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.