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The Making of my PITH BookThis page is dedicated to my book, Piece in the Hoop ™ Below you will find My journey with photos then Credits It all began April '08 after a 6hr flight to International Quilt Market in Portland, OR  Little did I know that looking out over this wing that I'd come home with a possibility of writing a book! After exchanging several emails, I filled out the required information and sent it in along with some samples. Here are a few that I mailed in.    Amongst all of this goodness, sadness was lurking. My husband and I divorced and I was now single, trying to raise Linsey 7 and Talon, not even 1 at the time. I continued to work on my website and produce new designs. It was VERY hard to stay dedicated and not get depressed and robbing Peter to pay Paul had to be done sometimes, but I never gave up faith! Later that year, I received a call from F+W telling me that they're doing a series of 4 books with Nancy Zieman and she chose YOURS to be apart of this series. I cried! Literally! Wow... not only will I have a book coming out, but I get to tape a DVD with "THE" Nancy Zieman. All I could think to myself was 'Thank you God! I needed this!" On 10-10-08, I received an email from F+W stating: CONGRATULATIONS Good morning Larisa and Nancy, I proposed your Piece in the Hoop book this morning for the Create With Nancy series. It was approved with great enthusiasm. I will be requesting the contracts for both of you today. The contract will come from our Cincinnati office. Larisa, you will be receiving an invitation to our Author Breakfast on Saturday morning of Quilt Market. The offer will come from Laura. It will be a great opportunity for you and Nancy to meet. Any questions, please contact me. Have a good day, Candy Krause Publications and shortly after receiving that awesome email I got this one FW: CONGRATULATIONS Larisa, I’m looking forward to working with you to produce a DVD to accompany your upcoming book. I know it will be a great adventure! Kind Regards, Nancy Zieman My dear mother watched the kids and I went to that breakfast, driving a borrowed car because mine decided to break down the week before and it wasn't in the budget to fix it just yet. I was in a room with 3 large round tables and there were well known authors & fabric designers chatting amongst each other... and I'm sitting next to them eagerly listening and absorbing any knowledge I could soak up while sipping OJ and eating scrambled eggs and sausage. F+W presented me with an authors bag and I gleamed. On the way home I was beaming more because I got to talk face to face with Nancy and in my hand I held her business card. All the obstacles I was facing and dealing with are gone, if just for that short hour and a half drive home. Come January '09 after contracts were signed, I began my journey. It was soooo hard to schedule time to sew and concentrate with my lil man who just turned one. I cried, but was forced to put him in daycare, which ate up funds but it had to be done. I worked long-weird hours trying to meet my first deadline. It came and passed.. now onto the second deadline. It was all going good until I hyper-extended two fingers on my left hand spraining them. This rendered me helpless to piece or type for over 2 weeks. With a plea for help, I emailed my dedicated forum and within minutes I received emails to offer help. The first 3 to reply were MJ, Angi & Sandy (read about them more under credits below). I emailed them the blocks to stitch and they got busy! I was able to take those  blocks and finish the projects and instructions to meet my deadline which my editor sooo graciously extended a week. Then I had a hard-drive crash not once, but twice on my backup drives. I lost it all the first crash but only the latest portions the second time because they were able to retrieve my first backup. Okay... here goes doing this all again... uggg. I wanted to give up, but I knew I couldn't. Knowing that this could help my babies out one day, I did it for them! Sandy continued to help me with the remaining deadlines. May rolled around and it was time to go to WI. Momma came and stayed at the house to help with the kiddos and I flew to Beaver Dam, WI. Sandy met me there and we spent an entire week at Nancy Zieman Studios. Her staff was so welcoming and they made us feel like family! The facilities were filled with Nancy's artwork quilts. We also went to visit Nancy's Notions and I got to meet the staff there. Again, really nice people. Hopefully you'll soon see Piece in the Hoop designs in their upcoming catalog.  Nancy and myself discussing the order of projects for the DVD.  I even got my makeup done by Vickie Fisher who has "gussied-up" many celebrities.
 It's a WRAP! Me, Nancy & Sandy getting one last photo before we leave. June arrived and I was in the final stages of finishing my book. I still had lots of instructions to finish, but that will wait because it's time to fly to OH now for the photo shoot. The week before I was to leave, I lost my driver's license and since all the 911 requirements, flying was gonna be out because there's no way to get a new one to me in time. Plan B... drive. Yes, drive! I called up my baby sister who is also called Sandy but I call her Sister and got her to go with me. I rented a car because ole Bertie wasn't trusted enough and we set out. Kids were with their dad for the summer month so timing could not have been better. Me and Sister took extra days and drove through the Smoky Mountains and stayed there a few days and 9 states (yes we took the scenic route) and 1300 miles later we made it to Cincinnati, OH. My experience in OH was great too. The staff was so helpful and Christine had enough daily energy for everyone. They fed us good for lunch as Nancy did. Vanessa sent me to the hotel room each evening with homework for the next day and I got on it. Sister encouraged me and we laughed so much our ribs hurt. We needed this time together. Being gone over a week, we missed our kids so much that we left Saturday morning about 2am and I drove practically nonstop to get us home 17 hours later.  Getting set-up for day 1 photo shoot  By mid day, hair was in a pony tail and I changed into shorts too! I'm sending designs to my sewing machine here. I love my Wacom mouse!  Day 5. Christine (photographer), me and Vanessa (editor) Now it's 2009 I'm back full circle... International Quilt Market in Houston, TX   Jamie G. of F+W Publishing and myself at Houston Market (Jamie is the model in the book on page 42 & Sarah, another employee page 112. Thanks girls!) Next big step, International Quilt Market, Minneapolis, MN (May 20-24 '10)
This all began with literally a dream back in 1999. It was God's plan becoming motion. Now, almost 11 years later I still do what I love all because His breath whispered onto faithful ears. Is there a passion you have? When you think about doing it, do you feel a deep burning inside that makes you feel as though you should do it, like it's calling you? This is God trying to put your talents in motion. Thank you for letting me share my lil story. I hope it inspires you. 2010 is going to be me and my kids year! Quilty Hugs,
When I sprained my left fingers, it rendered me useless to piecing and typing. I sent out a plea to my dedicated forum and within minutes, I received help. I want to thank MJ Hetzlein & Angi Baker for stitching blocks and to Sandy Kent for stitching complete tops and various projects. MJ contributed blocks to projects on pages 28 & 108 Angi contributed blocks to projects on pages 19 (blocks on cover of book) and 63. Sandy stitched tops on pages 20 & 23 and finished projects on pages 57 & 121. She also stitched samples that are not photographed in the book:
Sandy helped enormously behind the scenes for the DVD that's accompanied with the book. She stitched her lil heart out and cut fabrics helping me get the step-by-steps complete. I think we ended up with over 20 embroidery hoops to get ready just for the taping.  My Executive Assistant and after reading all the above you can see why! I also want to thank Tammie Baggett aka Grammie Tammie, who just happens to be my cousin, for the 2 Bonus Designs included on the DVD. You can see them on pages 20 & 26. These designs can be used as redwork or quilting designs. Look above at Sandy's red chicken quilt. I used one of them as a quilting design for the open blocks. Thanks Cuz! I'm proud of you getting your designs ready to sell; they are beautiful. You can visit Tammie soon at Designs To Quilt. |
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