What's On The Bookshelf Wednesday - For Keeps!

Hi, all!

Welcome back to What's on the Bookshelf Wednesday!!  As many of you may know, I give each of my grandchildren a quilt each year for Christmas as kind of a "memory" of the preceding year, so when I heard about today's book, I just had to take a look at it!!

Those are some of my grandkids' quilts in the background!

This book, authored by Amy Gibson of Stitchery Dickory Dock and released in June 2015, speaks to why we quilt, and calls us to quilt more intentionally.  Amy says it best...

"(It) does NOT mean you won't drool over designer fabrics or strive to make high quality items.  It doesn't mean you won't follow trends or enter competitions.  It simply means that you desire even more meaning in the making and using of your projects, and will try to be more mindful, when you're designing and sewing, of how your process and/or project captures and spreads love & joy in your home and community."

Now personally, I think this is a fabulous sentiment!  My daughter despairs of how many quilts will live at her house in a few more years, but I look at the quilts I've made them and see little stains on them that tell me they are loved and well-used.  And the quilts we make in our church quilt ministry, many of them using fabrics and blocks some of you have sent, make a huge difference in the lives of the people we give them to, and in the lives of those they come in contact with.  A quilt is so much more than the sum total of its parts!  

Amy's even come up with a "For Keeps" pledge!  You can see more about this on her other website, Quilt For Keeps.  You can take the pledge, grab a cool button, and score a free pattern for taking the pledge!

But now, let's take a peek at the book!  The first part of the book is billed as a Patchwork Primer, a pretty standard part of any quilting book.  However, I found myself reading through most of this section and found some information and tips that were new to me, and Amy's voice is so fun, I found it a very good read.  I particularly thought she had some great suggestions about purchasing a sewing machine - they were well thought out and would help anyone know how to start looking for a machine.

The next part of the book contains the quilts, and is broken up into two sections - Memory Makers and Memory Keepers.

This is one of my favorite projects in the book - a body pillow cover that has pockets for books.  Imagine the memories you could make with your children or grandchildren, and what an awesome way to set up a special place for sharing reading time!

I also love the photography in this book - showing the quilts in real life, really-being-used situations.  My grandkids love to use their quilts for forts - now I may need to make them a tepee frame!!

The Memory Keepers section has some great ideas, too - photograph quilts, a recipe binder, even a quilt using vintage handkerchiefs.  I know that my creative juices are on overdrive after looking through this section!

All in all, I really like this book.  It has plenty of great designs in it to make it worth purchasing, and besides that, I think the For Keeps concept - making quilts that are intended to be used and loved - is worth embracing.  

PS - I hope you'll forgive the shiny photographs in this post - my copy of this book only arrived Tuesday afternoon (thank you Amazon!) and I got so caught up in reading it that I forgot to take the pictures when the light was better for it!

*&*&*&*&*&*&*

So that's what's on my bookshelf this week.  Have you looked at yours lately?

Hugs!

Sarah