Book Review – Quilter’s Desk Diary 2013

Since the Christmas in July season is upon us, it seemed apt to look at a diary for next year as my next book review. I don’t particularly enjoy talking about the C word until at least October, and even then only in the context of making some homebrew or spreading the cost of presents.

Anyway, here is the cover of the diary…

Quilter’s Desk Diary 2013 really is a desk diary. It’s hardbacked, a bit big for a handbag (a bit bigger than A5) and it doesn’t have all of that personal information and notable dates pages at the start, it leaps straight into 31st December 2012. This doesn’t bother me because I’m going to use it for birthday reminders (because we always forget someone’s birthday), blog post ideas and targets for getting my quilts finished for forthcoming shows and mailing deadlines for online swaps, etc. With a week to a full page there’s certainly enough room to put in those sorts of reminders.

So what makes it a Quilter’s Diary? Well the left hand page of each week’s spread has a lovely quilt photograph with a little bit of text about it. These feature projects you can make from books also published by David & Charles. It has some Pam and Nicky in there which is great, but I’m not so keen on the Japanese style ones but I know some of you will love those. Here’s some more examples of my favourite pages…

And this one is on my birthday week- a really intriguing painted quilt. I may actually check ‘The Painted Quilt’ book out on payday (it’s half price at RUCraft) as I love art quilts.

The details of the books featured are listed at the back. I actually own a lot of these and can thoroughly recommend The Quilter’s Bible, it taught me everything I’ve ever wanted and needed to know about the craft and I still refer to it often.

If I was grading the diary out of 10 I’d probably give it a 6- I’d have scored it more if it felt a bit less like a book advert and if it had a ribbon to mark the page- essential I think since this book is not spiralbound and so therefore doesn’t lay flat. I don’t think I would personally spend £9.99 (RRP) on any diary either, but I’m a cheapskate!

The Quilter’s Diary 2013 is currently available for preorder at RUCraft at £7.49, but it should be available very soon.