Quilters, Busy as Elves

We know what many of you were doing over the last few weeks, because we have quilts and blocks to prove it! So many have responded to our Give Warmth Back flood project, it's amazing! Thank you!

When we began in mid December, we headed to Athlone, where the Athlone Flood Relief Centre graciously opened their arms to our first batch of 30 donated quilts. Helen McCaul (on right) of the centre reported more than 150 distressed families with 52 still displaced. Terri and I were happy to pass on the generous quilters' quilts. It is always awarding when non-quilters see and develop the appreciation for quilts. They will find good homes, we are sure.

In the coming weeks, we are enroute to Bandon, Co. Cork, where we have been connected to the Flood Relief Centre established there. Thanks to several quilting readers and colleagues in the Cork area we have connections and meetings planned for this trip well worth traveling. We anticipate the same amount of quilts or more, for the Bandon area was hit especially hard by flood waters.

Later in January we head to Galway/Clare area. So, stayed tuned!

In California, Golfinlizzy was a true winner for us when she bid and won the beautiful Dolly Dress Quilt from Elizabeth. The winning money of $400 will be donated to a family affected by the flood. We will be posting more on that soon! Thanks so much Liz and Elizabeth!

We wish you a very good new year! May you have lots of sewing!

Twilight Press

It's 3:34 a.m. and someone wants to know when the next issue is due out. Priorities, people. Lucky for this emailer, I'm at my desk and can give her an answer (in just two weeks..North America, a little longer).

While my sleep-deprived designer works his magic, I await the results, ready for a thumbs up or a thumbs down for each and every special, lovely page. There's pagination, high resolution, optimisation and a whole bunch of other techy jargon flying to and fro.
But don't worry, I gots your emails and I gots answers!

Meanwhile, drafts go and new drafts come. We think, have we caught it all? Are our facts correct? Are the photos right? Are the page layouts correct? Don't get me started on the text... Do writers ever stop editing? I can edit and rewrite and rewrite for days. When does one stop? Not soon enough, cries our designer.

Around midnight, Ginger from the U.S. was looking for a calendar and boy, she thought it was late for me then!

Answering emails at dark o'clock in the morning makes me look pretty darn dedicated.

Wait a minute, I am dedicated!

Dash over to Dolly Dresses, Now!

You have to get over to Elizabeth Scott's Late Bloomer !! She has done an adorable quilt with tiny dolly dresses (fab fabrics from the greatest Holly Holderman!), and guess what? She's auctioning it off for the Irish Quilting Flood Quilts Relief Action!

Some people are just too kind. A complete daisy chain, I'd say. First there is Holly Holderman who kickstarted with her adorable dolly dresses panel and there there's Elizabeth who did amazing creating and embellishing (including her signature scallops!) and there's Darla Padilla of Wildflower Quilting who did the purtiest quilting and now there's name after name of kind people who are bidding. Bidding with dollars that will transfer to euros and will go to help an Irish family (ies) still in the cold following the floods.

Elizabeth has begun the bidding and will keep the auction open til Monday Dec 21st, so feel free to share in the Season of Sharing. Don't forget to oogle all over the tiny cute dresses

A Cover Is Worth A Couple Pictures

We had another great day in the office. We are working ahead (yes!) and while choosing a future cover, we were stumped. Do we pick A or B? B or A? or C?
A? B? or C?

Choices, people! We have choices! I love it when that happens. One day I'm going to blog, or even print, the covers that weren't. Some shots and covers are so incredible, you nearly want to create a whole other issue just so a cover won't go to waste. But I won't. For fear my family'll leave me!

And then...Easons, our Irish distributor (who I was just complaining about...shame on me!) sent a lovely bottle of wine to the office for the Christmas spirit. A year in biz and yes! we are finally feeling the love!

Talking about the love... Did you know Quiltposium has 225,000 registered readers? It is a lovely ezine and best of all, I'm a contributor! Check us out on pages 74-76! Not sure why half of page 76 is empty. Waste of space! And I could have written for days...

Now, I'm feeling very cheeky--what's this red wine doing in the office?

Laughing and Dancing

Last week I was reminded of a good tip. It's the simple things in life that are important and yet, they slip our mind!

Like having a good laugh. Don't take yourself too seriously.

It makes me think of our trip to the Festival of Quilts in Birmingham. As usual, it was all work and little play. And then, one evening Terri and I dropped our child off at the minders (aka DH at the hotel pub) and scurried away to meet Laura and Rebecca for an evening of Dancing with the Stars.

Now, in all honestly, I thought I was going to a filming of professionals and wayward stars doing a battle of the dances.

In reality, it was some nifty kids teaching the audience to dance. I don't think we gals could've run out of the place faster than if all the fabric in Birmingham was free. However, we're not that rude. We stayed. At. Our. Table.

It was not long though, giggling like school girls, our true personas emerged and the real judging began.

Fortunately for us, the student dancers were having such a fun time, I don't think they noticed the new crew of judges.

It Helps to Be Resourceful

For an upcoming issue, we are doing a fantastic feature. Something to which we can all relate. Well maybe we can relate to one or two items. Or four or five. Or maybe, nine or ten?

The article is 50 Biggest Mistakes Quilters Make.

Once the content was researched and written, we needed visuals. Like, who has a really bad pieced or quilted quilt? I want to see mistakes! I want to see obvious oh-ohs! I want to cringe!

Finally, we found one yesterday and I was delighted to hand it over to our photographer. Pretty chuffed that we could fulfill the imagery requirements.

And then, I realised. It did, afterall, come straight from my own personal stack!
ah hem.

What are your mistakes? I dare you to send photos!

Have you heard?
We are going to make a difference!
What's happening? Rain, rain and more rain. Levys breaking and homes evacuating on a daily basis. Cork City still shut down. Sallins in dire need. Athone still suffers, Galway areas still suffering. A once in 800 year storm of floods!

What's the response? Quilters around the world are busy making and donating quilts and quilt blocks.

Interesting: We are working to find an Irish organisation with collection points around Ireland. If you know of organisations that might help facilitate this process, please email me.

Definite: Even if we have to hit the waters in our dingy boat, we make sure every donated quilt reaches a victim in need, we will!

Donate: Sent quilts, blocks, backing, wadding to Irish Quilting, Flood Quilt Relief Action, Berowra Djouce, Roundwood County Wicklow Ireland

Questions: Call +353 1 281 2028

Artwork: courtesy of Rachel over at P.S. I Quilt. She's great!

Thanks a million!