Where does the time go? Quilt Market (Salt Lake City) is only a month away. Yikes! We need to put the finishing touches on the shop owners Block of the Month guide for Every Barn Tells a Story, not to mention pulling together a million other market details. The Quilt Trail Gathering in Manchester, Ohio (http://www.quiltgathering.com/) is when we'll be at market, so very sadly we won't be able to go. Why does stuff like that happen?!??!! Donna Sue Groves -- she is the best, you know - - will be featuring our book at the Gathering for us! Thank you Donna Sue

Every Barn Tells a Story was spotlighted at an open house sponsored by Meadow Lakes Assisted Living in Rochester, MN this weekend. Gosh, quilters came out of the woodwork, not to mention the barn lovers that attended. We had a wonderful time sharing the story of our book, the history of the Quilt Trail and showing off our 2 sampler quilts: Star Promenade and Barn Dance and the many other book projects. Thank you to everyone who came. And to those who bought our book, we hope you'll share photos of the projects that you make. We'd love to see them!

Every Barn Tells a Story stole the show at the Fayette County Quilt Show, West Union, Iowa this weekend. What a tremendous response it received from quilters, barn quilt lovers and quilt shop owners. Here we are with Shirley Fettkether, Maynard, Iowa, who has a Contrary Wife barn quilt on her barn - - and she's anything BUT contrary! Shirley shared a special story for the book about her barn which was turned into a basketball arena by her son whose high school team (from a class of 40 students) went to the state tournment one year. A Hoosiers-type story, but better.

Have you made your reservation yet? You won't want to miss this once in a lifetime celebration. Think about making it a quilter's road trip. Surely, there are plenty of quilt shops to visit along the way! Go to www.quiltertrailgathering.com to learn more and then make your reservation!

Yesterday, a group of our quilter friends worked on a batik version of Star Promenade which we will be donating to a fundraiser for Interfaith Outreach in the Twin Cities, June 2011. The Star Promenade pattern featured in Every Barn Tells a Story is beautiful in batiks. Nice job ladies!

Presenting

Every Barn Tells a Story

It was just a little over a year ago that Diane Entrikin and I envisioned a book about quilt barns on the Quilt Trail. We knew we wanted more than a quilting book though, so we added interesting barn owner stories along with instructions to make 20 quilt blocks that we incorporated into two unique sampler quilts. Then we added 10 exciting projects -- small quilts, table toppers, apron patterns, embroidered and appliqued dishtowels, a barn cross stitch design, a couple recipes, and even directions on how to paint a barn quilt. (By the way, you don't have to own a barn to have a barn quilt.)

We were thrilled when Quilt Trail visionary Donna Sue Groves honored us by writing the book preface. From an interview with Donna Sue, we wrote an article about how she started it all 10 years ago.

Long time quilter Mary Deeney, Mary Deeney Designs (www.marydeeneydesigns.com)commented: "It's been a long time since I've seen a quilt book like this." Another quilter said: "You could quilt for years and years out of this book." We know you would enjoy Every Barn Tells a Story, too.

To purchase a copy, go to http://www.everybarntellsastory.com/.

How cool is this! Palmer Printing (www.palmerprinting.com) sent us photos of Every Barn Tells a Story being printed. You can watch the presses roll at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGg7J3M40f4. It won't be long now.