Secret’s out…Quilters Newsletter, along with our sister publications McCall’s Quilting, Quiltmaker and Quilter’s Home, are part of a new publishing family! New Track Media, which also publishes Love of Quilting, is now our parent company, and we’re pretty excited about it. Things are looking up and we are looking forward to getting down to business and doing what we think we do well–making magazines that quilters love.
The first copies of our new issue, the August/September 40th anniversary issue, have hit our desks so they should be arriving in mailboxes and on newsstands soon. We look for outstanding quilts to put on QN covers and the quilt on this issue is amazing. I’m confident that you’ll be as impressed as I was when I first saw it. It screamed QN COVER at me! It’s a drafting and piecing marvel. What do you think?

An Amazon.com gift card + Electric Quilt =1 Happy Quilter.

Now that my my deadline-based projects are cleared off my plate, I’m looking forward to installing the software on my computer and digging in.

You might think there’s some magic behind the patterns you see in QN. Yes, there is, but it doesn’t happen until the art staff gets an old-fashioned, drawn-with-a-pencil block draft from the editor. I think better with a pencil in my hand, and I rarely understand how a pattern works until I draw it. That’s when I figure out the sizes to cut the patches, how many of each are needed, and everything else I have to know before I can write instructions for making a quilt. And it’s no different for my own projects. I’m going to get started piecing my parents’ quilt over the holiday weekend, and I made this drawing so I’ll know what to do.

My draft

I’ll pin the draft on the wall right next to the sewing machine, and no matter how many blocks I’ve made, I’ll still glance at it now and then.

I hope you have time to sew this weekend!

QN is working on a slice quilt for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. We each got a photo to re-create. Here are some pictures of mine in progress. I usually make traditional quilts–this is a stretch for me but I am enjoying it. Here are a couple of pictures of my progress so far.

Auditioning fabrics,

sketch the design on a muslin foundation,

and in progress.

I hope my fabric choices turn out as I’ve expected. It’s fun to get out of my comfort zone, but a little worrisome too. I work with a group of highly skilled quilters on staff here at QN–I mean they are exceptional!– and I want my quilt to be up to standard.

I’ll post more photos as it comes along.

I finally got back to my parents’ anniversary quilt yesterday. I took a boring but essential step, washing and starching all the fabric. I’ve learned from some pretty impressive quilters that it’s much easier to get accurate results when working with fabric that’s as stiff as a piece of paper.
I dip each prewashed piece of fabric into undiluted liquid starch, let it dry, and then press it with steam.

Starch Day

Here’s my temporary starching station on the deck. My husband, Bob, said it reminded him of pictures he’s seen of prayer flags on Mount Everest. Pete, the dog, was confused, and even the squirrel who thinks he owns our yard had something to say.
“Just you wait,” I told them all.

Our Bookshelf

Check out some of the books our editors are reading. Whenever you want to check back and see what we’ve added to the bookshelf, just click the link below under ‘More QN.’

Usually when I start piling up fabrics for a new quilt I can’t help getting excited. But I’m not so sure about my parents’ anniversary quilt.

At least there's red

Their taste is different than mine. Earth tones, simple patterns, white walls, Shaker furniture. Throw in a little excitement and it’s “gaudy” or “busy.”

Maybe it will get more exciting when I start piecing.

I’ll let you know.

Sometimes, you just don’t know when you need a little bit of shopping therapy. Angie, Irene, and I stopped into the Golden Goodwill today after lunch and Irene found something I couldn’t resist. A 1951 Singer 301. For $25.00. Forget that I already have one of these machines, and I already have a total of 5 other machines that either sew, embroider, or serge. For the price, I couldn’t leave it behind. When we got back to the office, I threaded it up and it works beautifully. It needs a little work on the top tension, but I can do that.

1951 Singer 301

There’s a quilt I’ve got to start. And soon! My parents’ 60th wedding anniversary is in November. For their 50th, I started more than year in advance and made an elaborate, hand-quilted labor of love. That was then, this is now. I have a mere five months left and here’s what I’ve gotten accomplished so far.
And Dad, if you google me some rainy afternoon and find your way here, don’t tell Mom.

When we editors see a quilt made from a pattern we published hanging in a quilt show, we get a little giddy. Remember in elementary school, when the teacher chose YOUR poem to read at parents’ night, or chose YOUR drawing to hang in the school art show, or chose YOUR science fair experiment to use as an example of how to do it right? It’s a lot like that. We publish patterns that we hope you, our readers, will like. But when you like them enough to commit them to fabric and enter them in a show, we know we’ve scored a hit.

Quilter extraordinaire Matt Sparrow (check him out at manquilter.com) just attended the Edmonton and District Quilters Guild’s show in Alberta, Canada, and posted 60 quilt photos on Facebook. I was clicking through them, killing time on a Sunday afternoon, when I came across this one. I don’t know who made it (if it was you, I’d love to hear from you!), but I do know that it was the result of a very special collaboration involving Quilters Newsletter, Moda Fabrics, Barbara Brackman, and the Alliance for American Quilts. The pattern is available in our November 2008 issue. Moda produced thousands of kits and generously donated the proceeds to the AAQ (allianceforamericanquilts.org).

We at QN love to put our heads together with other industry leaders and are hard at work on a second collaboration with Moda and Barbara Brackman. Keep an eye out for the next fabulous repro pattern in what we hope will become a very successful series. It’s coming in our October/November issue!