Christmas on My Heart: The Christmas Glory Quilt by Cathe Swanson

Personal Essay by Cathe Swanson about her book,
The Christmas Glory Quilt:

I had so much fun writing The Christmas Glory Quilt! It’s a classic “write what you know” book. To start with, I’m a quiltmaker. I started sewing garments and other projects when I was a young child, but it wasn’t until I was in my 20’s that I made my first real quilt. I was hooked. That was beginning of a long career as a quilter, designer, and teacher of quiltmaking.

A writer friend urged me to write books with quilts in them, but I resisted, certain that market was already overcrowded. Then I came up with a brilliant idea: I would write books and design quilts for each one, offering the pattern as a bonus for early purchasers and then selling it separately later. I still think it’s a brilliant idea, but I hadn’t thought it through. Designing and making quilts, as well as drafting patterns, takes as long as writing books! Still, I’m happy with the results, and I have the whole Glory Quilts series mapped out!

The Christmas Glory Quilt is about a large, homeschooling family in Minnesota, with a strong Swedish heritage, an old family farm, and an avid genealogist great aunt. Oh, yeah... got all that. The settings and seasons are familiar from my childhood. Now, having migrated all the way to Wisconsin, I enjoy visiting my family who (all) still live there.

Family – the extended, multigenerational family – is important to me. As the Glory Quilts series progresses, there will be more of the Andersons’ family history woven into the contemporary plots. Great Aunt Violet has been chronicling their stories in quilts, like scrapbooks, and she’s come across a new family mystery – a family heirloom, buried long ago, and no one is left to tell her why it was hidden!

I especially enjoy celebrating my ethnic heritage at Christmas, with so many Scandinavian traditions and foods, and I included several of them in this book. I even included some of my personal opinions of the St. Lucy processions – not only dangerous, but extremely gruesome and odd!

The one part of this book that required extensive research is the heroine’s dyslexia. In addition to the usual online research, I had an invaluable advisor, a specialist in remediating dyslexia in children and adults. I learned so much!

We are blessed to live in an age where dyslexia is diagnosed early and can be remediated. Previous generations, like Great Uncle Olof, were just labeled illiterate, too dumb to learn to read.

Penny Anderson is smart, creative and ambitious. She just has trouble reading. Determined to make a success of her business, designing bridal gowns, she’s not going to let dyslexia define or limit her.

The Christmas Glory Quilt is the first in the Glory Quilts series. The next one, The Swedehearts Glory Quilt, will appear in the Betwixt Two Hearts collection in February.

The Christmas Glory Quilt is available now in paperback, but you can only get the Kindle version in the 2018 Christmas Lights collection: Comfort & Joy. The collection features inspirational Christmas stories from Toni Shiloh, Alana Terry and Chautona Havig – and me! It’s available exclusively on Amazon, for just 99 cents, and – as always – free for Kindle Unlimited subscribers. 

*You can learn more about my quilting at www.gloryquilts.com. 

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Author Bio: 

Cathe Swanson, the author of the Great Lakes series, enjoys gardening, sewing, papercrafting and kayaking on the beautiful Wisconsin rivers. 

She’s been teaching quiltmaking for over 25 years, focusing on retreat workshops, ministry events and bridal quilt bees, and is finally bringing that experience and enthusiasm to her newest series, the Glory Quilts.

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Book Blurb for The Christmas Glory Quilt:

Scrap quilts, bridal gowns, an old Swedish farmhouse and a hidden family heirloom. What more you could you want in a Minnesota Christmas romance?

Penny Anderson has a dream – she’s going to be an exclusive bridal gown designer, and she won’t held back by dyslexia, a rural location or the doubts of others.

Brian Michaels has waited seven years for Penny to see him as man instead of just a childhood friend. Can he work up the courage to speak before the tall, dark and handsome business consultant sweeps her off her feet?

Aunt Violet is interested in only two things: Genealogy and quilting. As she chronicles the family history in a series of patchwork quilts, she comes to peace with her own past.

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Buy Comfort & Joy (boxed set) on Amazon

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Connect with Cathe:
Website: http://catheswanson.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CatheSwanson
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/CatheSwanson
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/catheswanson
Instagram: http://instagram.com/CatheSwanson
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/CatheSwanson
BookBub Author Page: http://www.bookbub.com/authors/cathe-swanson
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/catheswanson

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