more book appearances

My collection of books grew a lot over the last five years. One of the bookshelves is devoted to publications that include me and my quilts. It looks like I need to get another bookshelf soon, a happy dilemma. Two new books arrived this week: "Craftivism, The Art of Craft and Activism" by Betsy Greer, and "In War Time: A Study of Civil War Era Quilts, 1850-1865" by the American Quilt Study Group. Both books include quilts from my collection.

Susan Beal wrote a perfectly lovely chapter about Charity Quilting in "Craftivism" and she included the 1931 American Legion Auxiliary inscribed fundraising quilt from my collection. I wrote about the quilt in a blog post for "Why Quilts Matter, History, Art & Politics" - click here to view.

The quilt is truly remarkable, and I am so happy people will be able to read about and learn more when they see it in the book.

The second new book is the catalogue of study quilts from the American Quilt Study Group 2014 Civil War Quilt Study. It includes 50 exquisite quilts inspired by Civil War quilts, and one of those is a quilt inspired by my very first antique quilt, an 1850s masterpiece from Kentucky.

The inspiration is a red, white and green quilt made with the complex design known today as New York Beauty. This quilt is the oldest in my New York Beauty collection and book, "New York Beauty, Quilts from the Volckening Collection" (Quiltmania, France). I purchased the quilt from Shelly Zegart in 1989.

the inspiration: an 1850s masterpiece from Kentucky

Christine Turner's small-scale study quilt - amazing!

Christine Turner of DuPont, Washington did an amazing job with the small-scale study quilt. She was very inspired by the quilt, and imagined how challenging it would be to make it in the 1850s, without today's technology and tools. I am happy to say Christine is also working on a quilt for my next book, a project book from C&T Publishing with 12 projects inspired by quilts from my collection. It is due out next Spring.

Are all of these things really happening? Or am I just dreaming? Someone pinch me, please.