Last week I did a review and held a giveaway of Tracy Chevalier's new novel The Last Runaway.

Tracy sent me an email and is kindly showing us her quilts!


Dear Lucy,

Thanks so much for your lovely review of The Last Runaway. I feel honoured that a quilter liked it so much! I thought your followers might be curious to see the quilt I made during my research for the book.
For my quilting research I read a lot, looked a lot (especially the V&A exhibition in 2010, and also the York Quilt Museum). But I needed to DO it too, so  I took a quilting class, and then joined the Flying Geese, a local quilting group that meets every Monday. Indeed, I’m still with the group, and will probably be making quilts for a long time to come.

I chose to make a simple four-patch quilt, as I didn’t want to get bogged down in anything complicated for my first quilt. Also I made it at three-quarters the size of a single quilt, one I use on our sofa rather than on a bed. Even so, it took me a year! (Mind you, I was writing a novel at the same time, so rather busy.) Here is the quilt:



It’s all hand-made and hand-quilted, as I wanted to imitate the process my heroine Honor Bright went through. (Also I don’t have a sewing machine or know how to use one.) The fabrics are from various quilt shops in the UK and US, as well as from stalls at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace London.

I learned so much for making the quilt – about sewing (you don’t have to knot, you can backstitch!), about pattern and putting different fabrics together, about fudging and tucking under loose ends. Funny, I do all that when I’m writing a novel, but didn’t realise it also applies to quilting! Making the quilt made it a lot easier for me to write about Honor making quilts. And it is a non-verbal activity, very welcome after all the reading and writing I do.

My next project? I am making a quilt along the lines of the famous Gee’s Bend quilts made by African Americans. They are more improvisational, very colourful, and extremely hard to imitate! Here’s what I’ve done so far:



I'm so impressed with her dedication and quilting... I have yet to finish an EPP quilt myself! I wasn't surprised she's taken to quilting though, it is rather addictive ;)

So on to our winners...

Random.org picked the numbers - you will have to trust me because I don't have time to capture all the boxes and picture them here - they are:

12 - Gill
26 - Katy
2- Archie the Wonder Dog
8 - Andrea
21- Pomegranate Quilts
19 - Svea Polster Broughton
9 - Cayt
18 - Alice and Florence
28 - Strawberry Patch
4 - The Faerie Factory

Please could you all email me with your details and addresses and HarperCollins will send the books out to you. If I don't hear from you within 48 hrs I will draw another winner.


A huge thank you to Tracy for sharing her work and thank you to HarperCollins for the great giveaway!

If you didn't win now is the time to order your copy of The Last Runaway.






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