Weekly Update, October 15

My goodness, I’ve had a lot going on this week. I’m not even sure where to start. Here is my weekly update for October 15.

Where in the world is Jen?

I’m in Florida this week, enjoying our last short visit to our new condo until we come down for the winter. We were concerned about coming down, since the area was ravaged by Hurricane Ian. Our neighborhood did very well. Perhaps you have heard of Babcock Ranch? That is where I live, when I’m not in New Jersey. I was able to bring down a load of quilts from Rebecca’s Reel Quilter’s and deliver them to my local recovery effort.

Creative Hand Stitching Journey

I was behind on this month’s work. I neglected to finish off the chapter on time, and totally neglected my sampler. managed to get the chapter and lessons up on the 2nd, then I put together the sampler and used it as the demonstration piece during our monthly meeting. Of course, then I forgot to record the meeting. On the plus side, I didn’t utter curse words when I realized that I had forgotten. I’ll be recording a demonstration session later this month, when I’m back in my home studio.

*Creative Hand Stitching is a year-long club hosted by Gotham Quilts. I teach hand embroidery stitches during our monthly meeting. It will be back in 2023 with a new approach. I will provide an optional group project this time. I’m excited to continue along with this journey.

Rotation Quilt with AccuQuilt

I worked on a new version of Rotation this week for AccuQuilt. I was excited to try out making one using the Qubes. I persuaded them to send me a 10″ version, and I’m really pleased with the 7.5″ finished block. They don’t make a Qube large enough to make Rotation in it’s original size. The post will be up on the AccuQuilt blog soon, and I’ll tell you all about it when it goes live. I will say, it was so much faster to put together with AccuQuilt then it was with my usual technique.

I used this project to do an experiment with reels on Instagram. I took videos of each step of the process, then posted them to Instagram, every day for the past week. I’m up 9 followers on the week. Reels are fun, but also a hassle. I may keep it up for another week and see what happens. I also may stop entirely. If the results had been great, like 100 or more followers, I might keep it up. But these results don’t feel worth it. Most surprising has been that the videos of me cutting apart chain pieced units have been far and away the most popular. Why??!! With all of my skills, people like to watch me snip threads.

Want the Rotation pattern? You can find it on Etsy.

Kawandi developments

Last Saturday there was a website anomaly. My traffic spiked, more than tripling my usual numbers. 540 people visited the Kawandi Quilting with Quilt Lab post, which is way more than usual. I can’t figure out where exactly it came from, although I know that there was a lot of traffic from Facebook that day. That was exciting. Later that day the Country Road Quilters in Ocala, FL reached out to me about doing a lecture and class on Kawandi in February. I was very excited. This is exactly what I’ve been hoping for – teaching in person while I travel around the country. So, thank you, universe, for giving me what I wanted.

Friday I taught my virtual Kawandi class again. What a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. I truly love spending time with my students. This session was a bit of an experiment for me. I scheduled it during a weekday, and attendance was a little lower than usual. I’ll be doing my next session on a weekend, but not until January of next year.

BIG NEWS

My friend Thomas Knauer has TWO books coming out next year, and I quilted some of the quilts for him! My relationship with Thomas has been a source of great pride and pleasure for me, and he is wonderful to work with. He has two books coming out – Quilt out Loud features text based quilts, with a focus on activism, Thomas’s passion. He has some great alphabet patterns in there, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it. (I quilted the cover quilt! I’m finally a cover girl.) The second book is Quilting Rhythm, which features 98 different digital quilting designs. I tested several of these patterns, and learned how to use some of my fancy software in the process. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on the rest of those designs.

Both books are currently available for pre-order through Amazon right now. In case you didn’t know, pre-ordering a book can mean a lot to an author. It demonstrates to the publisher that this author has a place in the market. It can also help get onto the best-seller lists. So, if you are interested in supporting Thomas, please go pre-order his books!

Non-quilting

I bought myself a new camera, because Digital Photography class starts up soon. I’m excited and a little sad. Paying for a fancy camera hurt my business bank account! That gives me a little bit more incentive to use the camera, though. I’m hoping for better quilt photos. It also ties in nicely with the lesson on Brand Photography I just watched in Leverage Your Art. Ashley Paggi talked about actually having photo shoots done, with me as the the focus. I find that idea to be totally cringe-worthy, although she did a great job persuading me that it needs to happen. I’ll be giving that some more thought over the next month, with a goal to have a photo shoot planned for January.

I built my last piece of furniture today! (I hope). TV stand with fire place, because Oscar requires a fireplace for lounging purposes. I need to hit up Ikea for a new sheepskin for him.

Now, I’ve got to go and revise my paper for Contemporary Literature and turn it in. Final project for this class. Hooray!