If you don’t want to miss any of Jennifer Chiaverini’s Elm Creek Quilter’s novels, check out the latest...The New Year’s Quilt.  I haven’t read it yet, but it’s on my “must read” list.   It’s also on my Christmas list!

Another novel, The Winding Ways Quilt, has not yet been released.  Although in some stores you can pre-order it.

What is your favorite Elm Creek Quilts novel?  I find it’s so difficult to choose just one. 

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Jennifer Chiaverini’s New Elm Creek Quilting Novels

 You won’t want to miss the September, October and November issues of Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine.  Jennifer Chiaverini’s three-part serial, The Fabric Diary, is published here exclusively.

Jennifer introduces a new character, Adele Crosier, who also will appear her new novel, The New Year’s Quilt, due out in November.  According to Jennifer, Adele “buys a Manhattan bed-and-breakfast  and inherits the mysteries of an antique quilt and an extraordinary journal discovered within.” 

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Jennifer Chiaverini’s Latest Quilting News & Book

Some of the places where I’ve found Christmas fabrics and ideas for quilters and fabric artists:

The Christmas Cloth Store handles solely Christmas and holiday related fabrics.  They carry a wide variety of items for your Chrismas sewing and quiltmaking.

Free Christmas Quilt & Block Patterns from Bella Online presented by Kim Noblin.

Christmas Quilts & Accessories at Quilts.About.com presented by Janet Wickell.

Snowy River Quilts has some interesting Christmas fabrics in their store, including “Countdown To Christmas” and “Christmas Past.”

There also are delightful books about quilting and Christmas:

The Christmas Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini , one of my favorite quilting fiction writers, comes to mind.  It’s a story from her Elm Creek Quilters series.

The Christmas Memory Quilt, written by Kimberly Webb and illustrated by Jennifer Gaskin, will be released soon…a story for children about quilting and Christmas and memories.

If you have favorite places to shop for your Christmas supplies and patterns, let me know and I’ll post it here.  Do you have any special Christmas in July projects you’re making? 

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Quilters Think Christmas Thoughts in July

If you recall, in a previous novel, Sylvia wonders why they never heard from Elizabeth after she married Henry and moved to California.  Then in another novel there was a slight reference to Elizabeth and a letter she wrote.

Now we learn Elizabeth’s fascinating story, woven into the history of that area during the 1920s and 30s.  Quilts play a role in this book, of course…quilts Elizabeth brought with her and those she found, repaired, and made in California.

(At the above link, you can see a video of The Quilter’s Homecoming and read Chapter 1)

I’d love to hear what you think of this book in the Elm Creek Quilts series. 

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The Quilter’s Homecoming – The New Elm Creek Quilt Book

Some of them center around a theme, era, event, region or country.  Others simply are fabrics that strike the manufacturer or designer’s fancy.  Also, quilt artists, once they become well-known, often design fabrics for a manufacturer. You’ll also find fabrics designed by quilter/authors, such as Jennifer Chiaverini (www.elmcreek.net ), who writes the Elm Creek Quilters novels. She designs for Red Rooster Fabrics.

Reading the current newsletter and looking around the Fat Quarter Quilters web site (www.fatquarterquilters.com ), gave me a glimpse of a variety of fabrics from various lines with interesting themes for projects.  Some mentioned in the newsletter, with pictures on the site include: Star Struck from Buggy Barn, Blackbird Village Quilts designed by Kathy Schmitz, and All Quiet on the Potomic by Brackman & Thompson.  The latter have a Civil War theme.

Do you have favorite quilt designers or manufacturers for your quilt and fabric art projects?

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So Many Kinds of Quilting Fabrics

A – Quilting Design Walls have become popular in recent years, but some quilters still wonder what they are.  They remind me of the flannel boards used in the classroom or Sunday school.

No, they aren’t a place in your home where you display finished work.  Rather, a Design Wall is a wall in your sewing room or work area with a felt, flannel, or similar fabric to which your quilt pieces will stick.  Sometimes this will be permanent; other times it consists of this fabric tacked to the wall.

Here you place your fabric pieces to try out a design and experiment with new patterns, colors, and fabrics.

Fortunate is the quilter who has a Design Wall she can call her own.  However, quilters are creative, so develop walls in small areas.  In our multi-generational household consisting of three generations, my daughter has to work at her quilting on one side of the living/dining room.  She often tacks her projects on the walls to view them as she’s considering various combinations.

Recently Beth acquired a 3 x 4-foot cork board to which she tacks and pins her projects.  When not in use, this will slide behind her sewing machine or a bookcase. 

(In her most recent novel, The Circle of Quilters, Jennifer Chiaverini (http://www.elmcreek.net/) mentions a Quilting Design Wall that one of the quilters uses when he takes up quilting after his wife dies.)

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Q & A – What is a Quilting Design Wall?

Jennifer Chiaverinni skillfully weaves the story of these different quilters into the novel, giving us insight into the various ways quilting can be approached.  This also gives a view of the many types of quilting and designs that have evolved in the fabric art world.

Just looking at my daughter’s quilt group or quilters I know, each one eventually develops their own style, likes and dislikes.  Even Beth’s and mine have changed since we first began making quilts.

We both began with traditional designs and larger quilts.  Beth now is doing art quilting, more hangings than bed quilts.  She also likes to dye fabric and work with those.

I once made large bed quilts and some clothing for customers through my home business.  These were mainly traditional designs.  However, my lifestyle has changed, with more traveling, so I’m always looking for small projects I can work on while I’m on a plane, in a car, waiting in an airport, or staying at a hotel. 

What is your quilting style…likes and dislikes?  What do you see as your place in the quilting world?

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A Variety of Quilters

Some novels may have a short scene involving quilting, as I’m doing in my middle reader novel, Papa Goes to War, set in the Civil War era and based loosely on my family history. The story may be about something else, but a making a quilt might weave itself into the activity.

Numerous picture books for children revolve around a quilting theme. Many seem to take place in pioneer times and the Civil War era.

Can you write a quilting story? 

It may simply be a collection of essays about the importance of quilting in your life.  Or you may decide to use some aspect of quilting and patchwork, or modern fabric art as the driving force in your fiction story or book.

You also might incorporate family quilting stories in a scrapbook, using these artistic techniques to enhance the work.  You could develop a journal of the quilts you’ve made in your life, including a photo or sketch with the inspiration that caused you to make it.

I’d enjoy hearing about how you develop a quilting story…one you never imagined you could write…but decided to try after reading this blog.

Perhaps by stitching together bits of your quilting life, you can tell stories as Helen Kelley does in Every Quilt Tells a Story.  What are the stories of the quilts and quilters in your life?

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Can You Write a Quilting Story?

*”My hairdresser makes quilts.  When I travel I pick up pieces of fabric I think she can use.”  This lady bought several from us and said she’d found more at other yard sales.

*”Now that I’m semi-retired, I getting back into quilting again.”  She had an armful of fabric pieces, including fat quarters, along with magazines and a book.

*”I love to read novels about quilting,” another said.  “I especially like the Elm Creek Quilts series.”  I’d just started reading a book in the series.  So we discussed these novels about quilters, past and present, by Jennifer Chiaverini.

*”I don’t know why I’m buying this fabric, but I can’t resist more for my stash,” another mentioned.  Then she described a quilt she’s currently making.

Although we had many other items in the yard sale, so many of my discussions were with quilters about their projects and the fabric, magazines, etc. they simply couldn’t resist.

(Fortunatley their husbands could discuss tools and carpentry with my husband as the men browsed through the items he’d concluded he didn’t need any longer.)

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Quilting Stories at a Yard Sale