I have shelves
loaded with books in the studio. When I buy a book I typically read it and then shelve it, where it sits... forever. When my Guild advertised a book sale at an upcoming meeting it piqued my interest as far as what I might actually already
own, lurking right under my own nose. I certainly have books that I can cull, and I will... eventually. But for the next few months or so I am going to examine (reexamine) my personal quilting book library. I pulled
this one out today and read through it while my grandson was napping. It is an excellent book for considering when choosing the
what,
where and
how of quilting a piece. The book uses a logical approach to thinking about that next step such as: how will the quilt be used, what is the timeline for completion and what is your skill level, all valid considerations. I bought this book before I had Sundance, when I was machine quilting on a domestic machine, and the book is set up that way; for domestic machine quilting and hand quilting too, but the same principles apply, even is the quilting technique being used today is a longarm machine. There's also a chapter on scale and proportion which I think is never discussed enough. Visiting my own library today has energized me for my next quilting adventure. What's collecting dust on your shelves that can be pulled out, reread, and celebrated all over again? Have a look, you might just be surprised; I was! Now, I must figure out how a way to arrange my books... by author, by title, by subject matter? I'm leaning toward the latter as that seems to make the most sense to me, then I will most likely alphabetize by author within each subgroup. I have never had an organized approach to categorizing my books, I know that it would make me happy and save searching time if I used a method more orderly than my current willy-nilly shelving style.
Life is Good!
6 comments:
This is getting strange--yesterday the quilt blocking, today the books. I just came from my sewing room where I was sorting through my quilting books. My Mom wants to see some of my more recent additions to try and choose the next quilt she wants to make. As I was going through them I found several I forgot I had, and others I think I no longer need. I have tried to limit my book purchases (not always successful) and only have two shelves of quilting books. One shelf is pattern books, and the other shelf is about machine quilting. Now I need to check into the book you shared--I might need to add that one. : )
I recently went through my quilting books to donate ones I no longer need. Having them organized by subject matter helps. I placed my books in magazine organizers, that way I van just pull the entire category when I am searching for something.
I have sorted and re-sorted books ... in the end, they are shelved by the colors of their spines so that the visual is appealing. No matter how I tried previously (author, subject, etc.), the lines became blurry and the topics overlapped into chaos.
I've had them by color for 2-3 years now and find it easy to maintain and easy to search through.
I organized my quilting books by subject. When I did so, I found not one, not two, but THREE copies of the same book. Granted, I bought one and the other two were gifts (one of those is even inscribed to me) but really. Three?
What a timely subject. I need to continue organizing/unpacking the quilting room in our new (to us) house ... I have soooooo many books that it's almost embarrassing BUT I love each and every one of them. I know I have multiple copies of some titles and will organize by author (first) to see what those duplicate are. Donations are in my future .... of that I am certain. Good topic!
I have a lot of books too. I'm thinking I want to organize them by color :)
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