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| here's a little snippet of the book I'm writing |
Just when I thought there was nothing more I could learn about my "New York Beauty" collection, I'm learning all kinds of interesting things by simply writing detailed physical descriptions of each quilt. Too often there is an inclination among writers to make things up about the quilts, but fortunately, I have found little need for that approach.
The physical descriptions are very rich. I have always known what the quilts looked like, but never realized how many pieces they had, or how many quilting stitches. One quilt has more than 3,500 pieces. Another has over a quarter-million quilting stitches. These are quilts that were entirely made by hand. The details are inspiring me to keep going, keep writing.
Wish I could share more. The pictures are all done-- 70 objects, five to ten pictures each, somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 images. Am I having fun yet? Hell yeah!
Sounds fun!! sounds like a lot of work but fun at the same time....looking forward to the book!!!
ReplyDeleteIt is fun. I'm looking at blocks, sashing, cornerstones, and counting pieces, then estimating how many would be in the full quilt. Same for quilting stitches. It might seem kinda geeky, but it's a way of knowing more about the quilts, providing more information. :)
Deleteand that is just the kind of geeky stuff I want to know :)
DeleteVery interesting. What a very in depth way to look at a quilt, or in your case, quilts. I will be looking forward to your book. Fascinating!
ReplyDeleteI will work hard to make sure it doesn't disappoint. :)
DeleteI really hope all of that information makes it into the book--to me, that's the most fascinating part. I don't usually count how many pieces are in a quilt I'm making--I don't have that kind of a math-mind--but I love it when someone else does. I took my husband to a quilt show once and he commented how there were several quilts whose descriptions included the number of pieces in the quilt, and they were all quilts made by men. Just a one-time bit of anecdata, but an interesting observation!
ReplyDeleteI hope so, too. They can start working on layout in July, so I'm glad to be moving along with it.
Deleteso glad you are enjoying the writing process, Bill. I'm blown away by a quilt that has a quarter million stitches (by hand, I am sure). Holy moly!
ReplyDeleteWell, I have an appliqué quilt that's not part of this group, and it has an estimated 1,000,000 quilting stitches!! You must see it some time. :)
DeleteI'm just happy that I understand all the words and didn't need to look any up in the dictionary! ~~ looking forward to your book!
ReplyDeleteI'm happy about that, too. Since it's being translated into French, I am trying to keep it easy to read. Using the Flesch-Kincaid grade level, etc. Ultimately, the photos will really tell the whole story and the words will be icing on the cake.
DeleteLooking forward to the book . . . thanks for sharing a glimpse into your process!
ReplyDeleteOooh! Congrats on the book!
ReplyDelete