Do you love to quilt AND love to read? I invite you to join the free, online Quilters' Book Club. Each month, we read a book, discuss it through comments on my blog posts, and then make a quilt block to represent that book. I research several potential blocks to go with the book's themes, setting, main characters, and events. And I find the patterns free on the internet, making it easy for everyone to access. Each member can choose the block or blocks they'd like to make.
To join, all you need to do is become a follower of my blog so you won't miss any blog post. To make it convenient, you can also sign up for my posts to be delivered right to you via email. It is never too late to join and begin reading and sewing along with us.
To join, all you need to do is become a follower of my blog so you won't miss any blog post. To make it convenient, you can also sign up for my posts to be delivered right to you via email. It is never too late to join and begin reading and sewing along with us.
I have chosen to make my quilt blocks out of only two fabrics, Kona Snow and Kona Rich Red. And I have a name for my quilt. It will be called my "Curl Up with a Good Book Quilt." But, please feel free to choose whatever fabrics you'd like to use for your quilt, especially fabrics from your stash. We quilters are such creative people. I can't wait to see what we all create!
If you check out the book each month from your local library and use fabric from your stash, there will be no cost at all to you!
In the Quilters' Book Club, we read and discuss quilt-related novels. Usually, the authors are quilters as well as writers. That is not the case with this month's selection, The Healing Quilt by Lauraine Snelling. As Lauraine writes in her Acknowledgments, "I make jokes about this being a patchwork book by a blind seamstress. Quilting books helped me. Sue and Claudia, who teach quilting, gave advice. I have no idea how many people prayed, but I know there were many and I thank every one of you."
She does have first-hand knowledge of another important matter, though. Lauraine writes to her readers, "Back in 1986 when our daughter Marie died of cancer at age twenty-one, I had no idea what terrible, heart breaking grief is like. Yes, my father had died as well as other relatives, but they were older and, in the natural scheme of things, they would die before I did. But not my daughter. God had healed her once, and I felt sure he would do so again. He did, but not in the way I wanted. When someone asked me if I would write our story, I said only when God is adamant that the time is right. I asked him years ago whether, since I am hard of hearing to that still small voice, would he please say things three times so that I get the message. When the time came for this story to be told, he bombarded me with signals. Three, and then three, and then three again."
In this book, does it matter that the author is not a quilter? How important is it that she has first-hand knowledge of grief and loss? Inquiring minds want to know! Answer in the comment section below. By commenting, you'll be entered to win a hardcover copy of Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas! The more you comment, the greater your chances of winning! If you are reading this via email, you must click on the title of my blog post to be able to comment and read the comments of others.
Plan now to join us in February to read Jennifer Chiaverini's Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, set in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War years.
You might also enjoy reading my previous blog post My Irish Great Grandpa Quilt Up Close and Personal, Part IV.
I think if an author can research well, she doesn't need to know how to quilt. I'm sure Lauraine's personal experience with her grief and the grief of others around her helped her to write about the various characters in the book.
ReplyDeleteKnowing how to quilt ahead of time isn't necessary to express heartache and how to deal with grief. I would hazard a guess that not many of us were born knowing how to quilt or even thought we could. Yes it ties us all together but it's the journey that ties us just like our stitches bind a quilt. Through her personal experience and ours we are bound together along the journey.
ReplyDeleteBonni has said it much better than I ever could.
ReplyDeleteBonni did a great job answering. We all can read and listen to learn how to quilt.
ReplyDeleteHow can you write about something you have never dealt with first hand. Yes, she would need to know about grief and loss to understand it, it is something you have to feel. Whatever form it came in. / No, she can research and then write about quilting.
ReplyDeleteNo, like all authors they do research when writing their books. Most of us do not truly know what the grief of losing a child would feel like unless they experience it themselves. Reading about peoples experiences help you to understand. I am sure there are Support Groups that help with the grief processes.
ReplyDeleteI think in this book her own life experience is essential to the story. Research can fill in the knowledge about quilting but one cannot research the feelings associated with the loss of a child.
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