Simple Sewing

I'm not part of Katie's amazing blog tour or anything like that, but I do want to tell you about Katie's book.

Probably I'm not part of the blog tour because I didn't begin the post saying something like, "I'm so excited to be part of the blog tour for this amazing little book! It's by Katie, who blogs over at The Red Kitchen…" I just don't have that sewing-craft-blogger voice. But that doesn't mean that I'm not really excited about Katie's book. (Well, that was an awkward sentence. Which is why your English teacher used to tell you to avoid double negatives. Because what I was trying to say is that I am really excited to tell you about Katie's book!!)

The first day I had my very own real honest-to-goodness print copy, I carried it all around the high school and showed the other teachers. The sewing teacher. The teacher who has his own publishing business on the side. The teacher who wrote a YA novel and sent it to an agent but it never made it (yet) to a publisher. The teachers who ask about my grandkids and know my kids' names. The teachers who taught Katie when she was in high school. The teachers who know nothing about sewing or Katie or my grandkids. Yeah, basically anyone who would listen.

Because, do you know just how cool it is when your daughter is a published author!!

Um, it's pretty amazingly cool.

You see books out there on the shelves of stores and libraries, and it's hard to imagine that it hasn't always been…a book. This thing, with the cover and the table of contents and the page numbers and the wonderful story or the dandy information or whatever it is that this particular book is. Books are…books, right?

But I'm the lucky mama who got to watch this book come together, from the time when it was "a twinkle in its author's eye" to the time when my very own copy came in the mail. I got to help Katie proofread some early drafts. I got to be her cheerleader on the sidelines. I got to brainstorm with her when she was writing her book proposal for her publisher (!!).

This book started out as a dream. Then it moved into a notebook filled with instructions and dimensions that came to life when Katie started making patterns and trying out the projects on her sewing machine. (Oh, and that would be the sewing machine that Mark and I gave her as a wedding present.) The book became a photo file with several thousand photos that Katie took to create the step-by-step photos. It turned into hours and hours and hours and hours of Katie working away in her little basement sewing room…or writing away while Olivia was in preschool…or editing again the instructions and the photos because she wanted it all to be right.

She just did it.

And now it's a book. In time for Christmas. Perfect for beginners, no matter the age. Dandy for experienced sewers who want simple, classy, classic ideas they can customize to their heart's content. Ready to jump its cheery little self into homes all over the continent (the world??) to bring sewing goodness to everyone.

Can I share with you the best moment?

It was opening up the cover and reading the dedication: "To my mother, who taught me how to sew. And write."

Oh, and then to turn the page to the acknowledgements and read, "Heartfelt thanks to my mother…"

And then finally, in the author bio at the back of the book: "She first learned how to sew as a child in her mother's makeshift sewing room and this early love of creating has continued throughout her life."

I'll say. We used to call her the Engineer because she was constantly twisting wire and bits of this and that into…this and that.

Thanks, Katie. Thanks for letting me share those things with you. They mattered to me, and I'm glad they matter to you, too.

Anyway, it probably won't surprise you too much to hear that when I was dragging my bee-you-tee-ful copy of Simple Sewing  around the high school that I sometimes introduced it as my "newest grandchild." It's just pretty darn amazing.

And then, last night when I stopped in at Barnes and Noble just to see it on the shelf, the clerk told me they were all sold out and they would call me when the next shipment comes in. (Go, little book, go!!) So when he asked me, did I give him my number? You bet your little sewing book.