Thursday, March 31, 2016

I Promise I'm Not Dead!

Thank you for those of you who are patient followers of my blog -- and even for those that were kind enough to send me an email to see if I was still quilting.

I had to take a 9 month hiatus from my  blog.  As you recall, I started a Master's degree last winter and I will graduate May 1st!  Yay!  All done!  Because of that degree, I was offered a job to teach high school science at my local school district.  Yes, the first year is completely nuts -- and with juggling 4 kids -- and all of the master's degree work, all I did was made it to my neighborhood monthly block of the month party.  So sad!

Now...that is done and I am debating what I should do for the future.  Can I juggle both quilting and teaching school?  Should quilting go back to the hobby side of life only?  (This means I can take the time to quilt my tops how I want them instead of rushing through and doing an edge to edge because I have customers waiting).  Should I start machine quilting again?  I am seriously thinking about re-opening my machine quilting business (although I wrote that previous post about why I quit it) - but as EDGE TO EDGE ONLY.  The only problem is that when clients see my custom work -- they only want custom work at edge-to-edge prices.  That reason is why I left the business.  Can I do edge to edge only?   I still get calls and although I haven't written blog posts, I still have had some good things happen.

One of my patterns was published in print in an actual book!  That was an amazing "Bucket-List" feat for me.  The book is "Fast, Fun and Gifty" from Connecting Threads and can be exclusively purchased HERE.



My Swiss Chocolate Table Runner was published from Connecting Threads and can be exclusively downloaded HERE.


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So...my question, to all of you remaining blog followers is, do you remember how I hosted a weekly link party?  Did you enjoy that?  Would you like me to bring it back?  I would probably do it on a monthly basis -- instead of weekly.

Also, do you prefer me writing about longarm quilting techniques, fabric or new patterns?

Thanks!

Happy Quilting!

-Shannon