QuiltingAndPatchwork.com 
 If your quilt could tell a story, what would it say? I think of the quilt I call, The Wedding Quilt.  I recall it always lying on the bed in the guest room of our farmhouse.  I can visualize one day, as Mother, Sister and I cleaned the room and made the bed for a visit from my aunt and uncle. 
Mother had aired the quilt on the clothes line on the south side of the house and now was folding it to place at the foot of the bed.  I don’t know if Sister or I asked a question or Mother …read more

Do you have a notebook or sketchbook for jotting quilting thoughs and designs?  These can consist of various types and sizes and used for a number of purposes, depending on your needs.
My daughter has a sketch book, about 8 1/2 x 11-inches in which she sketches ideas for quilts.  Perhaps she sees a flower that strikes her fancy.  Or she may have some interesting fabric, so she plays with ideas in the sketch book.  Perhaps she acquires some embellishments.  What should I do with these? might be answered through sketching.
I have a Trails End Quilters notebook where I jot down …read more

Thinking about my daughter’s mini quilt album, inspired me finally to put together an album about my Trails End Quilters heritage.  I’ve been researching my Trails End ancestry and the quilters who lived on this farm that was in my mother’s family for nearly 200 years.
My grandmother, Emma Tipple, who taught me quiltmaking when I was 8 years old, married Burton Coon in the early 1900s and lived the rest of her life on the farm.  As my daughter and granddaughter have taken up quiltmaking and fabric art, I began to realize we came from a family of quilters…if they didn’t quilt, …read more

I enjoy stories that revolve around quilting, whether they take place in years ago or have a modern setting.  Jennifer Chiaverini, in her Elm Creek Quilters novels alternates between the past and present.  Sometimes these occur in different novels; other occasions there are flashbacks within the same novel.
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 …read more