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Monday, November 7, 2011

Get one while you can

Barbara Brackman announced this week that her book "Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns" is now out of print. How sad. I've used that book countless times.

The book was invaluable in planning my Florida quilt. How else would I have found so many Florida-themed blocks such as Tallahassee, Key West, Sunshine, Orange Peel, Storm at Sea, etc.?

I took over my guild's block of the month program right after September 11. I used this book to find blocks that seemed relevant to the events (Birds in the Air, New York, White House Steps, etc.) and then drafted them all to the same size. Each month in 2002 members could make the blocks for the drawing in that month's colors and/or for themselves in red, white and blue for a sampler quilt.

Several other quilts have been planned and countless block names confirmed with her book. Not to mention all the blocks I've discovered when looking for something else.

This book has been around for years. Before computers. You can only imagine the dedication required to gather all that information and then put it together and index it with drawings of each block. And to think she did it with a typewriter and graph paper!

Read her funny post about the book here