Thank you for reading my adventures,
A few years back I went to live in the east of France, I did a fair in the city of Lyon, I offered to do classes in my home, a group of 5 ladies joined me, this was in January 2015.
Each week I worked on preparing some exercises for the ladies to do, I didn't just want to explain to them the basics, but wanted them to have fun with quilts, the spreadsheets included coloring, cutting and assembling.
I started with the blocks, there are 3 by 3 blocks (also called 9 patch), I decided to give them French names as I had never seen it translated in French. I decided that to make it easier to understand, a 3 by 3 block would be a 3 patch, a 4 by 4 block would be a 4 patch, and started making my document. I drew some blocks that I had found in an old book that my mom had brought back from the USA. My first exercise sheet was created, they had to indicate under each block if it was a 3, 4 or 5 patch. That was my way to familiarise them with the fact that a block didn't have the same basic base.
I went on to colors, I thought about it and drew some print designs, made some tags with the prints on them and assign a reference to each tag. The exercise was to start with a certain amount of tags (which would be the equivalent to having a fat quarter bundle) and dispatching the tags on to different piles. The purpose of the exercise was to match the prints and colors in order to simulate that with the bundle they were going to make 3 quilts, so how would they distribute the fabric out so the 3 quilts wouldn't look like one was "made" with the left over fabric of the other two.
(many thanks to Anne, Anne-Marie and Gisèle)
That way I created lots of other spreadsheets that they could have fun with, but where they would also learn about quilt making and designing.
After a few months of working on those spreadsheet, I ended up having enough material to make a book.
I worked on completing it as much as possible so that each chapter of the book would have exercise, wether it was the chapter on the seam allowance (quite tricky to imagine) as on the quilting with one "stroke" of thread (that was the most cool one I had thought about, I was really proud of myself when I came up with this trick).
I talked about my workbook to several editors, but none seamed to grasp what it was about, so I decided to have it printed, I started with 50 copies, that is what my budget allowed me to start with.
I did a few fairs and sold it out easily, because in it I was using the Marti Michell templates, and a chapter showed how to use the templates, but there were also spreadsheets that the ladies could use to make some blocks of their own.
I was on a fair when a gentleman approached me and asked me about my book. He asked me if I would accept to meet with his boss, the editor was a well know French editor near Lyon. I presented my work, and she Kindly gave me feedback about it, told me that I need to break it down into several volumes, as she thought that having all that information into one book seamed to her a little too much.
I took her advice into consideration and started breaking down my book into 5 volumes: Volume 1 Shapes, Volume 2 Colors, Volume 3 Cutting, Volume 4 Sewing, Volume 5 Quilting.
A new more colorful version was created in 2017, with some new volumes: Volume 6 Log Cabin and Volume 7 Inspired Motifs. I printed some copies at home and mostly had them on CD rom as a PDF version.
I will tell you about all those volumes in next week's post.
Have a good week
Emmanuelle
Today's PDF is a BEGUINNER'S GUIDE, to getting started in making your own little quilt top, if you missed the NOTIONS document, just go back to last week's post.
PS: Please remember that if you wish to be on my Special People List, you need to click here if you haven't done so on the previous posts that will allow me to keep you informed about what I will be up to next year, with a big event that I am putting together these past few weeks.
La Petite Mercerie by Emmanuelle Carre - Printed by Lecien - Made in Japan: Voici ma première collection de tissus constituée de 21 rouleaux ayant pour thème la mercerie, retrouver des ciseaux, des boutons, des galons. Toute ma collection est disponible dans les boutiques de Patchwork l'ayant commandée!