Marketing Patchwork Sassaman Style & Giveaway

Well the book is at the printer so now the real work starts….the marketing!

There are many steps to it but basically we need to get ready for the introduction of the book at Spring Market in May in Kansas City. So first, I think of the brochure.

It is basically last year’s brochure with the new Patchwork Sassaman Style placed in the first two pages and the other books moving to the back pages.  I also like to refresh the other books with new photos of projects or editing text so it perhaps will catch the eye where it hadn’t before.

I LOVE what the graphic designer did with this cover!  It’s so bold,colorful and graphic that you want to frame it! 

 

On the last page of the brochure we added some new items which will be released in June. The first is the scarf with Jane’s Spiderweb Kaleidoscope reproduced on silk satin. It is so luscious in person and the hand is so smooth and flowing that the photo doesn’t do it justice.

Also big news are the die cuts designed by Noriko Endo for AccuQuilt Go and Go Baby! cutting machines.  These are going to make creating confetti quilts so much faster and easier, especially for people with arthritis in their hands. Just turn the handle and lots of pieces are perfectly cut and tumble onto your table! 

Noriko’s cherry blossom die is the best way to make a breathtaking cherry blossom quilt in her style.  The die consists of full blossoms and some petals to make a realistic scene in no time! They are going to be available from www.AccuQuilt.com at the end of May (with project ideas) but I wanted you to be the first to know. (If you’d like a brochure mailed to you/leave me your address below!)

To support the brochure, we also need to update our website by adding the new book, info about Jane and ordering the book and silk scarf.  Then we can send out an email newsletter letting our devoted followers know what’s new.

At the same time, we need to design and place ads announcing the new book in some of the quilting magazines that we think have the audience that would be interested in new ideas and designs for patchwork.

Book reviewers at the magazines need copies and of course, the buyers need books to display at their market booths and for review to consider whether to include it in their inventory. Buyers around the world are familiar with Jane’s work and have given positive feedback about selling the book.  So since the books take 5 weeks to get here by boat, I need to fly in some cases for early promotion. Jane will be signing one case at the Checker booth at Spring Market so if you are there come early and get in line!

If not, watch for our blog tour this summer with many chances to win a free autographed copy! And this week, Jane has provided her beautiful new Hepburn apron pattern for a giveaway. Comment below (leave your email address in case you win) and a random winner will be chosen April 25. Last week’s winner is Carribean Cutie.

Preview of Patchwork Sassaman Style & Giveaway

 

Let me give you a preview of what Patchwork Sassaman Style is all about and why it will revolutionize how you quilt with Personality Prints (or designer collections).

Jane calls each quilt pattern a recipe because it is a guideline on how to create the quilt but is open for you to add and delete as you like. For example, you can add several different fabrics or additional sashing and borders or appliques to corners, etc.

I’ll use the example of Mirrored Triangles. Would you believe that these 3 are the same recipe? They look so different!

Each of these quilts uses only 3 different fabrics. Jane shows you how to select fabrics and how to cut them to get the desired results. Sewing it is so simple since it is only half-square triangles! That’s why these 20 recipes are for beginners to advanced quilters.

What I like best about Jane’s quilts in this book is that I can hardly see where the seam lines are! It all blends together and looks like a whole cloth quilt sometimes! You get huge graphic impact with minimal fabric as well as minimal simple piecing.  It’ll have you thinking about designing quilts in a brand new way!  The methods are adaptable to many different fabric collections that you probably already have in your stash…beautiful fabrics that you collected but weren’t sure how to cut them. Don’t we all have some of those?

 

This week’s giveaway is a Sassaman mousepad! Comment below by April 17 and we’ll select a winner at random. Jane’s silk scarf is almost ready to put on our websites. The design that you voted as the winner is my favorite so stay tuned to see the winner! Comment and tell us what other products you’d like to see in ‘Sassaman Style’!

Winner of last week’s Purse pattern is Patty Ashworth! Please contact me and let me know your mailing address (linda@dragonthreads.com)

The Proof has arrived! Sassaman Giveaway!

 

After all the hours of reading the manuscript last week and correcting all the diagrams, we sent the CDs off to the printer. The first thing they do is print the CDs and then send you back a mock up of the book and we have to proof it all again for hours! This time besides looking for grammar and typos, we need to check the graphics. It was pretty clean but still we were missing some images and had to lighten others etc.  By now, we are a little tired of reading this for the tenth time but it is a critical step and our last chance to make sure there are little to NO mistakes.  I’m more worried about making the instructions clear for the reader and not so much about misspellings and commas missing.

What do you think of the interior? After reading it this time, I feel that it is truly a beautiful book reflecting Jane’s art and love of color…in my humble opinion.

PART TWO- NORIKO ENDO NEW QUILT

If you read this blog during Xmas, I bought one of her cherry blossom quilts for my living room. Well, it is now on tour at Quilt Festival in Cincinnati and will follow to Long Beach and Houston and it won’t return until Thanksgiving!  So to cover the bare space over my fireplace, Noriko ‘whipped up’ this new quilt for me in a few weeks!  She is very prolific! 

This quilt used the cherry blossom die from Accuquilt so it was much faster than cutting out all these blossoms by hand!  The die will be available in the next month from them so be on the lookout! Paired with Noriko’s book, Confetti Naturescapes and you could make one of these quilts also!

GIVEAWAY!!!!!

Leave a comment below about what you like to see in books, what kind of quilting books you want or something you’d like to tell a publisher. We’ll pick 1 person at random April 9 to win the wonderful purse pattern featured on Jane’s blog this week.

And come back for weekly giveaways up to the launch of PATCHWORK SASSAMAN STYLE!

Patchwork Sassaman Style at the Printer

Hooray!  We finally got the book finished and sent it all to the printer overseas!

Thought you’d like to see the front cover that we chose and the gorgeous back cover!  I liked the colors of the back cover better but I was out voted! Anyway, I think they turned out well.

 

Next step is that I get the color proof and check it again! This manuscript was read at least 8 times by assorted editors, author and myself and still we found many corrections at the last minute!  You can never read it enough! I’m sure that there will still be errors after it goes to press and that bothers me! At least I hope that they aren’t major ones where the reader won’t understand the technique!  I don’t care so much about misspellings or commas at this point.

After the proof is approved, then the book goes to press and it will take about 4 weeks to print all the copies.  I will get some books flown in so that Jane can do a few book signings at the Spring Quilt Market (so if you attend, look for those) and so I can start marketing the book.  The first copies go to the buyers and the magazine reviewers etc.

The pallets of books go by boat and then by train or truck to Ohio and then to my warehouse and that could take from 6-8 weeks!  As soon as it is on the water, I’ll open up pre-sales so you can be among the first to receive your copy!  The best way to know is to sign up for the email newsletters at Dragon Threads or to watch this blog.

Every week I’ll try to put up new pages from the book to give you a peek and will have plenty of giveaways!  Then we will have a blog tour this summer with even more giveaways!

Would love to hear your comments about the covers, book, process and what you’d like to see/know more about.

Cover Design

Sometimes it is easy to design a cover, but not for this book!

When we did Noriko Endo’s book, there was only one quilt where we could get a large, high res shot for a cover bleed so that was no worry! 

But here we have so many quilt photos to choose from which makes it more difficult. What should the cover convey? How can the design grab the reader?

The book is NOT patterns using Jane’s fabrics but is more involved. It shows how to use large scale personality prints in a collection to create dramatic quilts with little piecing.  We do use Jane’s fabric solely in the book but explain how to create these same graphic looks using any other fabric collections….so is it necessary to show this on the cover or save that for the back cover? Should the cover just be so beautiful that the quilter picks up the book to read the back cover and learn what is inside the book?  But what if the book is in a catalog where the quilter can only see the front cover?

Of course you know that every book IS judged by the cover! It’s one of the most important parts of the book creation.  Our aim is to sell books after all. So as you can see, it is a complex decision.

As promised, here are some cover ideas. Please vote for your favorite one in the comments using # 1-6…THANKS!!

  

Men’s Suits into Laptop Bag

I’ve seen this all over the internet and etsy so thought it would be a fun Winter project to make for my 17-year old son. What can you make for them that they will actually like?

I got a basic laptop bag pattern, Mc Call’s 6410 and eliminated the pleated front pocket that is under this flap.  At the local thrift shop, I found two nice men’s jackets from very nice quality wool for a big total of $4 !!  I cut the front, back, flap and sides out of a heavy drill to use as a base and then layered the pieces on top of that. It also served as some stiffening to the bag.

On this front flap, I wanted to use the lapel. It takes lots of ripping out and removing of interfacing and shoulder pads etc. That’s the only real labor here, lots of ripping!  It’s helpful to use a surgical seam ripper…makes the work go faster.  For the lapel, I had to stitched it down along the edge with a small hemstitch and then cut away all the fabric from the back of it so it would lay flat.

I opened up a necktie to fill in the left side and to add the blue color which is in the plaid that you can’t see in the photo.  This breast pocket is still useable as are all the pockets.

The back of the bag was simply the hip pocket of the front of the suit.

And the front under the flap is from the jacket lining. It’s the pocket with some of the facing still attached. I had to wash this piece, it was a bit worn but it works.

Behind that front is a pocket from the inside of the black jacket cut and sewn on top of the lining. I found some gray satin and used the back/non-shiny side for the inside lining and it almost matches the gray lining of the suit!  I love the look of the labels.

The other side is a big pocket cut from the lining I bought.  The right pocket has little pleats and is the size for a cell phone.  I added some of the necktie to the top of this piece just for color and continuity.

It was a pleasure to work with fine wool again! It presses so well and sews so easily. This wasn’t difficult and you just have to think about the best way to use the jackets.  I did add some heavy interfacing for the strap and the sides to give it some body.

Getting down to the wire!

 

This is the postcard that we made to announce Jane Sassaman’s new book at the Fall Quilt Market last November. We plan to have it ready to sell at the Spring market in May in Kansas City so now we are under the gun!  The books are printed in Thailand and they need 4 weeks on the press. Then shipping by boat takes 6 or so weeks although it’s always been more time with clearing customs and getting over to Ohio. So the pressure is on!

We are placing all the info into the layouts for the first round of editing. Here is a sample of the rough layout.

 

Now the most important and most difficult part to come…THE COVER DESIGN!

More on that to come later. We are editing the glamour shots to decide if any will make cover or if we have to graphically create one. I want to have some here on the blog for you to vote on your choice.