This year on Mother’s Day, many of the museums in the Bay Area were open for free, so my mother and I hopped on BART and went to see what we could see.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has a great building that I’ve always liked, especially the walkway on the third floor. I snapped a bunch of pictures thinking that they’ll be inspiration for a quilt one of these days.
The Weekly Giveaway Winner is…Caitlin O’Connor! Congratulations and enjoy connecting with style the Jane Austen way (with a twist).
Thank you for all the great comments received here and on Facebook. There is a strong feeling of excitement for the re-emergence and modernization of this old time tradition. I for one have already started handing them out and believe the callbacks are coming because they’re so fun and hip. They don’t seem to get lost or forgotten at the bottom of a purse. People simply love receiving them. Take it from Jocelyn a delighted recipient of calling cards from her “tea” buddies,
As a special thanks to our Blog readers, for the next two weeks you can get 20% off your purchase of Calling Cards-Connect With Style by Trice Boerens. Simply mention discount code WG25022 when you place your order with C&T via phone (800.284.1114) or at our web site (enter discount code where noted during checkout) on or before August 3, 2009.
Inspiring wall of ATCs
I feel lucky and blessed to work in a place where I’m so inspired by all the talent and creativity around me. It helps to sit next to the amazingly artistic marketing manager Lisa Fulmer Bruce. She’s been collecting Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) for the past few months and posts them on the wall outside her workspace.
Lisa swaps these little works of art with artists from around the world. Some of the one’s that I’ve found most inspiring have themes like “my favorite artist,” or “my favorite childhood game.” I look forward to each new installation of creativity. It’s like taking a mini trip to an art museum right here in the office.
My Favorite Artist ATC
My Favorite Childhood Game ATC
Feeling inspired, I even made an ATC of my own and gave it to Lisa. Can you guess which one is mine from the picture below? It’s called “Metaphor.” [Hint: it's the one least like the others.]
A creative life is filled with challenges and rewards, puzzles and curiosities. This ongoing series of poems attempts to express the “Aha”s and “What if”s, the deep ponderings and casual observations of an inquiring mind trying to make sense of reality. May it serve, for you, as a bit of “Everyday Inspiration” along your own creative path.
If you can see
The beginning threads
The warp
And weft
The color
And texture
Dissolving
Into the future
This is a
True
Gift.
I had a fantastic time at the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason in San Francisco this weekend! As always, I can’t share some of the super super cool stuff, but I do have a few great ideas I can share:
Outside at the fair
My photo isn’t as great as her creations so check Sasha Bell’s jewelry (below) out on her Etsy site. Our Design Manager saw these on Etsy last week and both of us are hoping that our husbands are reading the blog!
Drool
Sweet little critter
Fantastic display of yarn and such nice people. Check out Spincycle Yarns.
Paperflirt had a beautiful selection.
Lovely Papers
Sweet display from littlebirds.
Fun idea for a bin from the creators at Hello! Lucky.
Lastly, I am a groupie for the black apple and was chuffed to get a photo of Emily holding the print I bought from her. Of course, I feel like she must have created the print just for me, book lover that I am! Her artwork is just wonderful.
'There's more to life than books, but you know not much more
There were a lot of other fantastic vendors that I can’t tell you too much about, some familiar faces and I have to say that the total caliber of the products was excellent. Renegade did a fantastic job with their selections of artisans and it was a pleasure to attend. The fabulously perfect San Francisco weather helped a lot too!
Hurrah! I found these six needlework titles from the Japanese publisher Ondori.
They still publish a lot of fabulous books within the fiber arts category and all of these ones from the 70s have the classic Japanese attention to detail:
And I just love this spread–it’s called ‘Our Neighborhood’. Wouldn’t you love to have neighbors like this?!
Recently, we had a leftover fabric give-away in the office! Mind you, this fabric will go into future C&T projects, but that doesn’t spoil the fun; it’s what I love about work. Did I say “work”? This was pure pleasure. Any dyed-in-the-wool fabric-holic knows what I’m talking about. We may not know for sure what project the fabric’s going in but that doesn’t mean we don’t need that fabric!
About 20 of us gathered around a table lined with fabrics, and Liz pulled names from a hat. (This kept it orderly!) Then we each got to choose the fabric grouping we wanted. There were Jelly Rolls, Turnovers, Layer Cakes, Dessert Rolls, Bali Pops, Charm Packs, and even some fat quarters. These are all different cuts of fabric. For instance, a Charm Pack is a bundle of pre-cut 5″ x 5″ squares of each fabric in a line or collection.
I was lucky. My name was called 3 times, and I picked the same Charm Pack each time. So now I have 3 packs of the same variety of squares of Christmas fabric. This will be a great start towards a quilt or placemats. I’ll probably go out and buy more of one of the fabrics to do borders, etc . . . .I mean, you can never have enough fabric, right?
Big thanks are due to Moda and Hoffman for generously donating to our projects and for keeping us fabric-holics creating!
Some of the staff loving their new fabric
Ms Ficklesticks, Diana Taylor, will be at the Long Beach Int’l Quilt Festival on July 24-26 and hopes you all will stop by booth 1453 to see all of her latest Fickle Fabrications! The booth will literally be in bloom: Purple Coneflowers, Daisy Chains, Sunflowers, Flower Earrings, Bodacious Bouquets, Wall Flowers and the kit for making the Fickle Flowers project that appeared in the April issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine! All the latest Ficklesticks art will be for sale along with her book, Fast Fun and Easy Fabric Ficklesticks, the wire and the turners needed to reproduce her work. So you can get Ficklesticks ready made or make ‘em yourself! Go see what she has been doing lately with fabric, wire, paperclips, rubber tubing, headbands and ponytail holders. We think you will be enchanted.
We have selected 16 lucky winners from nearly 300 entries between our blog and our Facebook fan page – wow, y’all really LOVE your grab-bags! Congrats!
We have notified all but 3 of the winners via email—thanks to everyone for entering. It was really fun seeing what projects you are all working on right now!
And a BIG thank you to everyone who reads our blog—we hope you love what we do as much as we love what you do! :-)
We have no contact info for these 3 commenters below – if you recognize your comment below, email me right away at lisaf@ctpub.com to claim your prize.
Cynthia
I am working on a quilt for a fund raiser for my gd’s cheerleading flock, group, or whatever a group of cheerleaders are called.
Patty
I am a quilter. I hand dye my own fabrics and also use commercial fabrics.
Sherri
I’m working on the Block of the Month from The Quilt Show, amongst other projects.
As part of an ongoing series on the acquisitions process, I am going to talk a little bit about the money. I stress that every publisher works differently in this regard but there are a few things that are true of all of us:
When most people see that there is a book selling for $25 they think that the author is getting a big chunk of that. The reality is that the money an author sees is depends on a lot of factors:
So, one of the biggest factors to consider when selecting a prospective publisher is how much money you will receive for how much work. In plain English, this means that working with a publisher who sells a 256 page book for $25 is not the same as working with a publisher who will charge $25 for a 100 page book. Same money, less work. That is why working for a premium publisher, like C&T, makes a lot of sense.
Next week, I’ll offer advice on how to use a book as part of a business plan to start making a career out of your craft….
Related Posts:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
