Hosting a Longarm Special Event

In the Spring issue of The Professional Quilter, Sue Moats discussed hosting a special longarm event as a way to market your business. She spoke with the organizers of two such events, one in North Carolina and the other in Ohio. While each event is different, the guild members accomplished the following goals with the shows:
- educated the public about longarm quilting
- offered longarm educational opportunities for quilters
- raised funds for future needs
- provided quilters with access to longarm supplies
- gave longarm quilters the chance to meet with potential clients and answer any questions/concerns, and
- celebrated longarm quilting
Both events were so successful that the groups are organizing shows for this year.
To read more of Sue’s article and learn how your group can sponsor its own longarm event, you can purchase Issue 103 or can start a subscription here.

Update on Orphans Works Legislation

To bring you up-to-date on the legislation, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill (S 2913) onto the full Senate floor and it is on the Senate Legislative Calendar. The bill has passed the majority party (Democrats) with unanimous consent and the minority party (Republicans) is still considering it.
In the house, the bill (HR 889) is still in the House Judiciary Committee, which is considering amendments.
You can still get involved in this issue. It’s important for quilters to make their voices heard.
To learn more, here are some links:
Text of HR 5889: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.05889:
Text of S 2913: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.02913:
OrphanWorks.net – contains testimony on both sides of the issue before Congress.
Orphan Works Opposition Headquarters: http://www.owoh.org
Illustrators’ Partnership – http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00261
Here’s a link for you to make your opinion know to your Congress
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11442621

Remember you need to act promptly and encourage fellow quilt artists to take a stand.

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming
Joshilyn Jackson
Grand Central Publishing; $23.99

If you are looking for a good summer read, look no further. The book’s protagonist, Laurel Gray Hawthorne, is an art quilter, wife and mother living in a quiet Florida suburb. At the beginning of the novel, her orderly life is upset when the ghost of her 14-year-old neighbor, Molly Defresne, visits her. The ghost leads Laurel to the real Molly, who has drowned in Laurel’s family pool. What ensues is a good Southern mystery, full of quirky and endearing characters, dark family secrets and a life-altering journey as Laurel with the help of her sister, Thalia, try to uncover the reason for the drowning. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming was a “page-turner” and the characters stayed with me long after I finished it. This is the author’s third book (and I’ve picked up the other two to read this summer).
Why, you might wonder, did the author make her protagonist an art quilter? Joshilyn Jackson says that she felt a “fierce need to hand sew quilts” during her two pregnancies, but discovered she had “ZERO talent for quilt making.” But her desire to make art quilts led her to study them, and she discovered the work of art quilter Pamela Allen. She then spent seven years thinking about writing about an art quilter. In the course of the book, Laurel creates a quilt and last year the author commissioned Pamela to create that quilt.

Industrious Birds

Last year we were visited once again by barn swallows who built a nest just above a door leading from our deck into the house. Not wanting the birds to return to the same spot, we put a screen over the space they had previously nested. They would not be thwarted and returned this year to build their nest in the same spot. This time they tore up our door mat to gather bits of building material and build the nest into the screen. A few weeks back we had violent storms and the nest found its way to the deck floor. Not to be deterred, the birds began to build something on top of our security light. I’m not sure why they never finished.

Wealth Acceleration Day

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a seminar that I was attending with David Neagle, the million dollar income acceleration coach. It was truly worthwhile, and gave me a lot to study. I have more than 10 pages of notes from his “Wealth Acceleration Day.” Here are just a few of the things I learned:

• Success requires that you go beyond what’s comfortable – into what was termed the abyss – and to do that you must know where you are and where you are going. And, the faster you get beyond the discomfort zone, the faster your changes will come about

• Take responsibility for all your experiences and ask yourself, “Why am I choosing to have this experience?” This process gives you power to make changes.

• You need to be clear on your vision and goals.

• Don’t ask “How?” When you do that it breaks any expectations, just be open to it manifesting. The “how” will take care of itself.

• Your belief system is made up of thoughts, feelings and action. When they are all congruent, you will be able to manifest remarkable success.

He also talked quite a bit about our belief about success and what holds us back. Some of this sounds simple, but it’s not easy to accomplish. You can think you’ve got your belief system congruent and then the worry, doubt and fear jump in.

When my husband and I got to Baltimore, the first person I saw was Sheri Flemming, a subscriber and longarm quilter from Hershey, Pa. (Lots of people drove or flew into this seminar, so I feel fortunate it was only a 35 mile drive for us.) I brought my camera, so here’s a shot of my husband, Rand, myself and Sheri. I asked a woman sitting near me to take the shot, and I actually manifested a professional photograph – Lynn Dykstra who owns Focused Images Photography Inc in Reston, Va

If you’re interested in learning more about David’s programs, he offers a free 4-hour teleseminar that you can download and listen to at your leisure. It’s called the Art of Success and you can get it here.