I’m excited to have an article in the Summer 2016 issue of Modern Patchwork which will be hitting newsstands soon. This piece is about quilt collector Bill Volckening.
Bill began collecting quilts by accident when a girlfriend took him to a small quilt show in a New York brownstone. He has since become an internationally recognized collector and if you were at Quilt Con in February of 2015 you were treated to an exhibit of the 1970’s quilts in his collection.
I pitched an article about Bill to the editor at Modern Patchwork mostly because I wanted an excuse to call him up and hear his story. It was as interesting as I hoped it would be. I transcribed the interview on the plane to Columbus on my way to Midwest CraftCon in February and wrote the article on the plane home.
At the end of the piece Bill shares a series of really helpful tips for beginning a quilt collection of your own including how to know what’s worth buying and how to learn to date fabrics.
This issue also includes a profile of Melissa Averinos and her Best in Show quilt, My Brother’s Jeans by Cheryl Arkison. Cheryl has another piece in this same issue with 10 simple things you can do make your quilts better. You’ll also find patterns by Amy Smart, Malka Dubrawsky, Angela Bowman, among several others.
Look for it in the Interweave store or where ever you usually pick up crafty magazines.
Very excited to read your article, Abby. And thanks for the shout-out! I pitched my project after reading your email newsletter awhile back, when you encouraged people to submit their ideas.
That’s awesome, Angela. I try whenever possible to include opportunities for paid work in the industry in my newsletter. It thrills me when people get jobs from what they read there!
So I’m curious – when you approach writing an article like this, do you pitch the idea first to the publisher, then the interviewee, or the other way around? I would assume it takes coordinating to get both parties on board.
Great question. For this article I got an email from F+W asking for submissions. I started thinking about what might be a good topic and thought of Bill. I Facebook messaged him to ask I if he’d been featured in Modern Patchwork in the last few years. He said he hadn’t. I asked if he might be interested in me writing a profile of him and he was excited. I pitched it that day. It was accepted an hour later. I let him know and we went from there. I typically will get an idea, do initial research to verify that it’s a good idea and so that I can write a solid pitch, then find a good place to pitch it to.
I also have a project in this issue (my first with Modern Patchwork!) Honored to be in your and Cheryl’s company!
Yay!!! Such a beautiful magazine to be featured in.