It's a Book, Finally!

Last week I got my advance copy of The Civil War Sewing Circle! I've been talking about it for almost a year and even though all of you must be so tired of hearing about it, I can't tell you how exciting it is to see it in REAL book format, finally. Yay!  Available at quilt shops on or around January 10.

After working so hard on a quilt pattern book -  designing the patterns, making the quilts, sketching the illustrations, researching, writing the text, you begin to lose a sense of how it will all turn out in the end. I had the title and idea stuck in my head since 2008, after I finished Remembering Adelia, but didn't actually begin working on it until July 2009. When you turn in the manuscript for a book, you wait for what seems like an endless time to see the finished product. Will the quilts look nice in the photos? Will the design be pleasing? Will all the effort and research I put into it be appreciated? Most importantly, will anybody like it well enough to buy it? Essentially all out of my hands.

I tried to make every quilt in the book inspiring in some way and that wasn't easy. I wanted the quilts to be simple enough for beginners to make and yet also give experienced quilters patterns that are, if not exactly challenging, at least interesting. Some designs got cut and others filled in at the last minute. Some I wish I had had more time to plan.

It's a lot of work on the author's end that needs to be completed in a relatively short time so that the publisher can put it all together and get it on a publishing schedule. But, all in all, I think most of you will like most of the quilts, if not all of them.  Heck, I rarely like every quilt in my books myself and after I'm done often wish I'd changed my mind about the fabric or the setting but there's never time to switch and substitute another right in the middle. Sometimes decisions have to be made quickly and there's no going back.

If you haven't heard, The  Civil War Sewing Circle contains patterns for 8 doll quilts, a few larger quilts and a couple of sewing accessories. And lots of old photos to entice you even more. Here's a little preview.

The flat shots of quilts in most books don't really give you a true idea of what the quilts really look like, in my opinion. This quilt, for instance, looks much nicer up close than it does in the photo, where you can't really see the lovely (and lively!) border fabric.

This is the Friendship Album signature quilt that contains blocks made by my SmallQuiltTalk yahoo group. So special to have signatures of many in the group. I love how it turned out.

Pretty  little hexagons!

I sort of hated this quilt after I made it - too dark, I thought - but now it's growing on me . . . and I think it's actually good. Again, the photo in the book does not do it justice.

It's fun to see the pages with old photos and text, excerpts from letters written during the Civil War.

After my last blog post on gifts for friends, here's a shameless plug - I would like to say that this would make another really great Christmas present for a special friend, but unfortunately, it won't be available until January. Darn! Ask your friends if they mind getting their gifts late . . . my friends are used to it, LOL. You can always pre-order a signed copy here and hope for the best and I'll get it out to you as soon as my books come in from the publisher. Better late than never. And possibly, just possibly, a teeny bit early.