It’s been strange over the past couple of weeks without my color journals.  I lovingly packed them off to Quilter’s Newsletter for an excerpt of the book they’re planning for a spring issue.  I was hesitant to send them, they are so much a part of me.  But I wanted to share the color journal process and its potential with quilters so they could explore their own color styles.

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Announcing the Color Mastery Georgia Book Tour!  I’ll be visiting ten locations across the state April 21 – May 5, so save those dates.  Come out and see me at your local quilt shop, guild, or bookstore.  Here are the dates and locations:
April 21:  Apple Country Quilt Guild, Ellijay
April 23:  East Cobb Quilt Guild Evening Group, Marietta
April 24:  East Cobb Quilt Guild, Marietta
April 25:  Foxtale Book Shoppe, Woodstock
April 29:  Magical Threads, Dahlonega
April 30:  Sew Bee It, Ringgold
May 1:     Log Cabin Patchworks, Hiawassee
May 2:     Sew Much Fun, Columbus
May 4:     Stepping Stones, St. Simons Island
May 5:     Colonial Quilts, Savannah

Gather your best quilting girlfriends and make it a party!  I’ll be chatting about how you can master the color in your quilts and where to spot the best color trends, and signing books for you and your friends.  Shop owners would absolutely adore you for calling ahead and reserving your own copy of Color Mastery, so they will have enough on hand.  And who knows what else we’ll be doing?

I’ll be blogging each day, so you can visit the town and shops as I do.  Here’s my itinerary on Google Maps, so you can plan your visit to your local shop (complete with addresses for each stop). And if you would like to keep up with the latest updates as they become available, subscribe to the RSS feed for the tour.

I’ll see you in your hometown!

How does it work?  Here are the details:

• If you live close to me in Georgia (within one day’s drive), I’ll visit your group in person.  If you’re more than one day’s drive, willing to pick up my travel expenses and provide a place for me to stay, I’ll visit your group as well.  Otherwise, we can visit over the telephone or via Skype, an online video conferencing site (don’t worry – it’s easy.  You don’t need any special equipment).
• Encourage your bee group members to purchase my book(s) and to bring them to the meeting so I can autograph them, if it’s to be an in-person visit. If it will be a speakerphone visit, I can mail autographed bookplates to you. Buying the author’s books is the polite thing to do. Since authors usually are not paid by book groups for their time (though gas money is always appreciated), the least you can do is for the majority of the members to buy the book.
• Print and bring a list of discussion questions for the book. I’ll be providing a bee group discussion guide soon on this website, so keep checking back! Also, encourage your members to come prepared with one or two other questions for the author.
• For in-person visits, I like to arrive 10-15 minutes early and set up a small display of my books, bookmarks, and a sign-up list for my email newsletter. I appreciate the opportunity to sell books to members who may not have had a chance to buy one before the meeting or who may want to gift the books to others.
• Arrange for someone from your bee to introduce me, thank me for coming, then have the members of the bee group introduce themselves. Especially if this is a speakerphone visit, it’s helpful for me to know something about each member to distinguish them. And, if it’s a speakerphone visit, members should re-state their name each time they ask a question.
• Relax and enjoy the interaction. If you normally serve food during your meeting, continue to do so. Just let me know beforehand. I certainly won’t turn down a meal or a glass of wine! Make sure someone watches the time so I can stay on schedule, and plan for time at the end to autograph books, if it’s an in-person visit.

I’m booking small groups now, so float this idea before your group.  Discuss.  Get out the calendars.  I’ll see you there!

This week the local papers did articles on the book.  The first is print edition only, but their website offers a photo of me, and more importantly, you can see my stash in the background (scroll down and it’s on the left sidebar).  It’s well organized, but not huge by any means.

And here’s the article in my neighborhood newspaper as well:

My son’s band teacher saw the articles and asked him if I was famous.  My son almost fell off his stool laughing.  His teacher also asked him if we had a lot of quilts in the house, to which he answered, “No.”  Where does he live?  A quilt in every room of the house, thank you.  Some even have two!  Speaks volumes to the preoccupations of a teenaged-boy.

Congratulations Donna Coffey!  You’re the lucky winner of the autographed copy of Color Mastery from all the of wonderful comments from Annie’s Quilting Stash listeners.  Wow – the response was fantastic, and I’d delighted ya’ll enjoyed the podcast.  Thank you for stopping by and visiting!

If you didn’t win, you can find Color Mastery at your local quilt shop.  As Patsy Thompson, machine quilting expert, told me:

“I’m seeing reviews of it and a picture of the cover EVERYWHERE!”

Day Seven of the Color Mastery blog tour finds me at Kay Mackenzie’s All About Applique blog, where we dish about writing, quilting, and artist’s secrets of achieving outstanding color.  Kay is an author of several books on applique, and has an upcoming book from Martingale on applique to be released next month (ssh – I’m hosting a book launch party for Kay at my blog and it will be loads of fun!).

I love being able to network with other authors who share a love of books and quilting.  Join us over at Kay’s blog where we talk about how I came up with the idea for Color Mastery and the publishing process.  And don’t miss my secret for developing more colorful neutrals!

Welcome quilters, sewers, and fiber artists of all kind to the Color Mastery blog!  Let me introduce myself:  I’m Maria Peagler, author of Color Mastery:  10 Principles for Creating Stunning Quilts.  This blog and website are your rich resource for learning how to get better color from your fabric.  Here’s what you can look for in the upcoming weeks:

• great posts on how you can become a better colorist with every quilt you make
• how-to videos
• the first-ever quilting book blog tour, complete with contests, blog posts, and podcasts all on getting better color in your quilts, on the web’s best quilting blogs
• fun projects and free resources

I’ll be adding a subscription button my sidebar so you don’t miss a single moment.  Stay tuned!