Helen Kelley's Joy of Quilting More Wit and Wisdom from America's Most Popular Quilting Columnist

This book is a second collection of quilter Helen Kelley's best writing from nearly twenty years of columns in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine. Over 60 pieces will appear in the book, ranging from the hilarious to the heartwarming. Helen Kelley discovered the pleasures of textiles early in life. Her youngest years were spent in a variety of places on the East Coast with her father, who was a consulting engineer and her mother, a talented needle woman. While working in a Georgia textile mill, her father explained quality and texture to Helen when she was still a preschooler. Moving to North Carolina and then to Maryland, she learned to sew her first stitches in the comforting ambiences of Ladies' Aid groups. In New York, when she was a 6th grader, she sewed her first dress. She continued to sharpen her skills in Connecticut and during the Second World War, Helen moved on to the Midwest, taking along her sewing machine, of course. Fabric seems to have been part of Helen's life from her earliest memories. It is a well documented fact that the gentle touch of fabric creates a feeling of comfort and an aura of general happiness. When she married in 1948, Helen continued to find creative satisfaction in textiles and, in due time, to clothe five children. Then, she turned to quilts, and for over half a century she has indulged her passion for handling fabric to create stunning pieces of textile art. As she works quietly in her Minnesota workshop, she jots down her musings about her quilt making, her life, and her general survival skills. Written in a wry and pertinent language, Helen's Loose Threads articles have appeared monthly in Quilter's Newsletter Magazine for twenty years. Much of her humor has become a part of the genre of today's textile world and her writings have been generally accepted as the witty portrayal of life as we live it today. Her philosophy gives the reader permission to laugh at her own foibles, and to face life's challenges with humor and grace.Kelley, Helen is the author of 'Helen Kelley's Joy of Quilting More Wit and Wisdom from America's Most Popular Quilting Columnist', published 2004 under ISBN 9780896586413 and ISBN 0896586413.