Big Announcement!!!

If you're a crazy quilter, you are undoubtedly familiar with the beautiful work of Pat Winter.  And if you follow her blog and read her Crazy Quilt Gatherings magazine, you are probably already aware that she has decided to retire as owner and publisher at the end of this year.

I am excited to announce that I am the new owner and publisher of Pat's beautiful magazine!!!  I'm honored, I'm thrilled and I'm bouncing off the walls!!!!

If you're new to my blog, I thought I'd share a little bit of background in my needlework career.  My mother and grandmother taught me to stitch when I was about 7 or 8 years old.  I'm 52 now and have been stitching ever since.  I caught the counted cross stitch bug back in the 80's and when I couldn't find a pattern suitable for a gift, I decided to chart out my own idea.  I liked doing it and decided to chart out a few more of my design ideas.  Back in those days, I worked on graph paper with colored pencils. 

I did a design with a snowman and an original poem that I wrote.  This was 1989 and my husband was quite taken with it.  He suggested that I send it to a magazine to see if they might publish it.  I took his advice, on a whim actually, and sent to Leisure Arts.  I was floored when they called me several weeks later with an offer to purchase my design.  What a rush that was for me!

I continued to create more designs, on graph paper with colored pencils and submitted them to other magazines.  One by one, they sold.  Eventually, my husband told me I needed a computer so in 1996, we went out and bought a computer and I started designing full time.

I worked with many needlework magazines both national and international.  I worked with manufacturers including The DMC Corporation, Zweigart, Charles Craft, Kreinik, Bucilla and others.  I published many of my own designs and sold them in my Etsy store.

In 2002, a friend of mine sent me a copy of Quilting Arts magazine and in that issue, I discovered the elegant art of Contemporary Crazy Quilting.  I was well aware of the history behind Crazy Quilting.  I frequent antique shops and flea markets and have seen many of the Victorian examples that still exist.  I was always drawn to them because of my love for needlework but when I discovered, that my collection of treasures, old lace, beads, buttons and vintage jewelry, could be sewn onto a crazy quilt, well....I was hooked.  And I loved the freedom, the "no rules" approach to crazy quilting.

I retired from designing counted cross stitch in 2009 to pursue my love of crazy quilting and to have more of a hands on experience.  I love to stitch!  I need to stitch!  I need to create so I redirected my Etsy shop from my cross stitch patterns to my stitched items, along with handmade things by my mom and my sister.

One aspect of crazy quilting that always eluded me was keeping my stitches even and straight.  I guess I was so used to working on a grid that when it came to doing free hand stitching, I was lost!  It occurred to me that I could apply my cross stitch skills to crazy quilting and decided to try using waste canvas for stitching my borders.  Well, this opened a whole new world of charting patterns so I went back to my cross stitch software and started charting out border designs.  Elegant Crazy Quilt Seam Treatments was born!  It was huge hit with other crazy quilters who struggled with keeping their stitches straight and even, so 2 more volumes came along. 

Then I did a couple of other instructional books and a 9 block class series called, Crazy Quilt Color & Composition.  All are published at Magcloud where Pat publishes her beautiful magazine.

When I read that Pat was going to retire, I inquired about taking over Crazy Quilt Gatherings.  It seems that the stars were in alignment for both of us.  I'm so excited!!!  But enough about me.  I just thought you'd like to know a little bit about my background.

I'll talk more about this exciting news tomorrow.  For now, a special thank you to Pat for entrusting her gorgeous magazine with me.  Please continue to submit your articles and eye candy photos to her for now.  She has 3 more issues to fill with your wonderful stitching and ideas!!!