If you have tried to click on that “Buy my books” link up there on the menu, you will know that an era has come to an end: I am no longer shipping printed copies of Meandering Magic or More Meandering Magic.

When I created the first book back in the summer of 2006, I was hoping to sell maybe a 1000 copies over a year or 2. I sold 1000 copies in 6 weeks. That was a really insane summer.

I switched accounting programs in 2008, and I’ve lost track of how many I sold before the switch. For the two books combined, I think it was in the neighborhood of 4000 at that point. Since then, I’ve sold another 1683. Not too bad for my little idea.

It’s past time to retire the books, though, at least the printed version. A couple of months ago I worked on combining the books into a single version that I could offer as a PDF, but it’s been awhile since I’ve done anything with it. I think it just needs some polishing, but I wanted to make the “official” announcement that my books have been retired. I have enjoyed the opportunities the experience provided me, but between a full-time job, a busy family, and other interests: I’m tired of printing books. And having to print and mail them in a timely manner to people who have paid for them.

I can’t really say the books are “out of print” — because they were never really “in print” — I literally printed them as they were ordered, partly because I never wanted to get stuck with a pile of books I couldn’t sell. I do have an odd assortment of book “parts” — coils and backs — that I don’t really know what to do with…

So, anyway, that’s sort of the end of that story. Thanks to everyone that has supported me over the years in that endeavor. It was fun.

When you haven’t posted on your blog in awhile, it’s hard to know where to start when you think you want to post again. Do you fill in and explain where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing? Do you pretend you weren’t gone and just start posting? Do you try for cleverness? Do you worry that no one even noticed that it’s been 2 months since you last posted?

I know!

You post a picture of a cute cat. On a cute quilt. A quilt that you made in two days.

The first quilt you’ve made in far longer than you would like to admit.

I realized yesterday that the only pictures I’ve taken in the last month or more are of the vandalism that someone perpetrated on some of the props and scenery for the high school musical. There’s something wrong with that. And not just the fact that there was vandalism.

I decided to remedy the picture-taking situation, and thankfully the cat was super cute. The boys were just disheveled and gave me dirty looks, so I won’t bother perpetrating their silliness upon my poor blog readers.

This is the first quilt that I’ve made since Miles joined us, and I already knew that he liked my batting, but the instant this quilt went down on the ground!!! Holy Hannah, you’d have thought there was catnip in it the way the cat started rolling around on it. He has found his true calling, and quilt inspecting is it.

I hope to have some more quilts for him to inspect int he coming weeks and months. I have to do a lot of excavating in my studio to (a) find room to work in and (b) find things to work on. When I was working on this baby quilt, Mark wandered through and said, nonchalantly, “What-cha doing?” — as if he didn’t want to potentially frighten me away from continuing to work. I felt the same way, frankly. I don’t know if I’m all the way back or not, but the fabric and partially finished quilts surrounding me are suggesting that I’d better get my rear in gear before the fabric starts to expire.

Wish I could keep this one!

(Click on the thumbnails to view the pictures larger in a slideshow).

Ruler work and freehand.  Lots of ruler work…I make myself crazy some times.

Oh, how I wish I could have gone to see the Infinite Variety exhibit in New York last week.

Lucky for me, a customer has treated me to my own red and white quilt show this week:

I *do* know how to turn on my sewing machine.

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to use my AccuQuilter Go Cutter very well — my squares were not very square. I’m pretty sure I could have rotary cut them more accurately, but I’m 100% positive that is user error, not a problem with the cutter.

Before I use it again, I will actually watch the instructional videos, instead of just leaping in with no clue.