Tie Died free downloads – a success!

1,100 free copies of Tie Died: A Quilting Cozy were downloaded this weekend during Amazon’s two-day special! How exciting! Lots of new readers are getting to know Sarah and her cohorts in the retirement community while following their many escapades as they solve mysteries and quilt together.

sophie's hexEach book explores another aspect of quilting through the eyes of Sarah and her friends. In the first book, Tie Died, Sarah (hoping to preserve her husband’s ties) learns to quilt at the local fabric shop. In later books, she explores the historical aspect of quilts during the civil war, particularly those quilts designed to identify safe houses along the underground trail. At a quilt show, she learns how batiks are made, and on a quilting cruise, she explores paper piecing.  Her fun-loving, boisterous friend Sophie resists quilting until she stumbles upon the art of piecing hexagons and then she’s hooked!

Those of you who are new to the series, welcome. I hope you enjoy it as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. And to my loyal readers, thank you for spending time in Cunningham Village following the antics of this group of endearing friends.

There’s always one more project…

I tried to stick with the two quilt projects I’m currently working on, but since both of my machines are in the shop, I picked up one of my favorite quilt books, Kaffe Fassett’s Quilts in Ireland, and began innocently thumbing through the glorious pictures. Well, within a few hours I was in the sewing room, cutting 6 1/2″ squares from my Kaffe collection. Pencil and paper in hand, I sketched out my next quilt using primarily my yellows. I then ordered his ochre dots for sashing and a bright ochre and yellow for the border.  More fabric.

When I saw my first Kaffe Fassett quilt at a quilt show perhaps fifteen years ago, I was not impressed. “Too busy,” I said. Perhaps his designs grow on you, or maybe they’ve just improved over the years, but I now love to work with them and thumb through his beautifully illustrated books.

So I now have three open (‘current’) projects in my sewing room. I have each one in a basket to keep them apart and will joyfully go from one to the other depending on my mood. Now that’s not to suggest I only have three UFOs. There are more in the closet, all their parts contained in baskets as well, but they don’t count because I’m not currently working on them! (get it?)

We quilters are good at kidding ourselves. We can always justify one more fabric purchase or one more project. Keep on quilting!

(BTW, here is one of the projects waiting in the closet. This should be next!)

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A Question for my Quilting Friends

 

I’ve been collecting damaged embroidered dresser scarves from flea markets and antique shops (“damaged” because I can’t bring myself to cut into an undamaged one!). I’ve been trimming each one and putting it inside a churn dash. My ultimate goal is to combine them in a bed quilt. Unfortunately, I didn’t plan ahead and ensure that they were all the same size or at least multiples of a size that would allow me to line them up. They range from small squares to large rectangles. (WordPress lined them up beautifully in the pictures above…but they don’t fit together that nicely in real life). I suppose I will have to come up with some sort of filler or find another solution for placement. Any ideas?

The Contract is Signed!

C&T Publishing will be publishing all ten books in my Quilting Cozy series! This is very exciting as C&T has a wide audience and my books will now reach far more quilters than previously.  C&T Publishing currently publishes hundreds of creative quilting and sewing books, patterns and products written by leading designers. You probably already own books they’ve published with trade names such as Stash Books, Kansas City Star Quilts, and FunStitch Studio. I feel very fortunate to be joining their family!

The Future of Quilting Cozies

??????????I wanted to let my blog followers and readers know that I’m in the process of negotiating with a publisher who is interested in publishing my ten-book series, A Quilting Cozy. As you probably know, I am currently self-published and the series is only available on Amazon at this time. The new publisher reaches a broad audience of quilters and crafty folks and I’m excited about the new exposure. I’ll keep you informed as this project progresses.

I appreciate all the support I’ve had from all my readers. I hope to add to the series once this is finalized and the series has been reissued (projected for Spring 2018).

I hope you’ve had a great summer. My very best wishes. Please keep in touch!

Carol Dean Jones