New Book, New Blog

Greetings to You and Welcome to my new blog, Quilt With a View.

This is a sunset taken from the little valley where I live.

Sadly, I lost interest with my old blog, The Orphan Quilter, last year due to a lot of different circumstances.  So instead of rehabbing it, I decided to turn over a new leaf -- er, new blog.

I have some new goals in mind for this blog, so I thought I'd put them in writing because I have found that if I write something down, it is more meaningful to me.  Does this work for you, too?

My goals:

1.   To be more proactive with my blog in order reach more people.

2.  To incorporate tutorials (since I have a variety of interests, the tutorials may not always be quilting-related).

3.   To invite guest bloggers to my space.

4.   To blog more frequently.

5.   To have fun!

Okay, now that I've got those goals actually written down, let's get started.

I decided that today was the day to start my new blog because today was the day that the rough draft of my third quilt book was due.  Of course, I, being an overachiever, actually submitted everything yesterday.  :0)

This past year was definitely full of ups and downs for me.  In 2014, I submitted a book proposal to my then-publisher, Kansas City Star, and it was accepted.  Of course, I started contacting fabric and supply companies to gather up everything I needed for the book and I jumped right into making projects.  What fun!  

Then earlier this year, I received a devastating email stating that Kansas City Star was closing and as such, they would not be publishing my book, which was slated for a Fall 2016 release.  After I ranted and raved about the unfairness of the world for a couple days, I got my head on straight and started contacting other publishers to see if anyone was interested in my now slightly-tarnished book proposal and a slightly-bruised me.  A couple publishers were interested and we began talking.

After many months, I found out that Kansas City Star and C & T Publishing made a deal so that KCS would become a C & T imprint.  This was definitely good news for me as I was already in talks with C & T.  For a long time, I heard very little about the whole process and I kept my fingers crossed, hoping that no news was indeed good news.  After tweaking my book proposal a bit to make it all shiny and new, I resubmitted it to C & T and they accepted it.  WOO HOO!

So, to make a very long story short, today was the date for submitting my rough draft (which I already did yesterday, remember?).  The quilts themselves are almost finished, which is a good thing because they will be due in about 6 weeks.  By the beginning of December, everything on my end should be wrapped up and then I get to sit back, pat myself on the back, and wait.....and wait.....and wait for that first copy to arrive.  Although there was a lot of water under the bridge, my book is still slated for a Fall 2016 release.

So, anyway....

Today, a mysterious box was left outside the garage door.  At first, we all assumed that it was a returned quilt from one of the magazines that I work with, but the box was light and rattled.  Then I saw that the return address was C & T.  Hmmm.  My curiosity was really peaked at this point and I just had to open that box.

Here's what I found inside:

A tote bag filled with awesome goodies.  It was a welcome gift from C & T!  How cool is that???!!!  Did you know that C & T did more than just publish books?  They also have their own line of fusibles/interfacings, gifty items, tools and rulers, and much much more.  They sent me a lovely assortment of thier items.  

It will be fun to try them out and tell you about them as I do, don't you think?