Friends! Countrymen! People afflicted with the desire to tear up perfectly good cotton fabric and sew it back together again! I have an announcement:
Dear Quilty is here and it is really good. (It’s a book.)
Working alongside Team Quilty, I selected some of the best, most beautiful, most approachable quilt projects (and one totebag project) from the past four years of Quilty magazine. The full patterns of the quilts are inside, there are tutorials and demos, there are links to Quilty video tutorials, and of course, Spooly is all over this thing, helping you out, being your pal, possibly getting in the way (adorably, of course.)
But it’s more, y’all. It’s more than that.
Dear Quilty was a way for me to tell the full story of the show, the magazine, the whole point behind Quilty, which was: Make a friendly landing place for beginning quilters. We cannot shame the people who don’t know what a bobbin is. We cannot snicker when a new quilter brings in a poorly made first attempt. We can’t ever stop learning from the beginner, either (that means you, Advanced Quilting Lady a.k.a. Quilt Policewoman. And no, there are not Quilt Policemen. They are always women. I don’t know why.)
In the book, you learn about the people who have made the magazine over the years. You get these great interviews with them and also with the Chicago film crew who has made the show with me since 2010. There are fan letters in the book, too, proving that Quilty has changed some lives, man! Pretty groovy.
Now that the magazine is going away and I’m leaving the show, this book is kinda extra special. Quilty the brand isn’t going anywhere, it’s just entering a new phase. But Dear Quilty is a record of what may be “vintage” Quilty? Maybe? That makes me feel old/too special for my own good, so let’s not say “vintage” at all. Let’s just say the book is great and you should get one immediately. I saw the first copy at my gig in Georgia and it turned out even more amazingly cool than I could’ve hoped for.
Within the next week or so, I’ll have a link to buy the book from me — psst… I’ll be doing some giveaways! Until then, ask your local quilt shop to order it for you and check in with ShopQuilty.com as inventory comes in. This one’s hot off the press.