Ruin commemorative quilt

When I began to think about a cover for the novel The Ruin, I thought seriously about approaching my daughter about creating a quilt that I could photograph and use as the cover design. What I had in mind was a dream scene in the book. I had tried to make it a psychedelic sunrise over the canyon with the boy Cliff and an Indian who appears to him on the rimrock. But I thought, although I knew she could do it and it would be beautiful, it would take her weeks, perhaps months to design, dye fabric, and execute. She is an elementary teacher and a project such as that would require too heavy a drain on her time and was unrealistic. 


So consider my amazement when at our family Christmas get together I began opening a box and became obvious that the box contained a quilt. With anxious fingers I untied a cloth band that held the rolled about 25 inch wide quilt and began to unroll it. Across the room my daughter watched as well as the rest of the assembled family. Her son held his new video camera with the red light blinking. A greenish background held an earthtone square with a depiction of a cave and The Ruin nestled in a dark cave. I turned it over and read the inscription. "The Ruin in honor of the publication of your book. Pieced and quilted by Janelle Rebick, December 2010. Intuitive piecing with hand dyed fabric."

She had captured the color and feeling of the sandstone canyon and ruin of the book so well and with such simplicity. If there is a future issue of the book, it will surely be the cover.


Respectfully,
Kenneth Fenter