Pickwick's In the Bag!

    Gentle Readers, if you've been hanging around the blog much, you know that Charles Dickens is my buddy.

Here he is.

There is a secret in the books I've written (8, so far) that people don't generally notice. Every single one includes a reference to Dickens. I wrote my Master's thesis on his books; his work has been a major influence on mine ever since.

Back when I wrote Crazy Quilts, I was lucky to find a kid's crazy quilt backed with a 19th century cheater print featuring characters from Dickens' Pickwick Papers.

The Metropolitan Museum in NYC has a piece of it, too. Extremely rare.

See pg. 27. Yes, we still have copies -- write us via Brickworks
You can also buy an e-book version, as well as hard and softcovers, from Amazon.
Check there for sample pages, as well.

I tried EVERYTHING to get my hands on that quilt -- offering to buy it, borrow it. (I may even have thought about stealing it, shame on me.)

No dice. Its owner loved it, too.  It eventually went to The International Quilt Study Center, when she donated her children's quilt collection to them.

Mary Ghormley died in 2015, at the ripe old age of 95.
She was my friend; I miss her still.

Lo and behold, this wonderful Pickwick cheater print was reproduced -- in the 1970s! When it showed up on Ebay recently, yours truly nabbed it.

Now what can I sew with it...
                        Charley would be proud.

Dickens at his desk...pondering quilt designs, no doubt.