Making a 'Tall Tales' Penguin Classics Book Quilt (part 1)

Making a book quilt has got to be one of my absolute favourite things to do…being as I love books and I love making quilts…and the idea of combining patchwork and embroidery with literary gems that are close to my heart makes this project such a fun project to work on. It’s going to be not just a quilt, but an embroidered wall hanging laden with literary references. A while ago, I made a ‘Book Nerd’ Quilt from the fabulous pattern by Angela Pingel. You can read about that here if you are interested. However, when I saw the ‘Tall tales’ quilt block pattern, I thought it was time to change things up a little and decided I would like to make it more themed with some interesting touches. One of my new years resolutions was to read some classic books and somehow the two projects have melted into one and I began a Penguin Classics Book Quilt.

The ‘Tall Tales’ quilt block was designed by Kate Basti and is available via the link at the foot of this post. It is foundation pieced, but really straightforward once you get the hang of it and there is tons of inspiration on instagram for colour ways and feature fabric ideas. I decided to make 9 blocks as this was going to be a wall hanging and did enlarge the pattern a little on my printer. The subject matter of all the covers of these Penguin Classic books is so interesting and varied and draws on many sources worldwide, so they are perfect subjects for the tall tales block. I wanted to keep the theme of the Penguin black classics so decided on a black background with orange and golden linen borders that I plan to embroider.

I wanted to try to capture the essence of this series of books by making labels which followed their style. On my laptop, I created labels that looked like they would work and then I printed them out 3 to a sheet on kona cotton backed with light weight iron interfacing to give the fabric a little stiffness. It took me a few goes to get it all exactly right and then I pressed the labels with a really hot iron to set the ink.

My choice of books has evolved over the course of a couple of months. Some of them I read, some of them I listened to as audio books and in the case of ‘North & South’ I ended up doing both because I loved it so much. Here’s a little bit about each book and why I included it in my quilt.

Block 1 : Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens: I figured Mr. Dickens should be on my quilt as his works are a cornerstone of english literature. As a small child, my Dad would read ‘A Christmas Carol’ to me in December and he is ever present in the english psyche, from the classroom to movies like ‘Oliver’ which stole the nations hearts in the 1960’s to wonderful BBC tv adaptations of the novels that are always laden with a cast of fascinating characters. Little Dorrit is a tremendous novel and was easy to listen to in the sewing room in the afternoons. It’s a novel that has everything - rags to riches to rags; a mystery carried across a generation and the world; a bubbling love story; a family and all its foibles and a central character who navigates her way through all of it with a quiet dignity that wins the day in the end. I was delighted with the piece of feature fabric which just seems to fit the story perfectly and is perfect in terms of colours too.

Block 2: The Wings of the Dove by Henry James : now here I have a confession to make - this book is my summer holiday pick and yet to be read. Apart from the obvious book cover love, this novel is on the quilt for two reasons: I have come across a lot about Henry James and his travels in europe in different books and articles and this story is set in Venice…come on …. if you know me at all, you know that’s a winner from the ‘getgo’.

Block 3: Emma by Jane Austen : well, Ms. Austen had to be on here really didn’t she? I might have gone for Pride and Prejudice but as ‘Emma’ was the book club read with Miranda Mills online comfort book club (link at the end - it’s fab) it was a chance for a revisit. It’s a glorious book that everyone knows and I especially like this edition by Penguin Classics and as it happened, I had this gorgeous piece of fabric that my daughter had given me that worked just perfectly. Sometimes it is good to buy fabric, even if you aren’t sure what you will use it for at the time and this was an example.

Block 4: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell : a total revelation for me. I have to say that a while ago I watched the 2004 tv adaptation of this and it is absolutely wonderful, but for some reason, it didn’t prompt me to read the book. Recently I came across it again and watched it over a weekend and then I got the audio book and then I got the book. It is truly an oft forgotten masterpiece and dare I say, I think I might even prefer it to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. The two authors knew each other and both wrote about the north of England but Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel struck an unexpected chord with me. I was born and grew up in the North, but my mother was from the South and I was often there visiting grandparents and family in London and the south coast. I remember being a small girl and a rather ‘oscar wild-ish’ great aunt exclaiming in front of everyone ‘don’t speak like that child!’. My yorkshire accent, acquired from school, was swiftly replaced with the so called ‘queen’s english’. I found that I could swap between the two easily and so it was, and not just the way of speaking, but the culture thing as well. So this book was just a delight to me, although the heroine, Margaret Hale is a southerner, shocked to find her circumstances take her to the alien north. She is a truly fantastic character though and the book is easy to read and spectacularly well written. I think I would even go so far as to say it should be a school text and although set in Victorian times, many of the issues are as relevant today as they were then. I love this block best of all because of all this and I am happy it’s in my project.

Block 5: The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton : perhaps my favourite book cover of them all and I’m rather pleased with this feature fabric that worked beautifully for the block. Edith Wharton is an author who holds quite a fascination for me and after visiting some of the splendid houses on Rhode Island, a few years ago, the wealthy society of edwardian times is for sure a great subject for a novel. Ondine is the most annoying protagonist …. I didn’t love the book, but I loved the vibe and it reminds me of that trip to the States and happy days.

Block 6: The Complete Poems by Emily Bronte : I am not sure if it trendy or not say that you like poetry, but in actual fact I have always liked poetry and only recently returned to reading it having put the whole concept away in my late teenage years. Recently I watch a BBC programme about Wordsworth and Coleridge presented by Frank Skinner and discovered that he has a poetry pod cast which is just tremendous. This book of poems was a wonderful surprise to me, although I am not sure why. We live just a few miles from the Bronte Parsonage at Howarth and have visited it many, many times. A lot of Yorkshire folk love ‘Wuthering Heights’ and its drama is enhanced by knowing the moors and dales that the Bronte girls wandered in, but I always preferred Jane Eyre. I turned to this book after seeing a quotation on an instagram post that I thought was just magical and have found many of the poems to be really rather lovely.

“There are no yellow stars on the mountain;

The bluebells have long died away,

From the brink of the moss-bedded fountain;

From the side of the wintry brae.

But lovelier than corn-fields all waving

In emerald, and vermeil and gold,

Are the heights where the north-wind is raving

And the crags were I wandered of old.”

Block 7: The Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim : What a read! Absolutely gorgeous book and I was prompted to read it as the #Comfort Book club read in Spring. Lovely story about four women who end up sharing a villa in Italy for a month and as their stories unravel, friendships form and unlikely results start to happen. Gentle, charming and great holiday read. The book cover on this Penguin Classic Book is just divine and I knew I had the perfect fabric just waiting for it, left over from a bag making project. This print of Gustav Klimt's painting is almost identical to the book cover and it fits in perfectly with the muted colours of this piece.

The Lady of the Camellias by Alexandre Dumas (Fils) : This was an unusual read for me and I found it in rather an off kilter way. While reading a random post (as you do) by a book blogger a couple of years ago, it had come up as their book of the year and a novel that they couldn’t put down. I was intrigued. First of all because of the french connection - having lived in Paris for 5 years and also having visited Alexandre Dumas’ house, but second because I didn’t realise that his son was also a writer and on further investigation, I found that this book had originally been better known than his father’s ‘The three musketeers’. Used as the basis for a 1936 Greta Garbo film in the 1930’s and also for the movie ‘Moulin Rouge’ it is a wonderful tale of Paris, tragedy and love lost. A real period piece, written in 1848, it also mentioned the area in which we lived and I was simply astonished that I had never read it. Definitely a great read that stands the test of time.

Block 9 : The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin

I seem to have been reading a few books around this subject and Mr Darwin including ‘Unsheltered’ by Barbara Kingsolver, ‘The Coral Thief’ by Rebecca Stott and ‘The Ghost in the Garden’ by Jude Piesse and have also been working on a needlepoint seat cover inspired by a visit to the Natural History Museum in London and so I wanted a reference point on the quilt to place it in this time. This book is dense and probably I would class it as a dip in book. Charles Darwin was an exceptional man, who changed history and I am happy to have a little block to pay homage to him here, not to mention (well maybe I will…) all the wonderful motifs that I can use to embellish the borders.

I am making a plan now of how to embroider it and all I can say at this stage is that it will be a series of inkings - pattern, motifs and stencils to somehow whirl around this little world of literature. It is a slow burner of a project, but of course I will be charting my progress here on the journal so hope you will pop back and see how I am getting on.

Meanwhile happy summer holidays everyone and see you soon….

Ruby xx

Useful links:

Tall tales quilt block is available here on Etsy or here from Kate’s website

A good foundation piecing tutorial is here

Miranda Mills book club is wonderful and you can find her here