“The Tale of Alice’s Quilt”
Jennifer Blomgren
Martingale & Co.
$14.95

I survived Thanksgiving, put a good dent in all the wonderful foods 14 of us shared and helped to polish off our favorite homemade family apple pie. The first week in December kept me busy with my church’s 34th Annual Christmas Festival. I’ve been the co-chair five years now and, along with my co-chair, am giving up the seat, grateful to have been able to share my skills in this way and grateful to pass along the duties to someone else. I’ll still be involved as I’ve volunteered to make the raffle quilt top next year.

One of my annual traditions is gingerbread house decorating with two of my nieces each year. We completed this year’s house on Sunday, and here they are celebrating their artwork.

The younger one also took some time deciding on her next sewing project. She loves the ideas in The Best of Sewing Machine Fun for Kids from Lynda Milligan and Nancy Smith from Possibilities and picked out six. First up are the placemats; she said that making them it would be like making a small quilt so then she could be prepared for her own real quilt.

In the United States, we celebrate Thanksgiving tomorrow. It’s one of my favorite holidays. This year, I’m cooking for a group of 14, including much of my extended family plus others. I always like to try out a new dish or two, but I learned my lesson about making too many changes to old favorites. Don’t we all have a treasured family recipe that we must have each year? In our family it’s the sausage and apple stuffing that my great-grandmother made.

As I look forward to the holiday, I like to reflect on the many blessings I have in this life: my family, friends and colleagues, my work. Here’s one of my favorite quotes on gratitude from physician Christiane Northrup: 

“Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life.”
 
For me, it’s a real joy to be able to work in our industry, and I thank all of you for helping to make that happen.

I mentioned some about my trip to International Quilt Market and Festival a couple of weeks ago. At Market, fabric colors still seemed to be clear and bright, though I did notice some browns creeping back in. Lots of large designer prints, a la Amy Butler; lots of young new designers, including Jay McCarroll, Project Runways’s 2005 winner, now designing for FreeSpirit Fabrics. Also fans of Robin Pandolph will be thrilled that she is now designing for RJR. The other thing that struck me was food: lots of jelly roll, turnover and layer cake fabrics, books, patterns. Nice to have a non-caloric choice!

One of the niftiest new products I saw was Clearly Perfect Angles from New Leaf Stitches. This vinyl template sticks to your sewing machine table via static cling and lets you sew 45 degree angles. It also has 1/4 and 5/8 inch seam guides. These static-cling products remind me of the Colorforms I had as a child. My favorite was the repositionable fashion model. I remember drawing around the model and then creating dress designs on paper.

Quilts Inc. has released the following attendance figures for Market: 3,321 attendees and 551 exhibitors taking 1,144 booths.

The quilt show featured a number of special exhibits, most notable the more than 30 quilts in the “The DAR Museum Collection: Quilts From a Young Country.” These quilts have never traveled outside the Society’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. I feel fortunate that I live in the DC area and have seen quilts in the DAR collection.

As for attendance, final figures from Quilts Inc. show that total attendance was 52,542, down 1,704 from last year’s recording-breaking numbers. Considering the economy and Hurricane Ike, the drop in attendance was surprisingly moderate, said Karey Bresenhan, president of Festival’s producer Quilts Inc.
I’ll share more of my thoughts and other products in the upcoming issues of The Professional Quilter. If your subscription expired with the Fall issue, be sure to renew shortly.

Join us in the PQ Café on December 16 when I talk to Linda Taylor about starting a longarm business. Linda is well known in longarm circles for her quilting skills and her teaching. She has made more than 4,000 personal quilts and has been involved in the creation of more than 16,000. She began teaching longarm quilting more than 15 years ago. She has appeared on numerous quilting and sewing television shows; hosts her own show, Linda’s Longarm Quilting; and has written/produced numerous books/DVDs for the longarm industry.

The teleclass is scheduled for Dec. 16 at 8 pm, Eastern Standard Time. Here is a link to the details. Hope to see you then. And, if you have questions you want me to be sure to ask Linda, just drop me an email and I’ll try to fit them in.

The “Lost Quilt Masterpieces”
Barbara Brackman
Kansas City Star Quilts; $14.95

Isn’t choosing a new calendar for the new year fun? I always pick up the AQS Quilt Engagement Calendar to use as the travel log in my car. But I like to find one to hang in the kitchen. Once I found The “Lost Quilt Masterpieces,” the choice was easy.

Subtitled A Silly Calendar for 2009-2010,  this calendar showcases Barbara Brackman’s clever sense of humor. Each month features an undiscovered masterpiece, including “Long Arm Quilting at the Folies-Bergére” by Edouard Manet, “Double Wedding Ring” by Jan Van Eyck and “A Sunday Afternoon on the Old Quilts” by Georges Seurat. Each month’s calendar page does give homage to the actual painting. This calendar will amuse me each month, and I’m looking forward to using it.

And if you are like me, you’ll need an engagement calendar, too. The Quilt Art 2009 Engagement Calendar from AQS lives in my car where I use it to track my mileage. It’s great for this purpose and I can be inspired by prize winning quilts at all the traffic lights. Here’s a link to Amazon to this calendar.

I don’t know about you, but as we get into November I start to feel bogged down with lots of business activity (maybe it’s the overflow/aftermath from Houston!) and then the holidays are on us. It’s sometimes hard to keep balance in my life. This summer I talked with a new friend, Laura Howard West, on how I manage to keep balance in my life and live my priorities. Laura owns a business called Joyful Entrepreneur. For me it’s all about scheduling what I say is important, whether that is editing the magazine, working on a new product, volunteering at my church, taking a yoga class or having an afternoon out with my husband, and then living up to that commitment. That’s not to say I don’t occasionally reschedule, but I try not to. Once the activity is written down, I know it’s something of value to me and I make my best effort to live the values. I think for many women, myself included, it’s easy not to set time for self-care. This is my way of doing that.

If you’re interested in listening to our podcast, here’s a link to Laura’s site. Just click on the Café Entrepreneur link and look for podcast #14.

I’d love to hear how you balance your life!

Quilt Festival is always so inspiring to me. I’m floored every year by the quality and creativity of today’s quilters. I always return with my creative juices flowing. Just wish that came with unlimited time!

Tuesday evening before the show opened was the IQA Winner Circle’s Celebration. Best of Show, sponsored by HandiQuilter, went to Sharon Schamber for her “Spirit of Mother Earth.” Here are some details:

I particularly liked Trellis of Red Flowers by Deborah Kemball, the quilt that won the Founders Award, sponsored by International Quilt Festival. Here’s a full shot and a detail:

One of the newer awards is the Future of Quilting Award, sponsored by C&T Publishing. It went to Gina Perkes for Silken Defiance. Here’s a full shot of the quilt:

I always love Quilt Festival, not just for the outstanding quilts, but for the energy of other quilters and for the chance to catch up with quilters I haven’t seen for a year and to make new friends. If you’ve never been to the show in Houston, the scale is hard to appreciate. It takes up all five halls of the convention center.

Here are some overhead shots:

Thursday was the final premiere of the Bernina Fashion Show. Here are the two winning garments. The one on the left is the viewers choice, High Tea at the Broadmoor by Jenny Raymond, and the one on the right is the creme de la creme, Midnight Waltz by Ludmila Aristova:

Here is a shot of me with Alex Anderson, who received the Silver Star Award on Saturday, Ricky Tims and Eleanor Burns. Alex’s and Ricky’s booth was close to mine, so I saw them in passing a lot:

I also took a turn in the Priority Alzheimer’s Booth on Saturday. I don’t know the final numbers, but I do know they raised more than last year and went home with less than 100 of the 1000 quilts they brought.

Susan Ennis is the artist who created the second quilt I had in my booth. It’s titled Oasis.

And, finally, here’s a shot of Karen Bresenhan, the force behind Quilts Inc.

I left Baltimore on Thursday, Oct. 23 and the trip got off to a good start. Do you know that the ladies rooms at the airport have vases filled with fresh flowers! I did touch them to make sure they were real, and it definitely gave my day a boost. Should have taken a picture.

Got set up some Thursday and continued on Friday morning. Here are some before shots of the hall. First up is the Superior Thread booth. Guess the crates are filled with thread! The second shot is the Michael Miller Fabrics booth, which in its finished state won one of the booth prizes.

Friday was filled with Schoolhouse, classes geared to shop owners to help them market products in their shops, and a variety of educational lectures. Friday night is Sample Spree, a hugely popular event. Here’s a shot of the masses of people waiting to get in. The spree opens at 8 pm and attendees get in in two waves. The first person was in line at 2:30 pm!

The show opened to the trade on Saturday morning at 8:30. It’s such a transformation from vast open spaces to small shops and displays. I saw several new notions. Anyone need a whacker? It’s a hammer to use to whack those pesky seams flat. And, everyone seems to be eating at the same bakery: lots of jelly roll, turnover and layer cake fabrics, books, patterns. Still fun decorator prints in bright colors, though I did notice some browns creeping back in. Overall, you can find colors that appeal to anyone’s desire. Plenty of people stopped by the booth during the show. Here are some shots.

Here’s Jake FInch, who is has a new book on Community Quilts with C&T and was just named Managing Editor for Mark Lipinski’s Quilter’s Home.

And speaking of Mark, he popped in, too.

Did some walking on the floor and ran into Jay McCarroll, Project Runway’s 2005 season winner. Jay has now designed two fabric lines for FreeSpirit Fabrics. You can see bits in the background of the photo.

I’m lucky to have area quilters loan me quilts to hang on display in the booth. One of those quilters is Kim Ritter. Here we are in front of her quilt “Trowel and Error.”

The last two issues of the The Professional Quilter included articles on blogs by Maria Peagler. Maria stopped into Market to make contacts and sales of her book Color Mastery that comes out in early 2009.

Ricky Tims also stopped by.

And, my booth was catty-corner across from Linda Taylor and she stopped in for a visit.

Since I’m the editor of The Professional Quilter, I know lots of the editors at other magazines. Jan Magee, editor-in-chief of Quilters Newsletter and I compared notes on the show.

We have a break between Market and Festival, starting back on Wednesday evening at 5 pm. I’m looking forward to seeing the quilts, something I save for Festival. More in a couple of days.

The Fall issue of The Professional Quilter includes a profile on Terry Atkinson. I’ve watched Terry’s business grow since I met her at her first Quilt Market in 1997. Her simple patterns have always been well-received by quilt shop owners and quilters alike, including the perennial best seller “Yellow Brick Road.” I wanted to know more about how Terry grew her business.

How did you come to quilting?
I made my first quilt in college for an art class project because I couldn’t afford paint. I had lots of fabric around the house. Later, I took an adult education class about quilting and began teaching quilting to my home ec students. I think the teaching skills translated into my ability to write easy-to-follow instructions.

What led to the business?
I was teaching quilting at a local quilt shop. Soon, my students asked to buy my class handouts, and I adapted my most popular class handouts for my first two patterns. Initially, the patterns were sold in local quilt shops. A pattern distributor picked up those first two patterns that year, giving the patterns exposure across the United States. In 1997 International Quilt Market was held in Minneapolis, and I exhibited for the first time, giving my patterns even more exposure to shops and distributors. They started to take over on a larger scale at that time.

One of your patterns, “Yellow Brick Road,” has been in the Checker Top 20 for seven to eight years. Why do you think it remains so popular?
“Yellow Brick Road” is a quilt that looks good in any kind of fabric. It’s fun to sew, and people like the fact that it uses up all of each fat quarter so there are no leftover scraps. Each time you make it it looks like a brand new quilt because it takes on the personality of the fabrics used. From what I hear, longarm quilters end up with lots of these to quilt for their customers.

You have 27 individual patterns and 14 books. How do you decide whether to issue a particular design as a solo pattern or as a part of a book?
For a pattern, we have only four pages of instructions, so a book provides more flexibility. The pictures are larger in a book as well, so sometimes I make the decision based on if the quilt would look better in a larger or smaller photo. I also will use books to showcase new fabric collections. And, if I want to work with a theme, I’ll go with a book. For example, Let’s Do Lunch, which came out earlier this year, includes a variety of table runners, napkin rings and a few totes. Most of the patterns have food-themed names.

To read more of the profile on Terry Atkinson, you can purchase Issue 105 or start your subscription here.