It ends, and begins again

On July 21, 2008, I wrote my first blog post as The Bitchy Stitcher and titled it "It Begins." For the next ten years I chronicled my attempts to learn how to sew, my constant desire to lose 50 pounds, my struggles as a mom of young children, my work as an editor and writer, my marriage, my hopes and fears and random thoughts—and I did it all with my tongue in my cheek and a frequently filthy vocabulary.

Blogging is an amazing thing for a wanna-be writer. I started under the blissful cover of relative anonymity, and this gave me freedom. I was free to use my own voice in a way I could never hope to do writing articles about bidet installation businesses for local magazines, and there was something so much more real about putting that voice out into the world where someone might actually read it than just keeping it hidden in a private journal. I listed my blog on a couple sites for quilters, and began to grow an audience from there. Though I always got a few "shame on your potty mouth" comments and the occasional "I'm not sure if you're kidding about setting that quilt on fire but just in case maybe don't because you could burn down your house" comment, for the most part people seemed to truly appreciate a quilting blog that wasn't based in the world of ample natural lighting, floors that never need vacuuming, children with clean faces and adorable clothes, and homes out of Architectural Digest. I was a fat, stay-at-home mom with a toddler who threw incessant tantrums living in a rented duplex that was (and is) constantly too dark for decent photography. But I was honest about it—and I had a sense of humor about it, and I think it's safe to say the quilt blogging world had not quite seen anything like me at that point.

My audience grew pretty quickly after I started writing for Quilter's Home—and my anonymity went out the window. And by "anonymity," I don't mean that I ever really kept my identity a secret—I just didn't tell anybody I actually knew or was acquainted with about my blog. I love having an audience; I would just prefer it if my audience didn't pick up the phone the next day and try to do an intervention because I joked about setting my quilt on fire.

Though I always wanted to grow my audience more, I never had the stomach for self-promotion that other quilt bloggers have. I know that I'm something of an acquired taste, or you kinda need to be pre-disposed to my style of humor, so I never wanted to do the big promotions that would draw people in with the promise of free stuff. I liked keeping my people a small, self-selected group of fellow weirdos. Keeps the riff-raff out.

But the blog archive in the right-hand column of this site tells a story.

The numbers in parentheses are how many posts I published in that year. There was definitely a downturn after I started writing regularly for Quilter's Home, and again when I joined Generation Q. But the biggest drop happened in 2015, when I went from 44 posts the previous year to 16.

In January of 2013, I lost my brother to cancer. In December of that same year, I lost my mom. In 2014, I had a disastrous attendance at Quilt Market that caused a huge shift in my perception of and relationship with the quilting industry, but I still chugged along. In fact, it was in 2014 that I wrote the blog post that set massive records for views, shares, and comments: Behind the Bolts, which was about why shopping at JoAnn fabrics is so frustrating (long story short: corporate policy). And it wasn't funny!

But then in 2015 I had the first of three abdominal surgeries that basically filled my existence with pain and sickness. I also developed frozen shoulder, an extremely painful condition that lasted for almost two years and is now trying to get going in my other shoulder. I was constantly in pain, allergic to narcotics so unable to get even a smidge of relief except what I could get from ibuprofen, and wondering every day if this was my new normal. In 2017, I had surgery to fix the second surgery that was done badly, and I was mentally prepared for more pain, but not for the infection that put me back in the hospital and kept me sick and weakened for several weeks. It was never life-threatening, but there was a specter of further, more difficult surgeries that could result if the infection spread. I was put on strong antibiotics that made me ill and dehydrated, and eventually the source of the infection was found and they installed an utterly horrifying drain. Never have a plastic tube coming out of your abdomen with infected liquid dripping out of it that you have to collect and measure and describe if you can possibly help it. The drain and another antibiotic finally did the trick, and by mid-summer I was mostly recovered, with no residual pain. Physical pain, anyway. But it all took a toll—the surgeries, the shoulder, the deaths—and though I was better, I often felt like a different person than the one I had been four years before.

When I realized I had made it all the way to the end of 2017 with only marginal and easily handled (so far!) shoulder pain, I thought that maybe I could make 2018 the Year of Blog Revitalization. I even made a public commitment to the cause, using my handy dandy magical thinking to try and make it happen just by declaring it so. But I caught another curve ball, one I never saw coming.

In February, my amazing, wonderful, smart, funny oldest child texted me from the bus on the way home from middle school while I sat in the car line awaiting to pick up my youngest from elementary school. The text read, "Mom, I think I'm transgender."

I don't know how to explain the swirl of emotions that come from receiving a text like that, and I suppose for every parent who goes through it the swirl is different, but the best I can do is say it was a mixture of fierce love with abject terror. But I made damn sure that my kid only saw the fierce love. Knowing from our extensive research that affirmation gives kids the best chance at a happy and healthy life, we found a wonderful therapist who specializes in transgender issues and started attending a support group, and in June, on the first moment of summer vacation, we greeted the child we once thought was a daughter as our son, Miles.

That doesn't even begin to touch on the process that led us to that point, but I can assure you it is, for a parent, all-consuming—psychologically at least. And we are one of the lucky families. So many kids have unsupportive or skeptical parents, live in communities that have open anti-trans sentiment, and as a result there are many kids who are suffering with depression, self-harm, and suicidal ideation and attempts. We have always been openly and vocally pro-LGBTQ+, and are lucky to live in an area that, though it skews conservative, is actually very socially liberal. All of Miles' friends, every single one, has accepted and embraced him. All our neighbors and friends and family have done the same. We have had no issues with school or doctors, and there is a trans-focused health clinic nearby that takes our insurance. The therapist told us that on the whole we have a very happy, mature, and well-adjusted kid, and often tells us she wishes all the parents of kids she sees were like us. 

And this is still the hardest thing my family and I ever been through. 

So, I girded my loins back in May and finished my second book. And then, after I got all the pre-orders signed and shipped, I sat down and asked myself, "What do you want?" 

A few things were clear. Do I still want to write? Hell, yes. Do I still want to make people laugh? Abso-fucking-lutely. Do I want to try in some way to be an advocate or ally for trans kids? Damn right I do.

A lot was—and is—unclear. Do I want to combine all those things? Hmmm, not sure about that. Do I want to reach kids or parents? Yeah, I don't know. Do I maybe just want to try and fundraise for organizations that do this far better than I ever can? Mmmm, quite possibly. Do I want to blog again, or just write novels? Ask again later. It's still cloudy over there. 

But I can tell you this. I do have a novel to finish, and if you haven't already run away over my kid (and if you have, buh-bye), I'd love for you to read it when I do. I want to write more of them someday. I think, with practice, I could be good at it. 

But I don't want to be The Bitchy Stitcher anymore.

I have loved this blog, and all of you, so very, very much. Quilting and sewing will always be my happy place, my meditation, my refuge. I am so proud of the things I have accomplished over the last 10 years, but 10 years just seems like a good, round number to end on and move to the next phase of my life. Next year, I will be fifty. I've recently seen articles saying a study has shown age 50 is when the happiest time of a person's life begins. I very much hope that's true and there are happier times ahead for me and mine. And I'm just gonna say it: if this administration stays in power, that may not be possible for us. So, I need to figure out how to exist in this world as it is, as it might become, and how to fight for something better and protect my babies at the same time. I'm not yet sure what that looks like, but a quilting humor blog isn't it.

Thank you all for the laughs, the love, for reading my words and embracing me and giving me some of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I love you all, and I hope we meet again someday.

10 Years of The Bitchy Stitcher: Quilting

This represents the best—or at least the most interesting—of my quilted output between now and 2011. That was when I first had a good way to hang quilts for photographing, and so the 10 or so quilts I made before that have only partial, dark photos. They also mostly suck, which was why I had so much fodder for this blog in those early years

The Cutter Wheel, 2017

Machine appliqué mini quilt, my design.

Be Seeing You, 2017

Machine appliqué mini quilt, my design.

Type It Out, 2017

Broderie perse appliqué with fabric marker mini quilt. My design.

Billy Rose's Aquacade, 2017

Broderie perse appliqué mini quilt, my design. 

The Sea of Serpents, 2017

Fusible appliqué, my own design. Longarm quilting by Amy Helton

Flipping the Bird, 2017

Broderie perse appliqué, my design.

Mandala #1, 2016

Broderie perse appliqué mini quilt. My design.

Use Your Glutes

Mini quilt, using our family motto for "try hard and believe in yourself." My design.

You Got This, 2016

Machine appliqué mini quilt, my design.

A Weird and Wonderful Thing - 2016

A mini-quilt of my own design using broderie perse appliqué.

So Long, Suckers! 2016

Made from Up and Away mini quilt pattern by Whole Circle Studio (octopus is my own addition). Paper piecing, appliqué, trapunto, free motion quilting, hand quilting, and embroidery.

Runway - 2015

My design, pattern available as a PDF here.





Wildflower Park - 2015

My design, pattern available as a PDF here.





Daryl - 2015

My design, pattern available as a PDF here.




I'm A Tula Fan - 2014

My design, based upon traditional dresden plate patterns. Uses all Tula Pink fabric, and all dresden plates are hand appliquéd. Machine quilting by Karlee Porter.

Breaking the Waves - 2013

My design, pieced by me and machine quilted by Lisa Sipes. Appears on the cover of the January/February 2015 issue of Generation Q Magazine.

Alcide Herveaux - 2013

Original design. Tutorial can be found here.

UFO Lights - 2013

Original design.  A bit of an experiment in both design and free motion quilting.

Sew It Like You Stole It - 2013

Made using Sam Hunter's letter patterns from her book Quilt Talk and published in that book as part of a gallery of examples in 2014. Sewing machine is my design and is appliquéd and embroidered. Machine quilting by Lisa Sipes.

Boho Mock Cathedral Window - 2012

I combined a couple Anna Maria Horner lines with a Joel Dewberry collection and used a mock cathedral window method I found here.

Unnamed baby quilt - 2011

This was a free pattern from Kate Spain for Moda using her Terrain collection. (Pattern can be found here.) FMQ by little old me.

George Jr. - 2011

That's 676 half-square triangles. Though it's a traditional arrangement, it was my first attempt to make a quilt without a pattern. I named it George Jr because I thought it was so gorgeous it looked like George Clooney and a stack of Hoffman batiks made sweet, sweet love and had a baby. It was quilted by Kelly Cunningham. 

The PTB Quilt - 2011

Pattern is Boxy Stars by Bonnie Hunter. When my brother was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2010, one of my readers gifted me a plane ticket so I could go see him when I couldn't afford to. This is the quilt I made for her in return. It was quilted by Lisa Sipes. 

10 Years of The Bitchy Stitcher: Magazines

In the years before, and at the beginning of, my foray into quilting I worked as an assistant editor and writer for two local publications, both now defunct: Inside Annapolis and Taste of the Bay. For the first magazine, I managed to sneak in a wee bit of humor now and then, but never in the second as the publisher/editor-in-chief actually had no sense of humor at all. Also, it was a publication that existed solely to serve advertisers, as our articles were actually purchased ads, and no one wants jokes in an article that they paid an exorbitant amount of money for about their tree trimming business. Never mind that I could brainstorm tree trimming puns ALL DAY. After too many jokes got pruned, I had to branch out and leave.

I had been blogging here for roughly a year when one of my 2 or 3 readers alerted me to an article in an issue of Quilter's Home magazine, wherein the founder/editor Mark Lipinski talked about submitting writing to magazines, including his own. So, thinking what the hell, I submitted my "How to Bind a Quilt" blog post, and it was accepted. For all I know now, it probably wasn't actually Mark who read and accepted it, but more likely one of the women who eventually became editors-in-chief there (Jake Finch and Melissa Thompson Maher), because there was a major blow-up at the publication shortly thereafter and Lipinski left.

That piece never went in because it had been "previously published" on the blog, which I still say does not even remotely count because literally no one was reading me back then, but rules are rules. As it turned out, this forced me to write something new, since they still wanted to publish something of mine, and I ended up writing three. I said, here—pick one. They picked all three. And so my first published piece as a quilt humorist appeared in the October/November 2009 issue of Quilter's Home: "Zen and the Art of Crappy Quilting."

The upheaval at the magazine at this time can be seen several places. My name is wrong in the intro (Smith is my legal name, Dougherty my pen name), I've never been a member of anything called a Pickle Posse because good grief, and the article description in the table of contents is for something from a previous issue. But I didn't care. I was in print. I was funny in print. Somebody somewhere read something I wrote, and wanted to publish it. Except for, you know, marriage and birth of children and all that, this was—hands down—the best thing that has ever happened to me.

Jake and Melissa asked me to be a regular columnist, and eventually my column was called "In the Ditch." I had a humor piece in 12 consecutive issues, the last in August/September 2011. By that time, I was also writing an uncredited column on sewing related collectibles (my piece on antique spool cabinets is notable for it's repeated use of the phrase "sausage tongs") as well as other feature articles, such as one about thread sketching and one about quilters who live off the grid.

I was pretty sure I would not be able to come up with enough topics to fill a continuous humor column. I was also pretty sure that I could not write them at 1000+ words as they eventually asked me to do. No quilting humor premise can survive that many words, I said. They said, Oh, we think you can. They were right.

When QH was shut down by parent company F&W Media (they're good at that), Jake and Melissa were ready with a plan to start a new magazine, with the same sensibility as QH but aimed more squarely at a modern market. They planned to call it Generation Q and asked if I would help. I said, oh, hell yes.

Jake got someone to do the initial build of the website, but after that I was basically the webmistress as I had the most experience dealing with such things (next to none, but that's technically more than none, so...). We had an absolutely grueling goal to publish new content every single day. On top of that, the eventual goal was to go into print, and almost everyone had day jobs, so there were a lot of late nights. But with a few minor exceptions, we did manage daily content for several months until the print side was up and running.

As we were setting up the website, we needed a logo. I casually mentioned my limited and self-taught experience with such things, and from that point on, I became the art director. I designed the logo, and the banner for the website, and web buttons for people to share on their sites. I still assumed that Jake had someone up her sleeve who would do design and layout for the actual print publication, because I had never done an entire magazine before. A book, yes, a single book, but a magazine? Different ballgame altogether and there was no possible way I could do that. It would require so much more knowledge and skill than I could ever possibly hope to acquire in the timeframe we were looking at.

And Jake and Melissa said, yes, you can. You can absolutely do this.

Now, they needed me to do this. I was willing to work for nothing, and as a stay-at-home mom, I had the time (technically). They could not afford a professional. It was in the magazine's best interest to convince me to do it. But what if I failed? This haunted me all day every day. I cried on my husband's shoulder about it endlessly. I was going to fail these people who had given me a start as a humor writer—my dream—and we would end up with an embarrassment of a publication and get laughed out of the quilting industry. And I honestly even now don't necessarily think I was being over-dramatic. Had I been in charge, I would never have given that task over to someone with as little actual experience and training as I had.

So, while getting published as a humor columnist for the first time was the best thing that ever happened to me (besides kids and husband, blah, blah, blah), being handed an entire magazine to design and layout was probably the most valuable thing that ever happened to me.

It's one thing to hear, "you can do anything you set your mind to." It's another to actually do it. I acquired the Adobe Creative Suite, got some books on how to use them, and set to work. If you pick up any magazine and flip through it, you see that it has a "look and feel" that runs throughout the publication, which, if done right, is uniquely its own. There are elements that need to be consistent, and others that can display more creativity and flights of fancy. You need a readable font, consistent and readable leading. Are you going to do one column, or two, or three? Where do the page numbers go? The choices you have to make are not just aesthetic, they're also logistical. You're creating a template that will be reused but that template needs to be flexible, because you never know what will throw things off in the next issue: more ads, fewer ads, a sudden change in the subject or scope of planned content. In many pieces, such as poll results or the Test Drives, or other list-type articles, you have to figure out how to present data as well as prose. It's a million tiny pieces that have to all add up to a coherent publication with its own personality.

There was no "how to design and layout a magazine" book or website out there that I could find. I had to wing it from what I had observed at my time at Inside Annapolis and from laying out a book years before with different software, and just from looking at tons and tons of magazines. We were aiming towards (and I say towards because our aim wasn't real good there) modern quilters, and so I initially wanted a very spare, clean look with artful use of negative space. But Jake and Melissa had chosen to do a smaller format than most magazines. Instead of something along the lines of 8x11 (publications vary), they went for 7x9, the thinking being that in a smaller size, a newsstand would have to put our publication out front so it wouldn't get swallowed up and overlooked. This didn't always happen, but it was strategic thinking. Unfortunately, it meant I had less real estate to work with and I couldn't just make everything proportionally smaller. Sometimes I really felt like I was cramming too much in, but it turned out the challenge was food to my soul.

It was never easy. Sometimes there were compromises which threw a wrench into the design I envisioned. I was the person at the end of the assembly line, and if people got backed up on their end (read: didn't get their shit done on time) it made my timeline even tighter. I had to proof final pages in a mad rush for one issue because my brother died and I had to leave town to go to his funeral. And I still wrote my humor column, plus two other pieces.

Even when it made me want to rip my hair out and throw things, it was still the best thing I've ever accomplished. And I thought I couldn't do it.

I stepped back from my role after 5 issues. At that point, they wanted to go from quarterly to bimonthly, and with two elementary school-age kids, one who was having some problems and needing therapy, I didn't feel I was up to the ramped-up schedule. I needed to be realistic for myself and my family, and knowing how hectic the last few weeks of each issue would get, I knew trying to compress that into double-time would probably break me. I stayed on with my humor columns and the other pieces I was writing and kept an associate editor title for a while.

I helped out as co-art director on one issue in 2014, and after that I left altogether. It was time to move on, though to what I wasn't certain. I wrote half a novel and made a bunch of bags and art quilts and managed to patch together one last book. But I also had three surgeries and my husband had two sets of stents in his heart and other life things took over my field of view. Some are still there.

Quilter's Home and Generation Q represent some of the best years of my life and some of the best work I've ever done. I grew an audience for my humor writing; I developed my design sense which translated over into quilting and into my books. I helped create an independent publication from the ground up.

But most of all, every time I said, "I can't," Jake Finch and Melissa Thompson Maher said, "Oh, we think you can."

And then I did.

10 Years of The Bitchy Stitcher: The QSMASBC

It started out, as nearly everything in my life does, as a joke. On my professional web site (now defunct), I said on my bio page that I had been lucky enough to combine two of my great loves—quilting and writing—into one career, but that someday I wanted to gather all of my passions into one publication: Quilter's Shirtless Man and Spicy Burrito Monthly. Being the thrifty humorist that I am, I recycled the joke on the blog, made a pinboard on Pinterest devoted to the concept, and soon readers began suggesting that if I didn't mind potbellies and fur, they'd take a photo of their own personal man-companions bare-chested, be-quilted, and, well, holding a burrito. And I counter-offered: if I get 12 such photos, I'll make us a calendar. I got 14. I made us a calendar.

For three glorious years, the QSMASBC was, if not the most popular quilt-adjacent calendar in the realm—or even anything close to it, certainly the most original. Other dudes-n-quilts calendars tended to focus on the traditionally hunky types, like muscly firefighters, and sure, that's fine. I like a nice pec as much as the next person. But I think calendars like that give a distorted view of just what kind of man likes to laze around shirtless on a handmade quilt. I mention often that quilt magazines are aspirational, and in some ways so are traditional quilt calendars. I wanted to upend that a bit and with my calendar celebrate guys we love because of who they are to us, and celebrate quilts we made ourselves even if we aren't prize winning professionals, and celebrate burritos. Because they are awesome.

Thus the slogan: Real Men. Real Quilts. Real Burritos.

 The first year we had 14 submissions, the next year 17. And in its last year, the calendar had 20 submissions to choose from. There were a number of people who swore they were going to get me epic pictures of a son or a husband, but never did, ususally because the aforementioned son or husband wouldn't cooperate. (AHEM, BARRY.) Then there were those, particularly Mark, seen above on the cover of the inaugural edition, who conducted photo shoots in multiple locations every year. In fact, Mark was so amazing as our first cover model, and so enthusiastic about his secondary career as a shirtless model, he was featured in every calendar. Though I ultimately went for a different cover in years two and three, I did mock up two Mark covers for our final year:

In its first two years, the calendar was picked up by eQuilter.com and they even had one of their staff dress as a QSMASBC calendar model for Halloween one year. The way it was priced made wholesaling it unprofitable, but I just appreciated their enthusiasm for the project.

It was short lived, but we had some amazing models, didn't we?

Yes. Yes, we did.

The reason I stopped is complicated. The calendar was only profitable in its first year, and as I had initially conceived it as a fundraiser for my brother, it became less of a labor of love after he passed away. The print-on-demand service I used made a great calendar, but I was unhappy with other aspects of the service. I never found a way to print them myself that produced a similar quality product for I price I could work with. So, I decided to let it end.

But I can still look back on these awesome guys who were such good sports and made the world a little sweeter and spicier for three glorious years. You can see all the pictures from all the editions here, here, and here.

Next Tuesday, I'll take a look back at my career in magazines.

10 Years of The Bitchy Stitcher: My Books

This July marks the tenth year I have been blogging about my misadventures in quilting as The Bitchy Stitcher. Each Tuesday this month I will be looking back on all the cool/possibly misguided things I’ve managed to do in those 10 years. My new collection of humor pieces, Short, Sharp and Snippy, is now available on amazon.com and I’ll be shipping out all the signed pre-order copies just as soon as they arrive in my hot little hands.

This second book has been a long time coming. My first book, Quilting Isn’t Funny, came out in November of 2013, shortly before my mom passed away from liver cancer and 11 months after we lost my brother to brain cancer. Whenever I try to remember when that book came out, all I have to do is recall The Bad Year. It was a very strange thing to be promoting a book of my weird-ass quilting humor while also grieving, but the wheels had been set in motion already. A huge number of people signed on to participate in a blog tour, and so we had four weeks of a different quilt blogger each day talking about the book and giving away PDF copies. I had a giant stack of pre-order copies to sign and mail, a few shops started inquiring about wholesale orders. On one hand I was doing cartwheels over how well it was all going, and on the other I was trying to hold my broken heart together while also helping other people through their own grief.

I am still so proud of that first book. It was self-published, which may seem like less of an accomplishment, but I not only wrote the whole thing, I also designed it. I had layout and design experience from a literary magazine I was asked to help create back in 2002, BrickStreet. That project was spearheaded by me and a friend and we solicited writing and artwork from local and international writers and artists. I taught myself QuarkXpress in order to do the layout—because we had NO budget for anybody but the two of us, and we didn’t get paid.

Cover artwork detail from Anatomy of a Struggle by Moe Hanson

From that experience I was able to leave my job as an optician and become the assistant editor of a very small local publication called Inside Annapolis. Though I wasn’t hired to do layout, I had enough knowledge from BrickStreet to prepare the layout file for the actual graphic designer, and as time progressed I was allowed to do some design work on my own, especially ads. I also wrote for the magazine, and would sometimes be allowed to do the design on my own articles. There I learned Adobe InDesign, which is what I still use for layout today.

One of the only covers I was allowed to do myself. I was so proud of figuring out how to get the guy's head over the logo.

I used all that experience as art director for Generation Q magazine some years later, and so once I had managed to design and layout and entire magazine on my own, I figured a book of my weirdo quilting humor pieces should be no biggie.

The original cover of Quilting Isn't Funny was conceived as a quilt label on a quilted background, but I was never satisfied with the quality of the photography (which I had to do myself because of the zero budget). I still own two proof copies of that version though, so undoubtedly future collectors will pay millions for one of them.

Ultimately, I scrapped the entire cover concept and created artwork in Illustrator so I wouldn't have to sweat over the quality of my crappy photography. I created a design with a rotary cutter, a seam ripper, and a fountain pen that also ended up on my business cards, and I used my favorite color combination of green and purple. I spent hours deciding things like where to put page numbers and how to format the table of contents, and it was so satisfying to be the only decision maker in that process. By the time I was done, I had a book that was entirely mine.

 I went back over sales of Quilting Isn’t Funny and with my own hard copy and PDF sales, plus Amazon and Kindle, and wholesale and distributor orders, I sold nearly 2000 copies. TWO THOUSAND. I suppose an actual book publisher would weep into her whiskey sour over such piddly numbers, but for a self-published first-time author who writes in a niche as tiny as quilting humor? I think that’s damn good.

I know Short, Sharp and Snippy won’t sell anywhere close to that number and I’m okay with that. I’m not employed by a magazine anymore, and life circumstances over the last few years have eroded my online presence. But I had a goal to get one more book done, and though the self-imposed deadlines I had put on it came and went more than once, I somehow had a surge of energy to finish it once I had the title, which frankly I adore. For the devil scissors, I took my original artwork for my tattoo and re-drew it to add the horns and the inner heart shape. Once I was done, I thought the image was strong enough to stand on it's own on the cover, and I kept the rest of the design simple to show it off.

My husband said to me recently that I do not revel in my own accomplishments enough. To be honest, he does quite a lot of that for me so I don’t really have to. But he’s probably right. We’re conditioned not to brag, especially women, and if you can’t brag at least a little after ten years of accomplishing stuff, well when can you? I self-published two books. With lots of quilt-adjacent fart jokes in them. And I’m damn proud of that.

 Next week we’ll look back at the greatest quilt calendar ever created.

Short, Sharp and Snippy

For the last few months, I've been locked in my office/studio/nap pavilion, slaving away over a hot computer to bring you, my dearest darlings, a lovely (I hope) surprise. Some of you who follow me on Facebook and Instagram know about it already, but even so, allow me to introduce...MY NEW BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bigger! Longer! And (un)cut from the same cloth as my first book, Quilting Isn't Funny. This new volume collects 25 of my signature quilting humor pieces, many appearing in print for the first time. If you've missed anything I've published in the last 5 years, you'll find it here! This book has been a long time coming, and there were plenty of times I wasn't sure it would ever happen. But my goal this year was to get it done by July, because July marks my 10th anniversary writing as The Bitchy Stitcher. TEN YEARS.

AND IT'S TIME FOR PRE-ORDERS!

I am now taking pre-orders for SIGNED copies at a special price. When the book is available on Amazon, the list price will be $14.99, (and there will be no lovingly applied purple-ink signature) but if you take advantage of pre-order pricing you get it for $11.99 plus $3.00 media mail shipping in the U.S.. When you place this in your cart, please make note of the shipping options—if you are in Canada or any other country outside the U.S., there are options for you to cover the cost of shipping. SHIPPING OUTSIDE THE U.S. IS HELLA PRICEY and there is, unfortunately, nothing I can do to make this cheaper. Please note that the book will be available on Amazon in many countries and will also be available for Kindle, so there are cheaper options—just not ones that involve my signature.

I hope to ship as many pre-orders as possible by July 1. Keep in mind I will keep pre-orders open until June 26, so later orders may ship just a bit later. 

And for those of you who never got a copy of my first book, Quilting Isn't Funny, I also have a pre-order listing that gets you BOTH books at an even better price. If you order both together, each book is $10.00 plus the same $3.00 shipping in the U.S. (shipping is included in the listed price in the shop).

Pre-orders will also be available soon on Amazon for the Kindle version (the paperback listing on Amazon says "out of print" but it's not—I just haven't made it fully available yet.). The Kindle pre-order was submitted today and should go live within 72 hours.

Also, starting on July 1, I will make a PDF version available for less than the Kindle price. SO MANY OPTIONS.

With this book, I do not have the networks in place that I had when I published my first one. I am no longer working for a magazine (hell, that magazine is gone and so many others are shutting down, it's crazy), and I just do not have the industry contacts I had when I was an actual part of the industry. So, I'm going to ask you all a HUGE favor. Whenever you see links to the book on social media PLEASE share if you can, at least once. I'll be promoting it as much as I feel comfortable with (so, not as much as I should) and the more eyes I can get on it the better. There won't be a blog tour, since I know almost no one who keeps up their blog anymore, so social media marketing is the only way I have to advertise this book. THANK YOU.

It must also be said, if you are a quilt shop and would like to carry either of my books, email me for wholesale prices.

So, to reiterate and hopefully make it easier:

Short, Sharp and Snippy SIGNED COPY PRE-ORDER click here.

Short, Sharp and Snippy AND Quilting Isn't Funny SIGNED COPIES PRE-ORDER click here.

Letters...I get letters...

My email inbox has been a fun place lately. Back when I first started this bloggy-poo, most of the email I used to get was along the lines of "please stop cursing" or "OH MY GOD WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE" or penises (y'all are laying down on the penis emailing job lately, let me just say) but now it's mostly these weird hit-or-miss mass emails that are meant to look as though they have chosen me and me alone among all the bloggers out there to offer up a Special Opportunity.

It started some months ago when I got this email:

Naturally, I began planning both my course and my on-camera wardrobe, since this was clearly my ticket to Fame and Filthy Lucre. To be honest, I struggled with what to teach, finally settling on "How to Make 8 Million Bags and Have Something Massively Wrong With Every Single One of Them," since it's what I do best, but the wardrobe was a no-brainer: slightly too-small t-shirts with Harry Potter themes and baggy yoga pants. Because that's all I actually own. Perhaps they would include a trip to the famous Ft. Lauderdale Fashion Bug Plus as part of my on-site compensation.

But after the heady initial thrill of being a World Famous Quilting Teacher wore off, I realized that doing this would in fact violate my personal policy of never getting up in front of a group of people ever again, even if that "group" consisted only of Harry the producer and his able cameraman, Stu. (Cameramen are always named Stu.) 

Also, I don't teach quilting; I write fart jokes that are quilting-adjacent. Slight difference.

And so, with a rueful sigh, I declined Harry's kind but honestly sort of sketchy offer.

My next email was, if you can believe it, even more exciting. 

THEY ARE REALLY DIGGING MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL YOU GUYS. Of course, I don't have one, but they are clearly digging my potential channel that could exist in an alternate universe where I am not an anti-social, menopausal woman whose "style" consists of wearing all black not because it's slimming but because I'm too lazy to coordinate separates. 

Also, this is obviously NOT the brainchild of some 23-year-old living in his mom's basement who has learned about drop shipping crap from China and making it look like "luxury" goods curated by "travel buddies." Nope, definitely not. 

And the best part was that I would only have to buy something to start! At a whopping 50% discount! (See, if you mark up cheap crap by 600% you can sell it for "50% off" and still make an obscene profit! That's called good business.) 

Sadly, after my last Zulily purchase, I was all tapped out on my "stuff that looks nothing like the picture and is most likely made from petroleum byproducts" budget, so I had to decline their kind but honestly sort of stupid offer.

Then, the Big Boys decided they wanted to play:

I've gone from Instructor, to Partner, to INFLUENCER! For Amazon, no less! Never mind that this is just the Amazon Affiliate program with a fancy name that makes it sound like we're going to rub elbows with Hadids and Kardashians, and never mind that I got kicked out of the Amazon Affiliate program because I never actually sold anything (nor did I try). This is my opportunity to influence my readers to give their hard-earned money to a giant corporation that doesn't actually need the meager profits generated by a quilt-fart blogger with a questionable wardrobe. I mean, who doesn't want to have that kind of influence?

Well, me, apparently. I did not exactly decline their kind but frankly stupid offer; I just kinda ignored it.

Things were quiet for a while. I thought perhaps my instructing, partnering, influencing days were all behind me. But then I got THIS:

Did I write about cars in August of 2010? See for yourself. I wrote an entire freaking blog post about how my period was late and related this to some recent car troubles:

I just don't think it's healthy for a 41-year-old out-of-shape woman with high blood pressure and questionable emotional stability to have a pregnancy scare, no matter how unlikely. But it does make me consider the fact that my car troubles were entirely due to the fact that I hadn't changed my oil in over a year, and thus wonder if I've done something equally as stupid with my own body that is preventing the arrival of the Ketchup Monster. Or perhaps my own oil refuses to change in some sort of twisted solidarity with my car. Next it'll be wanting its spark pistons re-bored or something.

Naturally, this—EIGHT YEARS LATER—means that I will now be shifting the topic of this blog from quiltin' and fartin' to car stuff. Clearly, however, cars are not my forté, so thank goodness Catherine is on the case. Am I taking pitches? OH FUCK YES I'M TAKING PITCHES. But not from Catherine. I don't know her and in her second email she mysteriously turned into a "we". 

Clearly, "Catherine Metcalf" is actually "The Mafia." I'm on to you, Cat. I must decline your kind but possibly murderous offer. 

But I WILL accept pitches from you, dear readers. Send me your best pitches for car-quilt-fart-influencing-instruction-partner articles and I will send the best one a small wristlet bag hand-made by me. Not this one, but one like it, in fabrics of my choosing.

Good luck, and may the Influencer Be Ever In Your Partnership Program.