Quilt Market is a whirlwind event lasting less than a week, but looks can be deceiving. Preparation for fall market (there are 2 each year) begins before spring market occurs. That’s right — we start on fall market before we get to the spring event. It’s a little mind-boggling to say the least.

The first thing that we do is submit our application to teach those wonderful 8-in-the-morning classes that happen at the beginning of each day. That’s the piece that happens 8 or 9 months before each market is held. Frankly, I find it interesting to plan a class for something I don’t even have in hand yet, but that’s the big world of business for you!

About 4 months before market, we have to submit our booth applications (with payments, of course), apply to teach Schoolhouse sessions, write our company descriptions for the big catalog, and all sorts of trivia. That’s trivia — not to be confused with trivial. Miss a deadline and you can find yourself with virtually no information in the catalog and standing in line at Houston to get name badges printed.

In the mean time, we are working on our new products, which can take 6 months or more to get through the development process. Product announcements need to be out to our distributors (the suppliers to your local quilt shops) a good 3 months before Quilt Market so they can get ready for market too. Then we have the ads for the magazines, and all that good stuff. It’s a good thing I have a highly organized assistant. It heads off that “my brain is going to explode” feeling that creeps up more than once in a while.

About 3 weeks before market, my good friend and travel companion Mary comes up to the office for a day. We boot everyone else out for a day in order to pack up the display, class materials and product that will be shipped for our booth.

A big part of our day is planning what to hang up on the “walls” in our booth. It’s easiest to lay it out on the floor in the office. (That’s why we kick everyone else out for the day — we can’t have anyone walking all over our pretty display!) It’s a wonderful day when the market shipment heads out the door in a brown truck. We can finally walk around the warehouse without tripping on stuff.

Then it’s on to the list of little things that I didn’t get done in time for our big shipment. And yes, there is always a list of those little things. I think I should take over Robbi Eklow’s title of “goddess of the last minute.” Or at least borrow it twice a year. (For the record, Robbi writes a wonderful column in Quilting Arts magazine titled Goddess Of The Last Minute — check it out!)

When we arrive at the convention center and find our booth, I always do a little happy dance and give my pallet of boxes a big hug! Woo hoo — everything has indeed arrived!

As much as we like to complain about the cost of getting stuff delivered to our booth, I find it perfectly amazing that the exposition service gets shipments from hundreds of vendors and generally gets them all to the right spot. Yes, stuff happens. But I’ve been very lucky. Every time I arrive at my booth, all of my cartons are wrapped on a pallet and waiting for me. Now we can get to work!

Day 1 is setup time. Mary and I do our best to get all the structural stuff up and ready. We hang and steam the curtains, hang the lights, get the tables skirted and covered and hang samples until we’re tired and ready for dinner. Then it’s off to dinner and the grocery store where we stock up on goodies for our lunches.

Day 2 brings Schoolhouse sessions and final setup. Schoolhouse is an 8-hour day-long extravaganza of short informational sessions for the shop owners to attend. It’s on a super tight schedule. Sessions are 15 or 30 minutes long with just 5 minutes between sessions. Whew! This year I have 2 schoolhouse sessions, right around noon. I hope everyone is not eating lunch!

At the end of day 2, many vendors participate in the big Sample Spree late-evening shopping event. I don’t. No way. I usually have an 8am class the next morning, so there is no way I’m going to take part in that crazy event. I need some sleep before the exhibit hall opens.

Here’s a quick photo of our booth last spring — before the hall opened and we got swamped with visitors. The only thing missing in this photo is my signature apron. Most people at market don’t recognize me without it!

Day 3-5 are the “official” days of Quilt Market when the exhibit hall is open. We get up very early (often 5:30) in order to get to the convention center in time to teach class at 8am. (That’s the classes we applied for 9 month ago…) After class, we have a full day of demos and conversations in the exhibit hall, followed by dragging our fannies out the door to dinner and doing the day’s paperwork.

The final day, of course, ends with tear-down. What goes up, must come down, and quickly. They actually have a pretty short time frame for getting everything packed up and out of the convention hall so they can start reconfiguring the hall for Quilt Festival, the big open-to-the-public event. Once our boxes are packed and the shipment is turned over to the expo staff, Mary and I head out to our favorite steak house for a hard-earned dinner. Then it’s one last night at the hotel before winging our way back to Minneapolis. And we’ll be very glad to be home!

That’s your “behind the scenes” look at Quilt Market. I get a kick out of friends who tell me they would just love to come and work for me at market. I always chuckle and tell them to be careful what they ask for! It’s fun and exciting, but it’s a lot of work. And frankly, we get very little time to wander around to check out the other vendors. But that’s good — it means we’re talking to customers!

Have a wonderful week. I’ll check in with you when I arrive home next week.

In honor of Halloween, we’re offering scary savings on our complete line of patterns. Order your patterns online and save 40%! Now that’s a spook-tacular sale, if I say so myself. Don’t put it off — the sale ends at noon on Tuesday, November 1.

Choose from Butterflies, Bosa Nova Bags, Paintstik Patches, Coneflowers or the Anything Goes Tote. Or, save even more when you purchase the pattern bundle. What ever you choose, you’ll save at least 40% off the regular price.

Caution! Our inventory of Butterflies patterns is very limited. When they’re gone, they’re gone. If you’ve been thinking of making this delightful wall quilt or table topper, get your order in quickly. We’ll try to keep an eye on the orders, but it’s tricky over the weekend. If we get more orders than we have patterns, we’ll substitute one of our stencils to make up for the missing pattern in your order.

Click on over to our online store to buy our boo-tiful patterns at this spook-tacular price!

With Halloween just around the corner, I’d like to serve up a few tricks and treats. Besides, this allows me to answer a question from one of our members.

After reading about the new Doodles Rubbing Plates, Nancy Wicks sent off a note asking “Do you have advice on how to get color on specific areas of the rubbing?” Here are two of the photos from that newsletter.

Having just spent about 10+ hours painting samples from each and every one of our rubbing plates, I can assure you that I have a long list of tips on just about everything related to making paintstik rubbings. Just hit the button on my left shoulder and I’ll start from the top.

In the case of these two samples, I have a long answer and a short answer. Let’s start with the short answer. For the image on the left, I simply started with one color in the lower-left corner and changed paintstik colors as I worked up to the other corner, blending the colors as I went along. I used iridescent watermelon, orange, light gold (yellow), lime green, green and maybe some jade in the top-right corner. It gives a nice rainbow effect.

For the image on the right, we’ve got to go to the long answer. Too long for a single newsletter. Rather than answering this one question, I’m going to share a series of posts that wrote for the blog earlier in the year.

This series of posts contains just about everything you need to know about making great rubbings on fabric with our paintstiks. Follow this series of links over to my blog for a bunch of tricks that will have you making multi-color treats. If you have questions or comments, post a message on the blog. I’d love to hear from you.

Part 1: Better Tools, Better Rubbings, My Favorite Tips
I reveal my top two secret weapons that will have you making gorgeous rubbings in no time flat!

Part 2: I Should Use Which End of My Paintstiks???
Get dramatically better rubbings by using the side of your paintstik rather than the end. (With a few exceptions…)

Part 3: Are You Allergic To Single Colors?
Here’s the answer to Nancy’s question regarding multi-color rubbings. Learn the ghostly secret to making marvelous multi-color rubbings.

Part 4: Oops! Now What? (Cleaning Up Paintstik Rubbings)
Got a boo-boo? Don’t freak out. Learn about the magic erasers that will help you clean up your rubbings.

Have a great time making boo-tiful paintstik rubbings! With this bag of tricks, I just know it will be a treat! If you’re looking for a special treat for yourself, just click over to our Online Store. You’ll find lots of gorgeous treats to satisfy your creative sweet tooth.

I’ve been creating rubbing plates for 5 years now, and I’ve come to appreciate one of the little bonuses that comes with each set. We create 6 designs, but we actually get 12 design surfaces. Using one side of the plate, you’ll get the image that we intended when we created the design. Using the opposite side of the plate, you get a secondary image that I call a backside bonus.

Some plates have very cool backside images. Some don’t. The molds for the plates are made with a chemical etching process, and there is no way to control exactly how deep each groove in the plate is etched. It’s much more hit and miss than the design side.

When I get a new set of plates, I first make a set of samples from the design side of each rubbing plate. After all, those are the designs I really wanted. Then I flip each plate over and check the back side to see if I like any of the secondary images. When I see one I think is pretty cool, I do a little happy dance and celebrate my bonus. Here’s what I found with the new Doodles Rubbing plates.

With this plate, the backside image (left) of the dots is much less distinct, and I had to use the end of my paintstik to get the dashed lines that run through the center of the plate. The “stove burner” images were very cool — a nice complement to the image on the design side.

The backside of this plate gives a totally different look than the front side. I love the little dots and dashes on the bottom right of the backside (green). The images from both sides will make great backgrounds around larger images.

And this one, hey — what can I say? On the design side, I love the look of mosaic tile. But I’ll admit that I might like the bonus backside of this plate even better. It reminds me of a snail shell cut open or something like that. The image is much softer, more organic than the crisp clean lines of the design side. Which do you like better?

If you haven’t already ordered up your new Doodles plates, you can hop over to our Online Store. If you have a local store that carries our product, give them a call. We are shipping the plates every day and we would be happy to send some their way. Here’s the link to the Online Store.

Next week, we’ll take up the topic of multi-color rubbings. Stay tuned.

The fabulous new Doodles Rubbing Plates are finally in the warehouse and ready to ship. Hooray! I had hoped to have them a month ago, but they are certainly worth the wait.

As always, the plates are packaged with a header card that has a series of thumbnail images, so you can see what’s in the package. There are 6 plates in the package. Most of the plates are segmented into 2 or more sections. Several plates have bold graphic images. Two are split between positive and negative versions of the same designs, and one is styled to resemble a mosaic tile pattern. Here they are!

As you look at the plates, you’ll see that almost all of the design elements show up on at least 2 plates. You’ll find the teardrop shapes in the feather above and the plate below.

We made extensive use of dashed lines and circles in one form or another.

The final 2 plates are wonderful for filling in backgrounds. The plate on the left makes me think of both Morse code and the binary code used in today’s computers. (That’s the engineer in me that still peeks out from time to time.) And the plate on the right? Hey — can you blow bubbles?

As you can tell, I’m totally in love with the new plates. This was my first venture off into pure design in a long time. I drew out designs with paper and pencil, then Matthew took my ideas and turned them into workable drawings. I’ve been blessed to work with such a talented artist for the past 5 years. He has skills I can only aspire to — and he does a wonderful job of making my dreams into reality. I am so blessed!

Order Your (Made in the USA) Doodles Plates Today!

The Doodles Plates are now available in the Online Store. At just $11.95 per set, these plates are an incredible value. Yes, the price is higher than our current line of rubbing plates. (The price of oil bites us yet again.) I hate raising prices as much as anyone, but I also hate the idea of putting myself out of business by being stubborn! I choose to look at the positive aspects of how we do business rather than dwelling on things I can’t control.

Our rubbing plates are an American-made product from start to finish — and I’m proud of it. The plastic comes from a US manufacturer. We use re-cycled plastic to make the plates and that’s good for our environment. The plates and header cards are both manufactured in Brainerd, MN. The plates are packaged by a workshop for developmentally disabled adults in Alexandria, and we ship them right here from our warehouse in the middle of Minnesota.

Does it cost a bit more? Yes. Are the plates still a fantastic value? You bet they are. Are we keeping jobs here in this country rather than shipping them off to another country? Absolutely, positively, YES!

And one last note regarding the price of rubbing plates. At the end of this year, the price on ALL of our beautiful sets of rubbing plates will be going up to match the price of the new Doodles plates. If you’ve been meaning to round out (or start!) your collection of rubbing plates, do it now to beat the price increase. You can’t control the price of oil, but you CAN add a bunch of fabulous rubbing plates to your stash before the price goes up. (That’s your fair warning. Take advantage of it while you can!)

Here’s the link to the Rubbing Plate page once again…

Yes, I want to order the fabulous new DOODLES Rubbing Plates!

Next week, I’ll show you some bonus images that come with the Doodles rubbing plates — stay tuned for some great photos of our backside bonus designs!

Be sure to check out new questions from Donata and Laurie on our Frequently Asked Questions page.

Oh my gosh! I just finished a quick test of the new Doodle plates and I am thrilled beyond words. OK — not quite beyond words — obviously, I’m still typing. The images are simply fantastic. (I’ll refrain from using the word “awesome” — my graphic artist would hang me!) But the new plates are really cool, if I say so myself.

This set of plates has been a challenge — for me, my artist, and the engineers at the manufacturer. Our first set of molds had to be scrapped, but we got it right on the second try. And did we get it right! I just set my paintstik down after a quick pass over all 6 designs. I am happy, happy, happy!

I’ll share a few pictures this week and then treat you to a full-blown announcement next week. By then, we’ll have the plates in stock and ready to ship.

It’s really hard to take photos of the black plates. I usually don’t even try. Our plates are black because they are made from recycled plastic. It’s far less expensive than working with colors and I like the fact that we are using recycled materials. And I’m even happier about the fact that the plates are made and packaged right here in Minnesota. I’m all for keeping jobs here at home. Heaven knows we need every one of them!

I took a break from writing long enough to paint up 3 samples from this set. And now that I’ve finished putting my newsletter together, I’m going back for more!

I’ll post more pictures in next week’s newsletter when we formally launch these gorgeous new plates!

My mailbox was full of wonderful stuff this morning. In addition to my new rubbing plates, my copy of the October issue of Quilting Arts magazine arrived. Right inside the front cover is the ad announcing my new Rubbing Plate Roundup book.

Rubbing Plate Roundup is a collection of twelve fantastic techniques for adding visual and tactile textures your fabric, craft and mixed media projects. It is simply the definitive guide to making textured treasures from simple plastic rubbing plates. If you love texture, this book should be at the top of your got-to-have list!

Now I’m more than a little excited about the new book. I’ve had the most wonderful time playing with our rubbing plates and an almost endless supply of art supplies. It seems like every time I looked around this summer I had yet one more new-to-me tool or coloring agent that I just had to have for an experiment. (Not that it broke my heart — you know how much I love new toys!)

Anyway, back to our ad. In the ad, we promised that you could pre-order a copy of the book. I’m going to sweeten the pot and make this a really special offer.

When you pre-order your copy of Rubbing Plate Roundup today, you will automatically become a Cedar Canyon VIP. As a VIP, you get three special benefits:

• You deserve to be first, and we’ll make that happen. You will be the very first group of people to get your hands on this great new book. You probably already have a collection of our wonderful rubbing plates, and now you’ll be first in line for the definitive guide to using the plates to add visual and tactile textures to your fabric, craft and mixed-media projects. If you’ve got rubbing plates, you need this book! (And if you don’t, well why not?!?)
• Second, I’m going to personally sit down and sign each and every pre-ordered copy of this book. This is not something I offer lightly. I’m a very busy person and I rarely take time to sign books unless I am teaching or attending special events. If I signed every book that went out the door here, you might never hear from me. But, I’m going to make an exception for those of you who think enough of my work to pre-order this wonderful book. You are a special group of people and I want you to know I appreciate you. For you, I’ll sign the books.
• Finally, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. I’m going to have my shipping staff add not one, but two free rubbing plates. I can’t tell you exactly which plates will be in the package, but I can assure you that one of them will be from the new Doodles Rubbing Plate set that will be formally launched next week.

How to Pre-Order Your Book

Click on this link to reserve your spot at the front of the line. The link will take you directly to a special order form that does nothing but process pre-orders for Rubbing Plate Magic. (You can also find a link to the order form on our Home Page.)

If you have a US shipping address, you will be charged an even $30. That’s $22.95 for a signed copy of Rubbing Plate Roundup, 2 free rubbing plates and just $7.05 for VIP Priority shipping.

For our customers outside the US, the cost will be just $37 USD. (That’s $22.95 for a signed copy of the book, 2 free rubbing plates and VIP Priority shipping of just $14.05) We know that international postage rates are outrageously expensive, but you’re in luck! We’ll pack your book and rubbing plates in a flat-rate envelope instead of a box and that will allow us to send it for a fraction of the usual postage charge. And you’ve got to love that!

In case you missed it, here is that link again…