MEA CUPLA

Okay, it seems like I am forever making excuses for not blogging.  But the truth is, the last three or four months have really flown by.  It seems like just yesterday I was at Quilt Market and ZAP! now it's January!  How did that happen?

I know I made five or six quilts between the end of October and Christmas.  I created four sample fabric collections to submit to a fabric company.  I participated in my Local Artisan Holday Shop.  And a host of other things that kept me busy enough that whenever I was on my computer or iPad, I just didn't take the time to blog.

I guess I just need to make blogging more of a priority....

Anyway, I have some GREAT NEWS to share! 

Tune into Creative Mojo Internet Radio with Mark Lipinski on January 29th at 3 PM (EST) to hear me talk about my new book, A Russian Journey in Quilts!  What fun!

 

 

Do you have a copy of A Russian Journey yet?????

 

If not, you can visit any of these fine places to get your own:

 

www.orphanquilter.com

www.amazon.com

www.pickledish.com

 

Of course, you should definitely check at your local quilt shop too!

 

 



International Quilt Market

Well, here I am at Quilt Market having a fantastic time.  On Friday, I had a schoolhouse lecture to introduce my new book, A Russian Journey in Quilts.  Although the room wasn't packed, there was a nice comfortable number of attendees who seemed really interested.  A friend of mine kindly recorded my lecture and I watched it later that night.  I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I was and how much energy I showed.  My schoolhouse was actually only 15 minutes and although I ran out of time, I told those attending that they had to get the book to find out the rest of the story.

Yesterday (Saturday) I had a book signing at the Kansas City Star booth.  All of my tickets were gone and more people showed up than there were tickets, but by the end of the signing I had several left over copies because not everyone came to claim their copies.  Apparently there were a lot of signing all around the same time.  Guess they had a better offer.  LOL!

Took some time to visit the antique quilt booths, of course, and marvel over the amazing treasures there.

I also made some great contacts that will hopefully help.

Well,  time to hop in the shower and get started on the day.  Talk to you later.

International Quilt Market

I know I know, I've been away from blogging for quite a while, but I do actually have a legitimate excues, or rather many legitimate excuses.  First, I've been doing a lot of events to promote my new book, A Russian Jounry in Quilts.  Second, I've been doing a lot of events to promote mt new book, A Russian Journey in Quilts.  :)

Back in September, I attended Quilting Around Chautauqua for I believe the eighth year in a row.  It was marvelous.  In the evenings, my friends and I had a Dwnton Abbey marathon because two of the four of us weren't really familiar with it at all, while the third hadn't seen the first two seasons.  Well, was I surprised at how great it was, although there were some historical glitches, but boy, were my eyes opened.  I'm looking forward to the next season starting in January.  Did you know that Downton Abbey quilt fabric will soon be available?  I've seen some of the ads in my quilting magazines and it looks very nice.  While at Chautauqua, I also did some book signings at my friend, Melanie's booth.  It started out rather slowly, but then a lot of people seemed interested.  Sold quite a few books AND met a lot of really great quilters!

One thing about Downton Abbey that really struck me was the overlapping of it with my new book, A Russian Journey in Quilts.  Downton Abbey focuses quite a few episodes about WWI in Britain and my book focuses on WWI in Russia.  Interesting connection between the two, I think.

Tomorrow I'm headed to my third International Quilt Market in Houston, TX where I will be promoting my book to the world, so to speak.  Looking forward to it, but nervous of course.  I'm also going to try to get connected to a fabric company again.  So we'll see how that goes.  Stay tuned.....if all goes well during the next five days, I might even have some time to blog about Market while I'm there and show you some of the cool things to see.

  I have a Schoolhouse lecture on Friday at 2:05 PM and a book signing at the Kansas City Star book at 2:45 PM.  Wish me luck.....maybe I'll see you there.

BLOG GIVEAWAY WINNER

With the help of a random number generator online, commenter shout4joy won a copy of my new book, A RUSSIAN JOURNEY IN QUILTS!

Congratulations, Joy!


_______________________________________________________________________________

Watch for my upcoming project, Russian Chain, in the Oct/Nov issue of THE QUILTER magazine.  There is even a nice review of the book, too!

BLOG INTERVIEW

Today you can find my interview with Lisa Ruble on the Fabri-Quilt blog.

http://inspiredbyfabric.blogspot.com/2013/08/calling-all-chocolate-lovers.html

It's not too late to leave a comment to win a free copy of my new book, A Russian Journey in Quilts. ends August 31st.

What are you doing today?

First, I want to remind everyone that I am running a BLOG GIVEAWAY for my new quilt book, A RUSSIAN JOURNEY IN QUILTS:  THE STORY OF NICHOLAS AND NINA FILATOFF. 

To enter, leave a comment on this blog (or any blog dated between August 15th and 30th).  If you are not already a follower, become a follower, and leave another message telling me that you are now a follower and you will be entered a second time.

If I get lots of participation, I'll even give away a copy of my first book, ORPHAN BLOCK QUILTS!

So, please let any and all quilting buddies know about the GIVEAWAY! 

____________________________________________________________________________________

Today I started a new project for an upcoming Annie's (formerly House of White Birches) book.  I can't show you the project (shhh  -- it's a surprise until the book comes out), but I can show you the delicious fabrics that I'm working with.  Yum Yum Yummy!  Pink and brown batiks.  Aren't they just too sweet?  If I close my eyes and concentrate really hard, I can almost smell them (ummmm, like cotton candy, I think). 

Sigh.......I admit it, I am addicted to fabric.

 



 

I am also working on designing some more projects for two more Quilter's World/ Annie's publications.  More on these later, of course.  I have several quilt design submissions out right now with several other magazines and I'm just waiting to see what happens.

 

The other night I had my first runk show and book signing with my new book.  It went well, I think.  At the beginning, I felt a bit nevous because I wasn't sure what all I wanted to say.  My friend Leslie went with me and she said that I did seem a bit nerous at first but when I got going, I wasn't hesitant at all.  There were between 25-30 people for the Lecture on the Lawn at Quiltessentials and they seemed to really enjoy my talk and the quilts.  One listener even told me that she wasn't much into history but she enjoyed my story.  WOW!  That made me feel very good.

 

 

FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY -- A RUSSIAN JOURNEY IN QUILTS

Okay, Okay......  I promised some time ago that I would be giving away a FREE COPY of my new book, A RUSSIAN JOURNEY IN QUILTS.  Well, the time has finally come.

Here's what you need to do:

1)  Leave a comment on my blog.  Please make sure that I can contact you or else I can't notify you if you are the winner.

2)  You can get a second chance to win the free book if you become a follower AND leave a second comment telling me that you're a follower.

Here's what you need to know:

3)  The winner will be selected randomly.

4)  This FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY will run from August 15th until August 30th.

5)  If I get a lot of comments and new followers, I may just be inspired to give away a copy of my first book, too -- ORPHAN BLOCK QUILTS.  So, share this Giveaway with all your quilting pals!

________________________________________________________________________________

Now onto other fun stuff!

Recently I've been cleaning -- no, make that organizing -- my studio.  Truthfully, I haven't done this since April so I really had stacks and stacks of fabric and supplies to put away.  I sorted my fabrics, choppped up the smallish pieces into charms and strips, and even folded the yardage into uniform-sized bundles.  Then I put the nicely folded yardage into my storage drawers, which are of course mostly organized by color.  I do organize some fabrics by collection, however -- Americana, Halloween, Christmas, and a few places where I put "special" things such as kits or collections.

I even sorted through my batting scraps -- putting the cotton in one bin and the poly in another bin.

The studio is looking better, but there's still too much stuff in my small dungeon space.  Sigh.....I guess I'll have to keep working at it.  But now I have to get back to actually quilting.  I have two projects for an Annie's Crafts book and a baby quilt to quilt for a friend.  Of course, I also have several new submission in with a couple of quilt magazines, so we'll see what happens.

To make quilting even more enjoyable, yesterday I treated myself to a new dream sewing machine -- a Janome Horizon 8900.  Have you seen this machine yet?  It has an 11" throat!!!!!  How wonderful that is going to be for my free motion machine quilting.  The machine is on layaway right now, but the time will hopefully go fast until I will be ready to bring it home.

Tomorrow I have my first trunk show and book signing for my new book at my friend Melanie's shop, Quiltessentials,  in Pittsfield, PA.  This will be my third year participating in her free Friday Night Summer Lecture on the Lawn series.  Wish me luck!

In the meantime, don't forget to leave a comment to have a chance to win a copy of my new book, A Russian Journey in Quilts!  Good Luck to everyone!!!!