Turkey Trot Blog Hop: THE FOURTEENTH QUILT

Update: The sweepstakes offer for THE FOURTEENTH QUILT is now closed. The winner is SassyBookLover. Congratulations! I hope all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Welcome to the 2016 Turkey Trot Blog Hop

Norwegian Wood by Hilary Gooding for makoweruk.com

Thanksgiving is about more than a big family feast featuring a perfectly roasted turkey. It is an opportunity for each of us to reflect on those things for which we are grateful. It is also the time to finish up that quilt you have been working on for a special gift, or to start a wall hanging, table topper or other smaller quilted gift for Christmas.

Today I will be featuring a book in which three quilters found themselves hurrying to finish the quilts they planned to give away at the local nursing home. It is also about a young couple who meet and desire to marry. But, with college to finish, and the job market and money tight, they aren't sure how they are going to manage it. The Fourteenth Quilt is based on a real story. In other words, who could make this stuff up?

Here is the book description:

Annie, Celia and Lynn are all that are left of the Relief Society quilting class, but they are still determined to make baby quilts for the new mothers at church. Annie, who is just south of eighty years old, calls the quiltsters (short for quilting sisters) together to ask for more. She wants to make lap quilts to give to some of the “forgotten” oldsters she sings to each week at the nursing home—something to wrap them in love at Christmastime. It’s a good idea, but the trio discovers that life and making quilts don’t always go as planned.

The quiltsters discuss recipes and quilting ideas including a crocheted cat mat to use up their fabric selvage and trim scraps, all of which they share in the book.

Sarah and Brian meet at the university. Their first date is after Sarah’s First Saturday Block of the Month class she attends with her mom at the local quilt shop. Their romance grows, and they plan their future together—a plan that will require them to be separated for six months before their wedding. But, can they bear to be apart that long?

What wraps together this Christmas tale? The Fourteenth Quilt. 

Excerpt:

Sarah turned to face Brian only to see him already turned towards her, studying her face. As he leaned his head forward, she leaned in to join him in a quick kiss. She could tell by the way his arm tightened around her he planned to kiss her again, this time longer and deeper. Her lips parted, longing for the kiss that promised to be so sweet only catch sight of a car entering the traffic circle on her right. With an instinct borne of her shyness, she pulled her head back as her eyes followed the car as it traveled the road in front of her, aware Brian had picked up on her mood and his eyes joined hers. Together they rotated their heads as they watched the vehicle travel three-fourths of the circle and exit behind them.

          Sarah and Brian turned towards each other on the bench and once again studied each others’ faces. Sarah smiled as she watched the light of Brian’s laugh in his eyes.

          “You’re not getting out of my kiss that easily, Sarah,” he teased. “No cars in the area. No one walking the streets.”

          Sarah’s smile widened as she slid her arms around Brian’s neck and leaned in to kiss him. It was the sweet kiss she had anticipated. She forgot about the heat on her legs, the perspiration causing her arms to stick rather than to slide. She forgot to care whether or not her nose was turning red on top or was dotted with beads of sweat. All that mattered was Brian and their kiss.

          As the two separated, Sarah’s eyes studied the hint of a smile playing around his mouth. Then he clicked his tongue and shook his head.

          “Wow, Sarah,” he finally said as he looked away.

Purchase Links:

Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble

For an opportunity to win a digital copy of The Fourteenth Quilt, please leave a comment at the bottom of this blog post telling three reasons why you are thankful this Thanksgiving season.

Please visit each of the blogs on the Turkey Trot Blog Hop to learn about the great authors and their books.

For an opportunity to win a $50 Amazon gift card, please CLICK HERE to reach the blog on which to leave a comment.

Thank you for stopping by. Have a great Thanksgiving.

About Robyn Echols:

Robyn Echols has been writing since she was in junior high school. By choice, she spent most of her evening hours in her "dungeon", as her mother called her downstairs bedroom, writing stories, only joining her family in front of the television upstairs when her favorite programs were playing. She has spent hours learning and teaching family history topics, and focuses on history from a genealogist's perspective of seeking out the details of everyday life in the past.

Now Robyn resides with her husband in California near the “Gateway to Yosemite” and has fun researching and writing the books that she hopes will interest and entertain her readers. 

Q & A with Robyn Echols:

Q:  What prompted you to write The Fourteenth Quilt?

Robyn with the original 14th Quilt

Robyn: In 2012 I and two of my friends decided to make baby quilts for the new mothers at church and lap quilts for the residents of the nursing homes where one of those friends performs each week. Shortly after we gave away thirteen lap quilts six days before Christmas, we felt prompted to make one more. The fourteenth quilt ended up taking quite a journey in the seven days between the time the decision to make it arose and when it was delivered. After it was all over, I said to myself, “Someone should write a book about this.” So, I did.

Q:  Is the book only about this quilt at Christmastime?

Robyn: No. The story actually starts in the spring of the same year the fourteenth quilt was made. It includes some of the quilting adventures, successes and disasters experienced by the three quilters. If you are looking for a novel about highly accomplished quilters whose work turns out museum quality every time, this isn’t it. At times our quilting experiences are best described as a comedy of errors.

Q:  What is the “young love” in the sub-title all about?

Robyn:  The daughter of one of the quilters fell in love that year. The story of the young couple in the book is almost entirely fictional. Only the scene where they crossed paths with the fourteenth quilt is based on real events.

Q:  Speaking of fictional, how much of the book is based on real events and how much is made up?

Robyn:  The scenes involving secondary characters and barely mentioned characters are fictionalized. They are there to support the overall plot of the book. All the names except for Archie the cat have been changed to protect the guilty – er, the innocent. Most of the quilting experiences of the three quilters along with the scene at church the Sunday before Christmas are fictionalized versions of real events. ­­In other words, who could make this stuff up?

Q:  Explain the references to blog posts at the end of some of the chapters.

Robyn: I did not take a lot of photos to support this book. After all, I had no idea it was a story worth retelling until the end. However, during the time these events took place I took some pictures and wrote up some blog posts on my personal blog. Because of the publication costs, I did not attempt to include these images directly in the book. Instead, I chose to dedicate the month of September 2015 to posting or reposting six articles or photo collections to support the book on my Quilt Gateway blog (I took the name from the Gateway Quilt Guild to which I belong). You can access them by going to http://quiltgateway.blogspot.com and searching through the history for the month of September 2015.

Q:  Do you plan to write more books about quilters?

Although I quite often touch on quilting in some of my stories, I have no plans at this time to write a book primarily about quilters. Then again, I had no idea I would write The Fourteenth Quilt until I lived the story.