C&T Publishing Blog » Behind the Scenes

It’s baby day!!

Lisa Fulmer — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:09:25 +0000

We’d like to welcome a few babies to our C&T family…one of our photographers, Christina, just had a little girl, Lylia!

Christina's daughter, Lylia

Our staff always throws a baby shower for our expectant parents (really it’s just an excuse to eat cake).

Christina's shower

One of our sales reps, Tina, recently brought home a second foster daughter, Elizabeth, to join her first foster daughter, Isabella. Elizabeth and Isabella are biological sisters too…fingers crossed for Tina and her husband as they wait for the final word on being able to adopt these two little girls!

Tina's foster daughters, Isabella and Elizabeth

Another of our sales reps, Shirley, has two adorable new additions to her family, too!

Shirley's granddaughter, Ava

Shirley's great-grandaughter, Leilani

We try to make a quilt for new C&T babies…and two more are on the way this June…congrats to our Production Manager, Kirstie and our Accounts Receivable Coordinator, Sara!

Maybe we should get a head start and start flipping through Special Delivery Quilts #2 with Patrick Lose now. So many delightful baby quilt designs in this book, hard to choose!

Quilt for a friend

Teresa Stroin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 18:45:30 +0000

We had an occasion to commemorate—Carolyn was retiring from C&T! Well, not retiring exactly; more like transitioning into retirement. She went from being a very-valued full-time employee to a very-valued freelancer. But we were going to miss seeing her in the office every day. She’d worked for C&T for 13 years and was a great resource as she knew everything a technical editor needed to know, plus some. Carolyn is the type of person who is not only a co-worker but a friend, too.

So what do we do at C&T when someone retires? (Or has a baby? Or gets married?) We make them a quilt, of course!

Here’s Carolyn with the quilt after we presented it to her last week.

Oh, and just for fun, here’s my dog, Ollie, loving the quilt, too. I had the quilt at home to sew the label on and thought I’d snap a photo.

In case you get the urge to make a quilt like this one—it’s from the book Super Simple Jelly Roll Quilts with Alex Anderson and Liz Aneloski.

The story of the stamp

Debra Gabel — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:35:31 +0000

The saga of my signature stamp quilt patterns started with a guild challenge in September 2005. We were all given a fat-eighth of bright, patterned fabric that looked very much like the Rubik’s Cube toy…you can see it in the center of the quilt.

Since I am a representational artist, I tend to gravitate to realistic imagery…so what did that fabric look like to me other than a puzzle cube? Maybe a telephone keypad or a graph or a structure? I realized if I fussy cut the fabric it looked like a skyscraper. The skyscraper was great, but it needed a landscape. I live near Baltimore and Charm City has a great variety of buildings in the Harbor area. So that is how the first destination quilt was born.

I went through my stash and found suitable supporting fabrics and I suddenly had the Baltimore skyline, Debra Gabel style. So the next task was to consider the question of what to do with this horizontal landscape. I added a night sky and the Chesapeake Bay water. It was now a square but I preferred a portrait rectangle. So I extended the sky and added the name “Baltimore” on top (as a graphic designer I love typography). The water was looking plain so I wondered what I could add there to fill up the space a bit better for compositional reasons. Then inspiration hit. I LOVE the concept of little things made big and big things made little. I thought about a stamp, as they are so graphic in nature. I added the current postage rate in the water and a scalloped border to mimic a stamp.

I brought my finished stamp to the guild meeting and I won the challenge. A friend of mine asked “Are you going to make a pattern out of that?” Little did I know that the challenge I just completed would launch a whole pattern line and two books! Long story short, I made my Baltimore quilt into a pattern. Within 6 months, all my Washington DC friends wanted a DC stamp. Next I had to do my home city of New York…and the rest is history.

Now I have over 70 stamp designs in my Zebra Patterns line. While in Houston for Quilt Market a while back, C&T Publishing’s Acquisition Editor spoke to me about writing a book about my destinations. Writing the book was the perfect motivation for getting all 50 states done. My first book, Quilt Blocks Across America, came out in 2010 and is followed by Quilt Blocks Around the World, due out in January. Plus there’s even a Quilt Blocks Around the World—Eco Wheelie Tote!

I love designing quilt patterns, especially my stamps…perfect for people who have a very close bond to their home city or state.

Quilt Blocks Around the World – with a giveaway!

My great granddaughter’s first quilt

Shirley Montano — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 13:00:11 +0000

Ruthmary, my friend and co-worker here in the office, surprised me with a lovely quilt for my beautiful new great granddaughter, Leilani. Unfortunately I am not a quilter, but I am blessed to have friends who are. Thank you, Ruthmary…and Leilani thanks you too!

Spring cleaning bonanza

Lynn Koolish — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 20:43:59 +0000

Production Editor Michele looks through the goods

Every year we do spring cleaning at the office. This year we barely made it–cleaning day was June 15th, one week before the official start of summer. Everyone is responsible for cleaning their own office or cubie plus helping out with all the common areas.

The counter in the reception area becomes the “dumping ground” for anything you don’t need, but think some one else might be able to use.

Would you believe that almost everything you see here was snatched up by the end of the week, with just a few straggling items remaining? We do love to share here at C&T!

No related posts.

Why I Like Working at C&T

Lynn Koolish — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 17:28:02 +0000

Like at many companies, people often bring in food left over from parties and such.

But, at how many companies, do you find a note like the one above?

Behind the Scenes with Deborah Kemball

Megan Scott — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:10:13 +0000

Book signing in Santiago w/ local wine!

As Deborah Kemball set about promoting her new book, Beautiful Botanicals (released in March) to the world, she was feeling trepidations. “Promoting” was a territory Deborah had never set foot in and she was feeling a bit intimidated. But, after just a few months she was rolling like a pro and loving it. She’ll tell anyone new to this, “have no fear, if I can do it certainly you can.”

Even the task of setting up her website has proven to be successful with well over 6000 visitors already. The blog posts that seemed to go off into the blogosphere’s nowhere land, are being met by multitudes of followers and comments to keep it well and alive. Deborah feels the promotion of her book has been, “the most unanticipated delight of publishing.”

All the other aspects of promotion—the book signings, interviews, magazine articles, postcard distribution, etc—seem to have effortlessly become part of her life as well. Just one month after Beautiful Botanicals was released, the excitement continued in full force. “It’s the most fun I’ve had for ages” claims Deborah. Read on as she shares her whirlwind of travels and winnings.

April started off with Alex Anderson interviewing me for The Quilt Show. It was a thrill because Alex’s books swept me, many years ago, into quilting. The interview set up was a hilarious hour and a half of struggling with technical difficulties with Chilean internet, recording devices, computers and finally Skype. I don’t know how TQS managed to put together such a seamless interview, but I think you can detect the hilarity behind the scenes.

"Jewelled Garden" - Best of Show

Next up: Cincinnati IQA. Before the interview with Alex, I discovered that I’d been lucky enough to be awarded “Best of Show” for my quilt “Jewelled Garden” at the IQA Celebrate Spring exhibition. The combination of the TQS interview and winning Best of Show was just the dreamiest combination in terms of publicity. Every day during the show, I would sign and sell books at Nancy J Fabric, a retailer whom I set up to sell my books. Cincinnati was nonstop fun for me. I linked up with so many other quilters and retailers, and saw so many wonderful pieces of work. I have always said I have never met a quilter I didn’t like, and after talking to a few thousand that weekend, it still holds true. People are so generous with their compliments and enthusiasm. It is the greatest reward of all, to see the pleasure it brings. I also had an interview with the Facebook quilting club.

student pieces from workshop

Next was a stop to Montreal to see my two eldest sons. With a heads up weeks before, a local quilt shop Quilte Classique asked me to do a book signing while celebrating their 10th anniversay. The owner Stephanie sold out of all three cases of books and has orders for more! It was so exciting for me to see members of my guild in Montreal, and women who had attended my trunkshows or workshops bring their projects to show me. I feel such a sense of gratitude to my guild which really gave me the confidence to fly – their enthusiasm for my work had encouraged me in so many ways. I was particularly touched by a lady who had driven out of her way to come and see me. She gave me five spools of beautiful silk thread and told me that she had been the judge who awarded me my first ever ribbon at the Quebec Show in 2006. It was this ribbon that had been my first encouragement and I was so pleased to be able to tell her so.

"Hearts Desire" winner of Hand Quilted Wall Quilts at Puducah

After the crazy whirlwind of it all I took a fleeting holiday trip to the UK to see family and friends. Then back to Chile along the longest route I think possible (via Toronto), but I got some great quilting time in on the flight!

April wrapped up with,”Hearts Desire” winning first place in Hand Quilted Wall Quilts at Puducah. I’ve now returned to Chile and happily back in my studio.

The City Quilter Shop and Gallery

Amy Marson, Publisher — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:57:16 +0000

If you ever get to NYC you MUST go to the newly expanded The City Quilter. Not only have they added more space for books and fabric, they have also added a gallery dedicated exclusively to art quilts (click the pics to zoom in). Their first exhibit is Daphne Taylor.

Her work is primarily silk and the imagery is graphic and elegant.

Even though I LOVED the gallery, my heart skips a beat when I see a terrific quilt shop, and this one is no exception, the store is lovely. It is clean, well lit and everything is easy to find. They have great displays and a terrific classroom that is busy EVERY day with top-notch classes. They also have some newly designed book racks that make my heart go pitter-patter because they display the books so beautifully!

So next time you are online or in NYC please check out The City Quilter.

Finding inspiration at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Amy Marson, Publisher — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:45:40 +0000

I try to go to a new museum whenever I travel (which I tend to do quite often these days) but the Met keeps calling me back. When I was in NYC for the Book Expo in late May I spent a few hours immersing myself in several of the exhibits. It is massive and although I may have gotten lost three times, I found many beautiful pieces that inspired me.

I love the door because the wood carving reminds me of the appliqué designs in Elly Sienkiewicz’s Beloved Baltimore Album Quilts.

The Tiffany fountain mosaic (below) instantly brought to mind the colors and design of Quilts Made Modern by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr.

The Rainbow installation (below) instantly brought to mind the exhibit at PIQF that showed how to use the Ultimate 3-in-1 Color Tool to be inspired.

Lastly, the Guatemalan poncho that was over 1,000 years old reminded me of everything I love about fabric, color, texture, and design.

It is all so… yummy.

Next C&T Group Quilt?

Lynn Koolish — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:42:23 +0000

Finished Van Gogh Group Quilt

Now that we’re done with the Van Gogh Slice Quilt (which by the way, raised over $3,000 for the NAMTA Foundation) we’re trying to decide what to do for next year’s raffle quilt, and we want your suggestions.

The criteria are:

It must be a familiar / recognizable / iconic work of art.

It needs to be in the public domain (generally meaning it was created over 100 years ago)

It needs to reasonably translate to fabric.

That’s it. Leave us your comments with your suggestions.