Books!!

I cannot believe it has been a month since I was here last.  I have certainly been busy, with no shortage of great things to share.  Winter kind of puts me into a funk because I truly hate the Maine winters, and the seclusion they drive me to.  

But let me introduce you to one of the projects that has kept me moving steadily since last November, when I started to write the first of these.  Yes, I have 2 self-published books that will be for sale from my website in about 3 weeks.  They are intended to accompany two of the classes I love to teach, and expand on the material I present in these classes.

 The first is Beautiful Backgrounds...Grid-Based Fills.  These books are actually sitting in my studio right now, but I want to wait debuting them until the others are in house too.  This is a high-quality self-published book, 94 color pages.  Pages are heavy 80# stock, and the covers are a 100# laminated stock.  I labored heavily over self-publishing because I didn't want the books to look crappy, like they were made in somebody's basement.  I went so far as to get a proof printed at Amazon's service in January.  I discovered when the book arrived that more quilters wanted the spiral binding than a book binding, and that Amazon's paper and cover choices were not good enough quality.

I spoke to all local printing outfits in my home area, and also got quotes from several mail order services.  The best quality for the money happened to be a mail-order outfit.  Those of you that order these will agree too.  I am confident of that.  

Beautiful Backgrounds features  nearly 75 grid-based fills from the traditional Sashiko patterns to other more modernized fills.  There are good-sized color photos as well as numbered color illustrations of the steps for quilting.  My illustrations are easy to follow.  

Dense & Dainty...Freehand Fills officially went to the publisher this morning.  I spent the last weekend combing over the proof they sent, making modifications to this and that.  It features 95 color pages of over 100 unique freehand fills, suitable for everything from a traditional quilt to the modern alternatives.   Illustrations in both books are all hand-drawn by ME...and thankfully by the good graces of my scanner, Photoshop and Illustrator, they have a very professional finish.

Here is a snippet from the interior.  Like the grids book, this also features LOTS of photos and illustrations, as well as photos from actual quilts where fills have been used.

 I have done my research, and I know that both of these books are close to the most inclusive books on these two topics that are available on the market.  The each will sell for $25.

I will post a notice here when the website goes live (Presently it is getting some updates, and details worked out to link safely and properly with paypal), but the plan is to go live the beginning of April!

Have a great week!!