Rejection!

I came across a great post today by an online quilting buddy of mine, Mary Fons.  You may know her from episodes of Love of Quilting where she co-hosted with her mom, Marianne Fons {of Fons & Porter} or for being the editor and video host of her own quilting magazine and show, Quilty. If you don’t know her, check her out HERE. 

Well, Mary recently wrote a post about having one of her quilts being rejected by her own magazine! It is a must-read post!  Check it out here: http://www.maryfons.com/blog/2013/08/23/rejected/

I wanted to share it with you because I think it’s very relevant to what a lot of us do. For me it hasn’t happened with my finished quilts because I haven’t gotten that far, yet. HA! I have had a lot of my quilt designs rejected by magazines over the years. I was starting to question my skills. Then my husband had me stop and take a look at all I have accomplished and how many people actually like my designs.  I mean, really, fabric companies contact me to design quilts that will highlight their fabrics because they love my designs. I must be doing a little something right, no? I guess magazine editors don’t think so. Did this make me want to never submit to a magazine again? Maybe. Did I actually given up submitting them? No.

This summer I made it a goal of mine to submit several more designs to a lot of different magazines. I was determined to get one design accepted SOMEWHERE! After a ton of submissions… Who would’ve guessed it? Not one but THREE different magazines contacted me.  Not to reject my designs (which I was starting to get used to), but to accept them! YAY! {I’ll have more info to share about these designs later this year.} But I thought I would share that with you because often times we don’t get to hear or see about the struggles successful people have had.  So, it’s easy to assume that their accomplishments come easily because they are who they are.  There is a lot of hard work and REJECTION that comes with each little milestone and bout of success. So, just because I am an online instructor, published designer, and I do this stuff on a daily basis DOES NOT mean that everyone in the industry will like my work or that the quilt designs I submit will get accepted somewhere. Does that mean I give up? Absolutely not!

So trek on, people! Like Mary says, “…if the editor of a national quilting magazine can be rejected from time to time, you better not feel too bad about it, either, L’il Miss.”