ALL WE NEED IS A KICK IN THE PANTS!!!

It’s always been all about you, Q-Bies.

From the moment we conceived the idea of launching an online magazine for modern and contemporary quilters and sewists with daily content posts to the days when we began dreaming about hitting print, we’ve tried to keep you Q-Bies firmly in focus. We’ve searched for projects and features to inspire you, skills you want to learn, stories to make you laugh and ideas to help you bring a creative frisson to the humblest aspects of daily life.

It’s been demanding, fun, satisfying and exhilarating. We’ve enjoyed sending our roots deep into the thriving, stitchy cyber world where sewing, quilting and crafting have created a community that’s as accessible as the mouse pad on your iMac; where friends are a “send” button away and where how-to knowledge lurks in blogs and on YouTube, just waiting for your download.

And now, as we hit the “launch” button on our Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for our premier and digital print issue, we’re still thinking of you and of how excited we are to enlarge what we bring to you from a short daily post to a 96-page quarterly magazine, supported by ongoing blog posts and online enrichment.

But here’s the bald truth: We can’t do this without you.

The entire GenQ community (not to mention our families and friends…let’s be honest, okay) plays a critical role in our growth from the cyber waves to the printed page. We’ve gotten this far with literally nothing except the support of readers and some key website advertisers, but the next level requires a bigger boost. Please go NOW to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1264630403/generation-q-magazine-is-going-to-print-and-digita to view our Kickstarter appeal for funds to print our first issue and get us to Spring Market 2012 in Kansas City. And don’t think we’re just on the take. Look over the great selection of bribes we’ve got for you (Kickstarter calls them rewards, but we know better!) There are fabric towers and bundles, great books, some handcrafted custom items (like quilts) and more.

And guess what? If you’re a designer, quilt shop owner, show producer, quilt guild board member, industry player or any other party interested in reaching out to our incredible audience, some of our rewards include advertising in the first issue. You can’t go wrong there!! And Jake’s also offering to waive teaching fees if there’s an interested guild, shop or show venue who might like to take her up on the offer. Yep, we’re putting it out there in every way we could imagine!

Creating the campaign has definitely had its moments. Inventorying the vast amounts of collected q-stuff took two days alone. (You know how hard it is for Fabric Sluts to part with the cotton?) And the video. The video… If only Melissa and Jake could look half as relaxed and interesting as Megan and Scott, well, we’d be prepping for the Red Carpet. It’s been pretty humbling to critique ourselves on video while we earnestly give you our pitch and attempt to seduce you with FQ towers, but we would probably do a lot more undignified things if it means being able to realize our dream. But what has made this so much easier has been the incredibly amount of talent that has come our way to help. Friends who held a camera or laid the soundtrack over the video. Friends who listened to us whine and gripe as we stumbled through the process of the campaign. Friends jumped up and starter pledging before Jake was even able to finish this post and upload it. We’re humbled and grateful and we can’t wait to pay it forward. Life is good, folks, really good.

Are we excited? Heck, yeah, and a little nervous. (Jake actually calls it being Scared Poopless in deference to her 11-year-old language monitor.) But we’re also confident that you Q-Bies are just as het up as we are about The Next Step. (Oooh, now isn’t that a nice name for a new cocktail?)

So, if you believe in GenQ, then please consider making a pledge! Any amount helps and $5 is all it takes to get a GenQ bribe of your very own. And please tell ALL your friends. And your carpool. And all your Facebook friends and blog followers. You see, it’s an all-or-nothing roll on Kickstarter. If we make all our pledges, we can get that first issue printed and take GenQ to the next level. If we don’t make our pledge goal, well, that first issue will be postponed, and we’ll cry. A lot. And then we’ll finish licking our damn wounds and dive in again because that’s what we do.

So hang in there with us as we push hard. We’re still posting our online content and we’re producing the content for the print issue too, but you’ll see lots of Kickstarter reminders and we beg your patience with this. And know that at the end of this, we’ll be able to return the love in many different ways to you, our friends and supporters.

Many quilted hugs to you all and sew on people!

Jake, Melissa, Megan and Scott

The GenQ Team