C&T Publishing is a group of quilters and crafters dedicated to publishing products tailored to our audience. This blog is where we break away from book schedules and marketing campaigns to focus on what drives us to be creative and how this creativity manifests itself in our every day lives.
Our warehouse – always on the move!
After all the excitement of starting a new book—working though all the projects with an author, getting the instructions and design just right, figuring out how and where to promote and sell it—I bet you think the job of “publishing” is all done right there.
Not so fast! Come rain or shine, in very hot weather or extreme cold, our warehouse crew is the key element for finally getting the books and other products C&T makes into the hands of quilters, (Continue Reading...)
Revisiting a Traditional Best Seller
My quilter sister in Colorado Springs, Paula, loves and excels at precision piecing. She is prolific in her quiltmaking, and since I have a Nolting longarm machine, she sends most of her quilt tops to me to be quilted. One of her favorites is the Blooming Nine Patch in Blanche Young & Dalene Young Stone’s Tradition with a Twist. She’s made half a dozen of this pattern, mostly in queen or king size. Here’s a beauty she made (Continue Reading...)
Staff Pick: Super Simple Quilts #2 with Alex Anderson & Liz Aneloski
When my friend, Loralee Windsor, was helping me out while I was recuperating from an easy foot surgery a short while ago, she spent some time at my bookshelf and then made off with one of my Super Simple Quilts series books. She brought it back the following weekend, having made three lap- or wall-size quilts—one of each of the three designs featured in Super Simple Quilts #2 with Alex Anderson & Liz Aneloski!
She rated “So Woven” as the easiest (Continue Reading...)
A Variation on a Cozy Modern Quilt
I’ve had so many of the shop owners I work with—I like to call them “my” shop owners—get Cozy Modern Quilts in their stores, then rave about it, and use it for classes, that I decided to try it myself.
I adapted the Mint Chocolate Wall Quilt project in the book (pictured below) to a runner size of about 15” x 51”, including 1 1/2” borders, by doing a 2 block x 6 block setting.
I never worry too much about yardage (Continue Reading...)
Quickly Quilting up an Olympic Flag
What do you do when you are visiting in another city, at a house where “makers” don’t live, and a child needs an Olympic Flag, immediately, for his 6th birthday party? You IMPROVISE, of course.
It was my grandsons’ 4th and 6th birthdays and there wasn’t a rotary cutter, or thread anywhere to be found. So I got 5 fat quarters, used 2 sizes of plates for circle templates, a half-yard of white muslin and some fusible web…et voila! Interlacing the (Continue Reading...)
Ruthmary’s Staff Pick: Cut Loose Quilts by Jan Mullen
One of my favorite C&T Publishing books is Jan Mullen’s Cut-Loose Quilts. It has been my go-to project and idea book since it was published in 2001, and I’ve made dozens of quilts from the projects inside.
The quilt projects in the book are fast, fun, easy, and delightful. The quilts I have made won’t win me any awards, but they aren’t meant to! What Jan’s relaxed style does win her readers is freedom—freedom from cutting restrictions and rigid construction methods. (Continue Reading...)
C&T Holiday Camp 2009: Stash-busting Placemats Class
What do you get when you combine editors, sales people and managers, along with fabric scraps and fast2fuse or batting, and then give them access to the conference room for a couple of hours? You get C&T Holiday Camps….opportunities for us to share our love of MAKING THINGS with each other.
A few times a year, we take time to investigate projects and techniques in current, upcoming or old books, or new artistic endeavors we’ve been trying to cultivate (Continue Reading...)
My Soothing Neutral Quilt
Most of the quilts I make are pretty colorful. Even the more muted ones usually have lots of patterned fabrics in them. So I decided my eyes needed a break and made a neutral quilt.
When I visit quilt shops as I travel, I like to make at least a small purchase. If I don’t have a particular project in mind, I just buy a neutral….something in the white to creamy to espresso range, whether mottled or a floral or even (Continue Reading...)
