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.

Our website went live today. We know we need to tweak a few things - - ok several things - - but we're live at www.everybarntellsastory.com. We hope you'll check it out!

Diane and I worked with Palmer Printing on Every Barn Tells a Story's final, final copy. So, next week it's off to press. Copies will be available for purchase on March 30! If you're ever in the market for a terrific publisher we hope you'll think about Palmer Printing. They did a terrific job for us.

Today was a big day. We're on the web - - http://www.everybarntellsastory.com/ went live today. If you go to the site, you won't see much though because Diane and I are in the process of building it. Neither of us ever thought that we'd be in the web design field, but soon we'll be adding that to our list of skills.

Palmer Printing (www.palmerprinting.com) is mailing us an actual copy of Every Barn Tells a Story today. One last look before we give them the instruction to get the presses rolling. Just a couple weeks and we'll be able to ship our books to you!

We asked Palmer Printing to put a special OTA binding on our book. When you open the book, it will lay flat on your work table. No more looking for something heavy to set on the book to keep it open while you read the pattern cutting instructions and other directions. We were excited when we saw this special binding and knew that you'd love it, too.

Here it is! The cover of Every Barn Tells a Story. Just wait until you see what's inside. We can hardly wait to show you. We anticipate that the books should be available to purchase about March 28.

Now back to work on our website. You should be able to tune into our site at www.everybarntellsastory.com in a few days.

A laser print copy of Every Barn Tells a Story arrived at our doors this morning. It's the first time that Diane and I have seen the whole book in print. Oo La La! I can't wait to read it now.

We're THAT close. The final edit of Every Barn Tells a Story will be this week. Someone compared book publishing process to the birth process - - we're dilated to 9 cm now!

By the way, in correspondence from Donna Sue Groves last week, we learned that there are now 3,200 quilt barns on Quilt Trails in 30 states. Imagine that.

Proofreading Every Barn Tells a Story. Need we say more.

As evidenced by the robins that I saw yesterday - - - SPRING IS COMING.

So now, it's time to make your plans to attend The Quilt Trail Gathering hosted by Donna Sue Groves and The Brown County Department of Travel and Tourism in Winchester, Ohio. This fun-filled event will celebrate a decade of barn quilts on The Quilt Trail and imagine the possibilities for the next decade and beyond.

You may learn more and make your reservation at http://www.quilttrailgathering.com/.

Be sure to tell all your friends. Calling all quilters - - -This event would make an outstanding field trip for your quilt group. Just think of all the quilt shops you could visit along the way!

Honest to goodness! Look what I saw today. If this isn't a sign that Spring is coming, nothing is. Believe it or not, I spotted them while with my mom in my hometown ---Robbinsdale, Minnesota ...... seriously.
Now, back to work on Every Barn Tells a Story. We got word earlier today that there's a good chance we'll see the second half of the book tomorrow. Can't wait!!

We experienced a little glitch with one of the photos for our book, so Diane volunteered to shoot another. Here she is bundled up to venture out. Winchills in our neck of the woods are approaching 20 BELOW zero today. You go girl!

We received the barn owner stories/quilt pattern spreads for the first half our our book yesterday. Every Barn Tells a Story is going to blow your socks off.

Now it's time to finalize the other projects in the book. Woohoo!

All good things come in time. Important work takes time. These are idioms my mother used to say to me, among dozens of others. Oh sigh. I guess I'm destined to be just like her. I wouldn't want it any other way.

After numerous tweaks, we finalized the story/quilt block layout spread for Every Barn Tells a Story. So now, all of the spreads for Star Promenade and Barn Dance, our book's two featured sampler quilts, are being written while I type. Rome wasn't built in a day!

We received 4 book cover design options from Palmer Printing today. All of them are terrific designs which made it a tough decision, but we did it. Now, it's time to assemble the inside of the book which starts with the two sampler quilt patterns (Star Promenade and Barn Dance) featured in Every Barn Tells a Story.