I won’t bore you with details or pictures of all the books I’ve been culling from our main library which are taking up half the open space in the living room right now, but I did select more than an entire shelf’s worth of quilting and sewing related books to give away. Just for reference, I started out with three shelves and got it down to under two, and in the interests of full disclosure, about half of the books I took out were sewing related, not quilting books.

I can’t imagine why I was keeping some of those sewing books! Like I’m ever going to need to use The Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing again! Not. Even when I was sewing clothing, I didn’t use the books much, since I know perfectly well how to put in a zipper, make button holes, etc. There’s an 18″ tall stack of quilting books leaving the house as well, most of which are at least 8-10 years old and I haven’t looked at them in years. Most of my book usage is confined to design books as opposed to pattern books these days, so there are many pattern books are hitting the road. Anybody need some books? Read the rest of this entry »

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I received a letter from $100,000 Quilting Challenge Magazine yesterday telling me that they were ceasing publication, and giving me a choice of two other magazines, either The Quilter or Fabric Trends, to finish out my subscription. I kind of wondered in the beginning how long the whole “American Idol for Quilters” thing would last, considering how much money they were giving away, and how little they had to be getting back.

The first year, Linda McCuean was awarded $100,000 for her quilt, Bella, which sold at auction late last year for $10,750.00, all of which was donated to charity from what I understand. Seems like a bit of a flawed business model to me, though granted, I’m no business person. You sell a bunch of magazines, lots of companies donate prize packages for the semi-finalists, you give one of those semi-finalists $100,000, and auction the quilt off for charity?

How do the magazine sales and advertising in the magazines pay for the $100,000, in addition to the staff, publicity, shipping costs for the quilts when they are displayed at shows, etc., etc., etc.?? I’m stumped, and not terribly surprised that they’ve already ceased publication, after only the second $100,000 cash award. Bummer, though.

I think the whole thing was a great idea in theory, and probably brought mega publicity to the quilt world and the charity organizations involved, but maybe if they had started with a slightly smaller prize package, the magazine and contest might still be around and going strong. I probably should note here that all of the above, except for the letter I received, is completely supposition on my part, and I haven’t seen anything that really says why they’re ceasing publication.

And, though completely beside the point here, I’m not interested in either of their other magazines that they’re offering, and I think I paid for two years of the Quilting Challenge Magazine. I wonder what will happen when I send their letter back and say I don’t prefer either choice, please send me a check?

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Why?? Because that’s what I’m feeling like today. And these probably have nothing to do with quilting, unfortunately. I’d even be happy to be working on some quilting project that wasn’t going well, as opposed to not quilting at all, which is how it is right now. Anyway,

Rant #1: Six weeks ago or so, in preparation for the move, ITMan cleaned out the storage room. Um, let me rephrase that so that it actually fits with reality: Six weeks ago, in preparation for the move, ITMan was supposed to have cleaned out the storage room. Okay, that’s better. I had planned to be around for this big event which was likely to take the better part of two days, because I knew there was stuff in there that I would need to a) prompt him to GET RID OF, and/or b) look through myself and decide what to do with it.

Somehow I wasn’t around for a good portion of that first day, though I have no idea why at this point. When I came home and he said he was done ( ) with the whole storage room project and he’d cleaned out and gotten rid of everything that needed to go, I was very skeptical, especially when the only things that needed my attention and decision making abilities were two little bags of stray Christmas decorations that he didn’t know what to do with for some reason.

Even under close, repeated questioning, he swore that the job was done. Flash forward to last Saturday. He went into the storage room to locate the old ceiling lamp that was hanging in the dining room when we moved in, so that we can replace it and take the one we installed with us when we move. He didn’t even think it was in there, though I KNEW it was, and I couldn’t understand why he was so confused about it since he’d just been in there a few weeks before cleaning and sorting, right?

Right. He starts pulling stuff out to try to find the lamp, and I start seeing things that shouldn’t even still be here. Many, many things, all of which should have gone bye-bye six weeks ago when he supposedly cleaned the storage room out. Two SUV loads left the house yesterday, most of which was from the storage room, and we only got through half of it. What exactly did he do six weeks ago? Got me! Read the rest of this entry »

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