April Giveaway Extravaganza is here!

For those of you who are my "likers" on FB, and how horrible is it that they took away the "fan" button and replaced it with "like" because "likers" is just terrible English, you may have seen that throughout 2011, every month I am giving away a little prize to new "likers" (there it is again) for the month. If this is the first you are hearing of it, clearly you need to visit the page now and then.

For the first three months I kept the prizes smallish and the pool of eligible winners was only new "likers" (ugh - it just gets worse each time I write it). But for this month, in honor of my brand new pattern which if UPS ever brings me the box of my first printing will be out any moment now, I am giving away a real live actual quilt, and anyone who cares to enter to win may do so.

Here's the quilt:

It's a 23" x 45" table runner or wall hanging using fabulous spring-y fabrics purchased from my favorite quilt shop, Bunkhouse (www.bunkhousequiltshop.com) and looks great on a table, wall, or even hanging off the side of the garage since the lighting was terrible inside the house and I'd appreciate you not telling my husband about how I use the garage for this purpose and allow him to believe those little tack holes are just imperfections in the wood.

Thank you.

Anyway, here's how you win this joyous bundle of quilted heaven:

1. Go to www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns.

2. Locate the post featuring this picture (posted 4/26).

3. Hit the share button - this will post the photo on your wall along with what I wrote.

4. Make sure to tell your friends why you are posting it when it asks you to "say something about this". Otherwise they might think you are now in the business of randomly hanging quilts up on your garage and taking their photos. And we can't all be in that business, now, can we?

5. Be sure to then comment "SHARED" under the original post on the EPQD page. Otherwise I won't know you shared it, won't be able to thank you, and won't be able to enter your name in the drawing.

Frequently asked questions about this contest:

Where is the "share" button?

It's right under the post, next to like and comment. It may be shy, because it only shows up when photos or things like that are posted, but it's very important and works like a charm.

Do I have to become a "liker" to enter?

Yes, I believe that in order to share the post and photo, you do need to be a liker. You would also need to be a liker to comment on the post, thus telling me that you shared it and entering yourself in the contest.

Must I stay a "liker" forever? Frankly I can only take so much of you.

Believe me, I completely understand. I feel the same, but yet I can never get away from me. Absolutely not, you do not need to stay a liker forever. However you will need to be a liker when the contest is over, so try to stick around until May 1. After that, if you want to unlike the page, please feel free. I'd love to have you stay and check it out now and then because overall it tends to be fun, but you are under no obligation to do so.

Can we please stop saying "liker"?

Yes, because we are done.

Share share share and like like like! Thank you

Diamond Dazzle Part 4 - It's Sneaky Peak Time!

Or it will be if I actually was successful in converting that pdf to a jpg online. But what the hell. It's 10:30pm, I have nothing better to do than wait to hear a little 'beep beep' in my in box to see if it worked, so in the meantime I'll spend some time with all of you and update you on the lengthy ridiculousness of this project.

When we last left each other in the saga of "Beth attempts to use EQ7 to design a quilt", I was nursing a mostly dead all day computer - forcing me to face the learning curve of converting all I had done already to my laptop; I was sewing the Diamond Dazzle group quilt together and wasn't quite done yet; and I was completely dumbfounded as to how I was supposed to convert the template xps files to anything usable. All this while still maintaining my constant elegant demeanor of a 1950s housewife and making sure the children didn't go more than 2 hours without snacking on something. It's really been quite exhausting.

Suffice it to say the learning curve was steep but I am now on the downside of it, the group quilt is together and gorgeous and has even made it's debut in several trunk shows and a private viewing or two, and Andrea Bishop at EQ is a goddess on earth for putting up with my questions and issues with the xps thing. The bow in my hair and cold martini glass weren't always quite as starched or frozen when Joe came home from work, and the living room may have turned into a Formal Laundry room, but by God, the children had a snack every 2 hours. I'd say overall it was a successful month with a good outcome, if a bit long in coming.

Having sent Diamond Dazzle, which in it's infancy was an 8 page normal sized pattern and grew up to be a 16 page full color 8.5" x 11" booklet, to the best printer for these needs in the world (http://www.smartpress.com/) and with the expectation that a big box of patterns will arrive here on my doorstep at any moment, and there has been that 'beep beep' in my inbox I was waiting for, I now feel I can reveal, here for the very first time, the front and back covers. So Ta Dah:

The front:

If you can't enlarge it, that box under the title says "A ten carat quilt in five sizes with two finishing options". I debated on the size of the rock, but nine carats seemed two small and eleven was just gaudy, so ten it was.

And the back, which I honestly love for all the cool quilts on it:

Every time I look at any part of this thing I feel like I deserve champagne. It was that painful and I am that proud of it. As for the rest of it - well, you'll just have to wait a few days to request one of the very first, hot off the press copies.

One more thing, though, that might be of interest before I leave you to find my bed, is that the table runner in the lower left corner of the back, the blue/greeny one, will be showing up on my EPQD facebook page next week as the April Giveaway in my 2011 Giveaway Extravaganza, and all likers, new and old, will be able to qualify to win that very table runner as long as they play by the rules of the contest, which will be forthcoming mostly because I haven't figured them all out quite yet. That's how I roll, hotties.

Thanks for hanging in there as I have squirmed and complained and fretted and moaned and generally acted like the first designer ever to design a quilt. I'm hoping all the drama will qualify me for Quilt Diva-hood soon.

UFO-a-palooza 2011

It's that time of year again. The day after my guild's annual spring retreat, where all my quilting crap is still in bags and boxes and taking over the main floor while I put off vacuuming the sewing studio for yet another day before putting it all back. This year's retreat was a frenzy of activity for me, and yet absolutely every project I worked on remains a UFO. But let's share the joy of what I did, shall we?

This is one of three of what will be 4 pillows (6? I can't remember, I need to call Jennifer and ask how many it was again like this) that I made for a friend. She is a photographer (http://www.jennifermacneilphotography.com/) and takes our family photos now and then, and we are trading services like the good Yankee swappers that we are. Three of these babies whipped up in about 1.5 hours, and are so completely adorable I may keep them myself. I mean, look how pretty it is on my couch! But they remain UFOs because the button cover kits we bought don't work with decorator fabric, so I couldn't quite get them done. Oh well!

Here we have a project that was started in a class last fall, taught by Sue Pelland. It is her own design and uses her own rulers and I think it is gorgeous. I worked on the machine applique of all the shapes this weekend and particularly love the way the verigated thread looks on that ribbon. The satin stitching on the flower petals is pretty awesome too. I had intentions of quilting it as well, but then someone told me about some thread that I need to use and I didn't have it with me and so it too remains a UFO. Thankfully there are 32 months until Christmas 2013, when I expect it will finally be done. Just nod your heads, hotties. You know it's how we roll.

Next up is a new sample of my For Love of Springtime pattern. I only had one sample and now and then had to borrow a completed one from my friend Regina Mohan if I needed samples in more than one place at a time. As much as she is possibly the most gracious and generous quilter ever, I hate stealing it from her and don't want to push my luck, so I thought a second sample was in order. It too is not done because I forgot to bring the pattern, apparently do not have it memorized, and screwed up the cutting of the top and bottom border blocks and ran out of fabric to finish. So another UFO was born.

On to the next project, this one arrived pieced and I just added the applique strip border thingy (it's proper name, BTW) and sandwiched and quilted it. Then went to add the binding so that I could finish a project. SNAP! I was one 2 1/2" strip of fabric away from enough to make the binding. So close, and yet so far. I won't lie, there was foul language involved. (A little aside - stay tuned to this blog and my FB page to see how you might win this actual table runner this month. I promise it will have a binding when you do.)

This is a sneaky peak wacky view of a piece of a top I made that will be a free pattern on this blog as soon as I get it quilted. But since it is not quilted nor bound, nor written up if we want to get technical about it, it too remains a UFO.

The crowning achievement of my weekend was to accidentally burn my right cornea with some contact lens solution, resulting in a trip to the ER and living dangerously by rotary cutting while on Vicodin. Long story, but even THAT situation was a UFO due to the fact that I only burned one eye, not both. However, I am not complaining about that small miracle. And there will be no photos of that achievement since from third grade on I have felt ugly and hideous when wearing glasses, so you will just have to imagine my current look.

So there you have it. My weekend in photos!

The C word

Copyright. OMG, wash my mouth out with soap. For some of us designers, the word "copyright" is practically a four letter (plus five more - I didn't get that English degree for nothing, you know) word for all the trouble it can cause, both wittingly and unwittingly. Whenever we create a new design, the little voice in the back of our head is saying "are you SURE someone else hasn't done this before and is going to sue you for copyright infringment?" Whenever the topic is brought up among designers, it is sure to start spirited debate about what is proper and legal and what is not - some designers are more relaxed about their copyrights than others, and this always leads to some interesting discussions. And copyright comes up frequently as it is a problem in the quilting world; no designer is immune to the constant threat of having her or his patterns taken to the copy shop and copied for friends of the original buyer. I doubt anyone reading this is shocked by that, although it should sadden us all, since a designer's copyright means "I alone have the right to copy this. So back away from the copier, sister." Or some such thing. I for sure don't understand everything, but I do know this: I have never read other designers' copyright statements before deciding to purchase a pattern. I know they are there, I know I am not allowed to copy them, and if I like them, I buy them. But I also know that whatever the statement is, the designer has worked out the wording and they mean what they say, and I respect that. So anyway, for me, what the copyright says or doesn't say has no bearing in whether or not I purchase a pattern. Of course I am not looking to make quilts for sale, which might affect both my likelihood of reading the copyright and deciding to purchase or not, nor have I ever seen a copyright that offended me as a quilter, like "Hey. If you think you can make this quilt as well as I can, go for it, but if not, don't even bother because I am the Queen of everything quilt related." Because that would just be rude. Many of my FB followers chimed in yesterday and today after I posted that I wanted opinions on a copyright statement I was considering. And boy did I get them! Which is exactly what I wanted to do; if I didn't want to know what people thought, I wouldn't ask, and I feel very fortunate that the EPQD community I am attempting to build on FB is doing just what I intended - becoming a place we can share ideas and just have fun. Anyway, if you didn't see the post and discussion, check it out at www.facebook.com/EvaPaigeQuiltDesigns. I would retype the whole thing but I have to pick up a kid from preschool in half an hour and frankly there isn't time. While I love that most quilters seemed to love what I had to say and that is great for the ego, I also took into account those who weren't in love with it. After much debating about in my head, I have come to the following conclusions: 1. While copyright means it is mine to copy, the copyright statement is also totally mine to make. So why not make it totally mine? 2. The likelihood that a quilter will buy my pattern based on the copyright alone is doubtful. It will be a combination of the pattern love and what I allow them to do with it. If the fact that I am honest about why I request that my work be respected offends them, oh well. 3. Being a little cheeky in the copyright could only hurt my reputation in the quilting community if I had one to begin with. 4. And let's be honest, if other quilters who do have reputations in the quilting community wrote a copyright statement like that, people would be falling all over themselves to praise them. And with good reason, because it's honest and true and mildly amusing. So I've changed up a few little things (removed "almost killed me" and replaced it with "was a challenge", etc) and I put it on my new pattern. I'm taking bets to see if anyone even notices.