How could something as simple and doable, as homely and tactile as quiltmaking ever appear to be difficult, scary and intimidating? And yet, as I know from personal experience, this is all too often the case. Indeed, my personal experience tells me so: it took me a long, long time to start quilting, to conquer my fear of getting things “wrong”, to relax and to see that I could make quilts that were perfectly good enough, even if they were not exactly perfect.

Then, when I started writing on my blog, Yarnstorm, about my early forays into quilting, I soon discovered that I wasn’t alone, and that there were many would-be, hesitant quilters who were looking for a fresh approach with lots of colourful inspiration. As my confidence grew, I developed a stress-free, simple and liberated approach that not only worked for me, but also clearly appealed to my readers.

And this is how I came to write The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking. It is written not from the point of view of a trained and skilled designer with a professional studio and limitless access to fabrics, but from the point of view of an enthusiastic consumer who buys her own fabrics and makes her quilts in an ordinary domestic space and in the midst of family life.

These practical constraints—money, time, space, lack of experience—are the ones that face the majority of home quilters, and I wanted to prove that anyone who can cut out fabric and sew in a straight line that they, too, could make beautiful quilts. By using basic skills, simple shapes, and gorgeous fabrics (and goodness knows there are plenty available these days), and taking inspiration from the beauty of everyday life and objects, I created a range of quilts that all tell a narrative or a personal story. In this way, I hope to inspire and encourage readers to cast aside their anxieties about quilt-making, and simply get started.

Quilting is enjoying a tremendous growth in popularity at the moment, which means there are plenty of existing and potential quilters who are not hidebound by tradition, and who are happy to make quilts that are simple yet full of personality, rather than perfect and made on the “jigsaw principle” (i.e. simply slotting piece together). And I am delighted to see that The Gentle Art of Quiltmaking is already helping tentative quilters to understand that quilting does not have to be difficult or terrifying, that it’s an ordinary home craft, but one that can produce extraordinary results.