics)" collection of designs or my "wow I am letting loose and having a ball without having to worry about matching any points or making my seams exactly 1/4 - are the quilt police banging on my door yet?" collection of designs. I choose these three because they are fun, they are relatively quick, and they don't contain any templates, so they were easy for me to upload and know the directions should be just fine. When I get braver I'll add some from my collection of "easy machine piecing and embellishing - lots of wow with little fuss" designs.

Please visit the PatternSpot.com website, even if you don't look at my page. But hey, while you are there, check that one out too just to humor me. Happy downloading!

Un-bate your breath....the winners are revealed!

I have no idea if this is even legal, but because I don't want you to wait any longer I am going to announce the winners of our Quilt Pattern Magazine blog tour giveaways before I even know their actual legal names. All I have are the names they left on my blog, and they are as random to me as the ones I personally often leave as blog comment aliases - either Quilting Hottie (obviously) or Sherm, a name my husband gave me during the 1998 football season. It's a long uninteresting story unless you are somewhat drunk, so I will spare you. I've read the fine print a few times and QPM never told me I couldn't announce aliases as winners, so here I go. If you are one of these people, you will receive a real email from me requesting your true identity. With luck, you will not be part of the Witness Protection Program and will be allowed to provide it to me in order to claim your fabulous prize.

Well, here I go after I stall by explaining my selection process. So as to keep it fair and unbiased, I had each of my three daughters pick a number between 1 and 54, the number of comments the post in question received. I then randomly selected one of those numbers out of a hat to be the grand prize winner of the magazine subscription, and the other two are being given the runner up prizes of a copy of my book (signed and/or imprinted with a big old lipstick stain kiss - whichever you prefer) and a complete kit of fabrics, pattern, and beads to make my "Sunflower and Sky" quilt. Before I was able to get these vital numbers out of my daughters, I was made to answer about 93 questions such as "Is this for your quilt guild?", "Are we winning a prize?", "Are you giving away the cinnamon rolls you just made?", "What if we all pick the same number?", "What is a blog?", "Do you know these people?", "Why do they want to win something from you?" and I seriously never thought we would make it to the number selection. Much like you are seriously thinking you will never hear who the winners are.

So here we go. For real.

Grand prize of a one year subscription to Quilt Pattern Magazine - Tich. Or more accurately, tich. All I know of her is she is very adorable in her profile photo and is from Scotland. My maiden name is Kerr, which is very Scottish, and I even had a Kerr plaid scarf in college, and yes, I was way cool. Even though I am Danish and it was changed from Kjuar at Ellis Island. Details, really. But I also love the Outlander series, so I am thrilled, seriously thrilled, to give this prize to tich. (Number 49 chosen by Eva because "49 seems like it is right in the middle of 1 and 54." Mental note: ramp up the extra math homework for this one.)

Runner up prize of my book, "Once Upon a Time:Fairy Tale Puzzle Quilts": linwintx. It really could not be more fitting that linwintx has the word "win" right in it. And from her (or his) alias, I am guessing he/she is from Texas. My grandfather's name was Lin(wood), so I am feeling a connection here. With luck, linwintx has a young girl in her life so that the book will be welcome. Otherwise, she can sell it on ebay. (Number 32 chosen by Paige because she "likes even numbers better than odd ones.")

Runner up prize of "Sunflower and Sky" kit: Melissa. According to her blogger profile, Melissa is from Ohio, enjoys recycled crafts, appears to have a very adorable dog, and is a Scorpio. (I sort of feel like I am trying to get her a date.) Melissa also apparently follows about 700 blogs, but mine is not one of them. I feel hurt and betrayed and it is not beneath me to consider this prize a bit of bribery that she might follow me. (Number 33, chosen by Greta because let's face it, she's the little one, Paige had just chosen 32, and she couldn't be more creative than choosing the next number. So lucky Melissa that my kid is not more interesting in her number selections.)

Thank you all for participating in the blog tour. It was really a lot of fun and I look forward to hearing what you think of my first few submissions, which are scheduled to come out in the May and June issues.

Pardon me, Hotties....is that the Quilt Pattern Magazine?

It's December 6, so that means it is my turn to tell you of the wonders of the new e-zine for quilters launching soon, Quilt Pattern Magazine, http://www.quiltpatternmagazine.com/.

Now, if you have been keeping up with the blog tour, you know that this is a totally online magazine, and being a person who likes to hold things in my actual hands, like books (I will NEVER own a Kindle! Ever! Or so I think now-but I don't see changing my mind!) or quilt patterns, I honestly have historically been a little bit skeptical of exclusively downloadable things. (QPM powers that be, please read on because I am going somewhere good with this, I promise!) Those who know this about me are probably a little suprised to see me advertising this product, but I am thinking there might be several of you out there in bloggerland who might be reading about this magazine on the blogs but may still be a little skeptical about a magazine that doesn't allow you to wait by the mailbox bi-monthly for your little bit of quilting heaven. You are to whom I dedicate this post, because I understand you well.

But hotties, unless your mailcarrier is a studly specimen, what fun is waiting by the mailbox? With QPM, you just head to the website from any computerific device you use to get to the internet, and you can view, download and print any projects or pages you like, any time day or night. Instead of magazine organizers full of years and years worth of your favorite magazines, a large three ring binder to put your chosen QPM projects into will be more than enough for several years - unless you are the type who needs to make every last project in every magazine you read. Then you might need two binders. And to you, I ask "When do you sleep, and can I have your stash when you are gone?"

So that leads us to the obvious and very PC benefit of this magazine - it is way green. It doesn't clutter up your shelves now or the landfills later. You really don't ever even have to print hard copies of the projects if you instead save them on a CD and work off the computer, making you a tree saver extraordinaire. If you do want to print but be as green as possible, there is always the option of printing on the back of your kids' homework or on paper that has some random thing on it that you screwed up when doing a print job. Not that I know a thing about that. In any case, this is a magazine you can feel good about because you will be doing your little part not only to beautify the world with your quilts, but save the planet as well.

How many of you have recently bought a single issue of any quilting magazine and audibly gasped at the price? I have. Granted I am notoriously cheap, but still. That experience makes the price of $11.95 for an entire year (12 issues (plus one extra!), 65 projects, BOMs, too many cool articles to count) seem downright obscene for it's reasonableness. Amazing what not having to print thousands of copies of a magazine can do for it's price, huh? And Christmas is coming! Why not give a few subscriptions as gifts to your favorite quilters? You can even win a subscription by commenting on this blog or any of the others in the blog tour. So show us some love, and QPM just might show you some back!

Also, if you are a designer, I can tell you from experience these ladies are incredibly supportive, easy to work with, and really give new meaning to quick turn around time on project submissions. With a monthly magazine, chances are they will be looking for good projects all the time, so don't be shy - send in a query!

So did I convince you? I convinced myself a while back, and have already purchased just the cutest paisley binder to keep my "pending projects" in. Go check it out. www.quiltpatternmagazine.com.





Happy downloading!