Quiltville, We Have A Quilt-Cam Solution!!

Do you see this shirt?

Can you read what it says, frontwards NOT backwards?!

YAHOOOOO!!!  We did it and we are ready for Quilt-Cam on Facebook Live!

I purposely wore a shirt with words during a test broadcast to make sure that I was NOT in mirror image for those watching.  It would be too difficult for those watching to see me sitting at a backwards sewing machine, working on things that were also backwards.  I don’t want to live in a backwards world, and neither should you.

There are a couple of differences with Quilt-Cam that I’m still wrapping my brain around for the best way to do things.

In the past, the live feed was embedded here in the blog post and stayed as an archive.  I can’t do that with Facebook Live, but what I CAN do is make my post, include the Facebook link (which is in the signature line of each and every blog post, did you know?  It’s also highlighted above!)  And once Quilt-Cam has concluded I can save the video from within Facebook and upload it to my YouTube channel, and from there embed it in the blog post to archive it so it will be with the post that contains all of the info on what we are doing for those who want to watch later.

If it sounds like jumping through hoops, well it is.  But worth it.

Here’s my impromptu test run already uploaded to YouTube:



The thing with Facebook is that if someone is commenting there, I can’t share their photo, and the screen is too far away from me where I am sitting to read the comments.  So those who want me to read their story and share their photo, especially if you want it to show up in the archived YouTube version NEED to still EMAIL me your photos. And please, do not email things way in advance of Quilt-Cam because it gets too confusing, and there is a backlog of stuff that I can’t get to when people are sending their things in live DURING Quilt-Cam.  And I get to what I can get to, but I can’t possibly get to everything.  Yesterday’s little Facebook run had over 1,000 comments on it!  WOW!

Oh, this is going to be tremendously fun!

Things I’ve noticed:  I need to learn to adjust my voice because the volume on the external webcam is better than I think it is.

I also turned off all notification sounds, including those on my phone where I was trying to read comments, which were flying up the screen at such a rapid pace that I couldn’t even land on ONE long enough to read it.  That’s why I think it will really help me if you EMAIL ME  your comment.

The Facebook screen size is not as wide as the YouTube screen, so there are black margins on the side when I upload it to YouTube.  I don’t really care, do you?  It will take some playing today to get the RIGHT camera angle so you can see what I’m doing.

Sadie was quite amused!

I was so excited that this worked, I went running up the stairs, whooping for joy that we have found a solution because this has weighed heavily on my mind for a long time as to how to continue Quilt-Cam and maybe make it better.  THIS will be better!

And if you don’t have Facebook, don’t WANT Facebook?  You can still read my page, and watch along live, you just won’t be able to comment, which is okay, because I want your comments emailed anyway.

Box #4 invoices are OUT THE DOOR come Monday!

Most of these went yesterday, but the post office closed at noon so the rest are in bins waiting to go tomorrow.  We are getting there.

And this is where I have to give a heads up and a little story.

To date we have had over 2,000 copies delivered, in two pallets of 1,008 copies each.  There is another 2,000 that should be delivered in the next couple of weeks.  I’m going to run out just before the next batch gets here, which will hopefully arrive while I am AT Quilt Market.  That invoice # 5851 on this box? The order was placed on September 5th at 4:47pm. So you can gauge where we are at.

After the 1st of the year I have another 5,000 copies coming.  We decided that we can’t rely on the warehouse to keep stock for me because they are OUT OUT OUT as well.  In talking to the gals planning my schoolhouses for Market, they were only able to scrounge up THREE copies they have squirrelled away for my schoolhouse as give-aways for attendees!  There are NO MORE COPIES available.

Being as I can’t be out of stock for my customers, and I can’t count on the warehouse having enough for a while to even ship me any, I’m going to start warehousing my own in large amounts.  There may be rental of a climate controlled storage unit in my near future.

The Essential Triangle Tool!

Same thing on the tools.  I have more coming.  But it is likely that manufacturing of the next LARGE BATCH of 5,000 rulers will not be delivered until Mid-December because it takes 2 manufactures to make this item possible.  One for the rulers, and the second for the booklet printing and packaging.

NONE are available anywhere.  We’ve taken all of the stock the warehouse had.  None are available on Amazon, they are back-ordered until FEBRUARY.  So please be patient.  No one expected these to sell out so quickly, and we are THRILLED.  

My goal in designing something like this was to have something that we will be using for YEARS TO COME.  It’s not going to go out of style.  It will be available forever and I will continue using it to design and make quilts in the future so these tools become your best friends in your sewing rooms.

Back cover!

I carefully opened ONE package – I haven’t kept one for myself yet because I would rather it go to someone who has ordered it, knowing I can get one down the road for me, but the packaging is what makes this tool so much different than others on the market.  You have said that you love the way I write directions, clearly and easy to understand.  I felt there were a lot of different rulers on the market that do even the same or similar things, but they come with little or no explanation to understand how to use them.  

This packaging is a fold open booklet with full instructions to use these tools to their fullest ability:

Full inside directions!

It is printed on heavy card stock so you can KEEP IT HANDY and know how to use it for half square triangles, quarter square triangles for hour glass units, or combined for flying geese units and even triple triangle squares where the upper half is made with 2 small quarter square triangles (half hour glass) and the bottom half is one large half square triangle.  There is even a chart to tell you what sizes of strips you need for what size of unit.  

And full instructions for using the Bonus Buddy for making bonus triangles from stitch and flip corners in an already usable size.

Stitching instructions are also included to make those stitch & flip corners BETTER and more accurately by NOT stitching on the true diagonal, but just next to it – all things we’ve been teaching you here in Quiltville over the past many years, but it is so nice to now see it in PRINT.  It somehow makes it real – we did this!

If you have loved my green seam guides, you will also find those seam allowance needle holes in the Bonus Buddy as well.

I am SO happy with everything.  Too many orders and running the warehouse out of stock is a GOOD thing.  And more is on the way.

But again, what I need is patience to get these to you because this is an unforeseen situation.  In emailing the CEO at C&T to see how to best handle this kind of volume, the response I got was:

This is something that we are simply not used to seeing. We have a pretty good track record on our normal accounts like Amazon and the shops and distributors even with a bestseller. What we weren’t prepared for were the volume of your orders. Frankly we’ve never seen these levels from an author.

This is a GOOD THING, right?

So to those of you who have to wait – I understand your frustration.  I appreciate your orders, and I will do everything I can to get it out to you as quickly as I can, and it is because of YOU that my publisher is floored at the success this book is having.  

It’s all because of YOU!  And I thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Goodies in the mail!

Selling out of books and tools in this short order have had me frustrated, nearly sick with worry and on the verge of tears.  And yesterday I opened this wonderful box that came so unexpectedly.  I need to thank Sharon in VT publicly for her wonderful gift.  Do you see the quilt top? The Chocolate?  The fat quarters?  WOW!

But the letter means so much more!

I love hand written letters.  I’m saving this in my “must always keep” box.  She had the best suggestion for me ever on how to deal with this kind of stress. 

“Grab a cup of tea, put your feet up, and take a break and breathe slowly for just a few moments.  Enjoy the chocolate while you fondle the fabric and quilt top.  And know that there are many quilters out there, this quilter included, that cannot thank you enough for all that you do and share to promote quilting.”

I did what she said, let the grateful tears flow and felt ever so better.

The full Quilt Top!

It’s an “Endless Chain” variation.

There are no seams in the white diamonds surrounded by smaller diamonds.  Isn’t it great?

Fabrics are 1940s & 1950s!

Quiltville Quote of the Day!

There are so many opportunities available with each choice! Every minute, every hour! What will you do with yours today? 

I hope your day will include joining me for Quilt-Cam on my Quiltville Page on Facebook at 2 pm Eastern.  If you are a Facebook user, you should get an announcement on your news-feed when I go live.  If you are on my page ahead of time, you may need to refresh the page to get the latest view so it will show when I go live.  Remember that today is an experiment and things may arise that we have to work with, but we have to start somewhere. 

This is going to be fun.  I’ll see you there!

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