Tag Archives: quilting

Visit from Emily March

Posted on by under Guest Author

My guest today is Emily March, a writer I met years ago when she was Geralyn Dawson. In reality, she’s both, and it’s great to see that her new Emily March series is doing so well. Please welcome Emily to Alive & Knitting!

Since the name of Deborah’s blog is Alive and Knitting, I thought I’d write on a topic that’s somewhat related–quilting and forgetting.

I write a romantic women’s fiction series about a small Colorado mountain town called Eternity Springs.  The quilt group, the Patchwork Angels, is very involved in the social fabric of the town.  Because one of their members has Alzheimer’s disease, as part of their summer quilt festival, they invite a special exhibit of the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative to town as a fund-raiser for the group.

Here is where fiction and reality meet.  The AAQI is a very real, very wonderful organization.

The Alzheimer Art Quilt Initiative is a national charity devoted to raising awareness and funding research through art.  It turns small-format art quilts donated by its supporters into research dollars through online auctions and sales.  The all-volunteer effort has raised more than $550,000 for Alzheimer’s research since it was founded in 2006.  You can visit the AAQI website at www.AlzQuilts.org.

Recently, I traveled to the International Quilt Festival in Houston where I interviewed the founder of the charity, Ami Simms.  You can see the interview in the Emily’s Videos section of my website, www.emilymarch.com.  Please visit!

Alzheimer’s is a horrible disease that touches many lives, and many families, and the work the AAQI does is important. My mother has Alzheimer’s, so the AAQI’s cause is dear to my heart.

My Eternity Springs is a town where broken hearts go to heal, and while I do write about real family issues, my heartwarming stories do send uplifting messages.  In Eternity Springs, you’ll find quilting and forgetting–but you’ll also discover the joy in memories and reunions and happy-ever-afters.

I invite you to visit Eternity Springs in my holiday e-novella, MISTLETOE MINE, now available at online booksellers for .99.  The next full-length Eternity Springs story, LOVER’S LEAP, arrives December 27th.

Happy Thanksgiving…and happy reading!

Emily

Emily March is the New York Times bestselling author of the Eternity Springs romantic women’s fiction series for Ballantine Books.  The first book of the series, ANGEL’S REST, was recently named one of the Top 100 Books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly magazine.

Week Two Check-In

Posted on by under Miscellaneous Musing, Writing

So, how is your journey with The Artist’s Way going?

Did you do your artist date? What did you do?

How about those morning pages? Doing them every day?

I found it really easy to get back into the habit of doing the morning pages. I’ve done this program so many times and each time I start, I wonder why I stopped doing the pages. They’re easy and they work, and they don’t take that much time. It’s amazing how much garbage clutters up my thoughts on a daily basis. The pages let me dump it out and move on. It’s like taking out the trash!

I’m trying to be vigilant about keeping my artist dates. This has been the part that I’ve skipped over or evaded in the past, so I really want to conquer it this time. What I really want is to see how much difference it makes. This past week, I went to a fabric store – still on my fabric thing – but I allotted lots of time to do it. It’s a store I go to often, but I never really look around. Instead of dashing in for a spool of thread and out again, last week I took the time to look at all their fabrics. They had a lot of new spring stock in, plus I went through the quilting fabrics, which I’ve never looked at there before. Brought home a little pile of pretty fat quarters to play with. They’re in bright colours, colours I don’t usually buy, but I liked them. It was fun – and yes, I am a cheap date!

In terms of the writing, I had a very good week. It’s been a while since I’ve had that sense of the words just flowing from my fingertips but it’s back – thanks to Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way. It’s a very good feeling.

So, how did all of you do?

Eye Candy

Posted on by under Miscellaneous Musing

Sadly, I don’t have a cover to share with you yet. It’s close, though!

This is about a different kind of eye candy. FABRIC!

Alicia’s comment yesterday – and my recent rummaging through my fabric stash – has got me looking for fabric eye candy. Here’s a designer who creates some wonderful fabrics – Amy Butler. I liked her Midwest Modern collection (oh yes, a few followed me home) but I really like this new Love collection. (Her site is a bit slow for me, just FYI, although it might be my ISP. I’m having better luck seeing the fabrics on the Westminster Fibers fabric site, which also has Kaffe Fassett fabrics to ogle.)

In fact, I’d love to make a quilt in all her fabrics – because it would be hard to choose which ones to add to my collection – even though that would mean (yes) more stash.

Go play. 🙂