Sandra Dallas Book give-away

Last week Anne at The Book Report Network contacted me about Sandra Dallas' new book, Whiter than Snow.  She's going to send me the book, and I'll write a review here after I read it.  AND!  She's also going to send a free book to the winner of my give-away drawing.  How great is that? You all know that one of my other passions besides quilting is reading.  So I am pretty darned excited about being able to offer this book to you as a blog give-away in celebration of ....what?....hmmmm?....How about to celebrate "quilters who read" or "readers who quilt"?  LOL!

All you have to do to enter this give-away contest is to leave a comment on this blog post.  Be sure to tell your friends about it, too and if they mention YOUR name in THEIR entry, your name will be entered again.  Make sure that I can contact you by email so I can get the right information for the book to be sent to you.  All names will be given a randomized number, and the drawing will be held on July 4th.  HURRY and get the word out for the free book!  And if you have a blog, please feel free to re-post the copyrighted comments from Sandra Dallas, and list my give-away, too.

You can learn more about Sandra Dallas and her books at http://www.sandradallas.com Here's what Sandra Dallas has to say about her writing:

Nothing defines my characters more than their sewing.

In my first novels, my female characters smoked. My books are set in earlier times, long before we knew about the evils of tobacco, when a woman who smoked was independent, a little daring, sophisticated.  As a writer, I could do so much with smoking:  A character could watch the smoke curl up or blow smoke into someone’s face. She could pick a speck of tobacco off her lip or snuff out a cigarette in anger. And there was all that wonderful smoking paraphernalia, such as Bakelite cigarette holders, monogrammed cigarette boxes, and remember those huge standing ashtrays with sand in them?     

But today, smoking says something negative about a character, no matter what the time period. So my characters have quit smoking.  Instead, they quilt.

The way a woman stitches says something about her.  A woman who takes small, even stitches is different from one who sews with big, sloppy stitches. A quilter who selects black and white fabrics for her quilt is more somber than one who picks primary colors.  And the patterns the women choose, whether an intricate design with thousands of pieces or a big, bold pattern of large blocks, say something about them.

The titles of the quilts, too, affect the stitchers.  Log cabin quilts were a favorite of women who helped escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad.  More than one pioneer woman pieced a Road to California before setting out for the West.  And it’s hard to imagine that a woman who likes her toddies would make a Drunkard’s Path.

My characters don’t just sew.  They are part of a community of stitchers—the quilting circle.  I first wrote about a quilting circle in The Persian Pickle Club, thinking there were a few quilters out there who might relate to the subject.  What I didn’t know was there are 27 million of them and that they understand the significance of the quilting circle far better than I. So I’ve included sewing in virtually all of my books, to a greater (Prayers for Sale) or lesser (Whiter Than Snow) degree.

What these readers know is that quilting isn’t just about making bed covers.  In a quilting circle, women support each other.  They share each other’s joys and sorrows, help in times of need, pull together when a member is threatened or in trouble.  Quilting is a way of sharing, and the work of the women’s hands represents warmth and comfort not only because they are making a quilt but because that quilt is made with love.

I’ve often been asked if I’m a quilter.  Some years ago, I wrote The Quilt That Walked to Golden, a history of quilting in the Rocky Mountain States, for the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, Colo. In the book, I write that quilting all but died out during World War II, and the women who picked up their needles a generation later were often self-taught.  They did things no self-respecting quilter would do today, such as use polyester fabric or quilt in the ditch (on the seam line.)  I tell of one woman who made a quilt for her sister as a wedding present, a stuffed quilt made of huge puffs filled with cotton.  She didn’t know when to stop stuffing, and as a result, the quilt weighed 25 pounds. Their brother had to take it to the wedding in the back of his pickup.

But my sister cherished the quilt anyway.

© Copyright 2010 by Sandra Dallas. Reprinted with permission from the author.