DD1 has taken an interest in quilting these past couple of years, but hasn't really had the time to go at it, holding down jobs with serious overtime, personal problems up the yin yang, and what have you. Now she's a bit at loose ends. She is living with a fella, minding his kids when he has them, and going to school part time rather than working 50 or 60 hours a week. And I have been holding off saying but she is pregnant again and it is being troublesome. So she thought she might see what she could do so far as quilting totally by hand. Now no child of mine is getting out of this house without at least the basics for survival, no throwing away a shirt because it has lost a button here! But it took her a while to sort out her focus and learn to apply herself (she is the manic one). So she has realized she didn't learn as much as she could have when she was living at home, and now she lives clear across the county and neither of us drives. So she thought she would get a book. She figured with a good book and mom to call she could muddle through. She went on down to the craft shop near her, and talked to their "sewing lady", and bought the book that the woman highly recomended for beginers. Now DD is a rank tyro when it comes to quilting, fancy work, and all that. She said she tried to make that clear to this lady, but she didn't think the book was quite right for somebody who didn't know anything. So she left it with me to look over. Boy is she right! The book the woman at the store so highly recomended for an absolute beginner is "Quiltmaker's Fancy" put out by Quiltmaking magazine. It is a lovely little collection of 16 quilts with instructions, but the only thing in it suitable for a complete beginner is the standard basics section in the back. There is nothing in the preface or any part of this book that even suggests it would be good for a beginner. It has a couple of quilts based on drunkard's path, a sisters choice, spinning suns, wild geese, and feathered stars. It has appliqued borders and sashings, pieced borders, and mitres everywhere you look. What in heaven's name gave this woman the notion that it would be a good book to sell to a beginner?! Even if she sews but doesn't quilt she should have known better.
Since I haven't a clue about quilt books, the only ones I own are standard reference or aquired by chance, I am thinking about making her a kit. She is fond of sunshine and shadows, and that is just squares sewn together. I am going to have to talk to her some more to find out what all she has in mind first.
NightMist can only guess that the "sewing lady" just pulled a book off the rack at random