Well yes, I am a bit “off”, but I mean I am off  for travel to Seattle.  My husband and children will be holding down the fort at home and I hope (honey are you reading?) that the house is not a total disaster when I return.  I plan on sleeping for a week when I get back.

To my students in the Seattle Workshops….We are going to have fun! 

 It is hard to believe looking at this box of kits that it took three solid months of work to complete, but it did.  It is really important to me that when I teach, I do my best to make the class an enjoyable learning experience for those who signed up for my workshops.  I take your faith in me to teach you something that is helpful very seriously. 

 I can’t promise I will entertain you, I am a much better teacher than an entertainer, but I will try and teach you how to applique better.  I never could sing or do a comical stand-up routine, so I always take pity on students and avoid any such pitiful moves on my behalf in that direction (now you know why I don’t do lectures).  Instead, I will try my best to make applique more do-able, better and less frustrating. 

 Now as you can figure from the time involved in prepping for a workshop, you know why I don’t teach very often.  One, it is difficult for me to be away from home and two, it takes three months to prepare properly for a class that meets my standards.  As you can see, and doing the math, I don’t do this for the money.   

 My sewing room is a disaster and this is but a small area of what needs to be cleaned up and put right again.  I have piles of fabric that need to be sorted and put back in their proper place in the cabinets and a good sweep is needed too.  Quite frankly, it looks like a tornado came through. 

 I am currently finishing up a quilt I promised to quilt for my aunt back in November and then must get some more workshop prep done by Thursday of next week before I hit the road to Seattle.  I beg your indulgence for not keeping up with the blog at the moment as often as I would like, but I hope you understand.  Oh and I have my mom duties as well.  We are taking Jason to the Rose Garden for the “Walking with the Dinosaurs” show.  He collects dinosaurs–436 and counting <sigh>. 

 When I return from Seattle, I get to play again for a whole year before I am to hit the road again for teaching at Asilomar.   For me, I need a balance between professional quilting and my own personal quilting enjoyment.  I can’t imagine NOT having time to make a quilt just for the pleasure of it. 

The Cover

I promised I would let you know of any updates on the book as I knew them. Yesterday I received the title and cover image from my editor that the publishing committee chose for my book.  Just like you, I had no idea what these would be. 

Fall is still the tentative publishing date and receiving this bit of info starts to make it real.  My kids are unimpressed until they see and hold the real thing.  No chance of a runaway ego with them around!

Update:

Denise wrote to me and said Amazon already has the book available for pre-order.  Wow, that was fast!

Sorry I have been absent lately.  I have been overwhelmed (understatement) with things I need to get done and unfortunately I couldn’t make time to write anything other than, “Calgon take me away” here in the blog.  I think we all suffer from these moments and I needn’t bore you with mine! 

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that is a very good thing as Martha would say. 

For all of you hand appli-holics who are always on the lookout for good black texture fabrics that have value, I have seen some good ones on my Friday morning treasure hunt. 

They are from a new line, Fusions® Collection 3: The Basics, from Robert Kaufman and I think they heard us when we were complaining about the lack of good black tonal value candidates!  Probably more like a fluke, but what the heck, they created some good ones and we can rejoice in that.  Yeah!

An example of when having choices in value and texture with black fabrics is crucial:

I already placed my order of half yard pieces so I am good.  You really didn’t think I was going to announce and then order did you?  I had to get mine first!  LOL

I found them at Fabric Shack and of course, here is the link if you want to get yours:  FABRIC SHACK

I can’t wait to fondle them in person. 

Have a good weekend and for those of you in the east, I hope you are doing OK  and have been able to climb out from under that huge amount of snow.