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Joen's Monthly Letter January 11, 2007 Dear Quilters, Happy 2007! I love the beginning of a new year. It?s a time to get organized, rethink, and cleanout. I welcome the blustery, harsh weather, as it keeps me focused on this work. So, this is one of my favorite times of the year. As I gaze outside to beautiful sunlit snow, I hope for great productivity this January. This week I completed one task that makes me very happy. I finished proofreading the design draft of my upcoming book Visual Coloring. I am very excited about this book, which will be released this spring. Visual Coloring is a book written for quilters who want a quick, easy method to select colors (and fabrics) for their quilts. This book presents the method I devised for myself when I began my first exploration in color. Sixteen years ago I wrote The Magical Effects of Color, an academic book about color theory. I loved writing this book, and I am honored that it still remains a very popular book. Later, realizing that many quilters would prefer a less detailed color book, I wrote Color Play. It is a colorful, basic color book filled with visuals. I loved writing this book too. More recently, I have come to the realization that color theory is not everyone?s cup of tea. I also believe that everyone wants to make beautiful quilts. These two thoughts brought me back to an earlier time when I devised a simple method to select colors and fabrics for my own quilts. I love the method, its simplicity, and its almost foolproof success. Thinking that many others may be interested in this color method, I have written Visual Coloring?A Foolproof Approach to Color-rich Quilts. Besides pages of colorful instructions in this new book, I hope you will be delighted with the almost three-dozen quilts of diverse techniques and styles?all made by quilters using visual coloring. I think the quilts are wonderful. Yet again, I loved working on this book, and I hope you, too, will love this book. Well, it?s best to get back to my reorganizing and cleaning up. So, from snowy Puget Sound, I bid you goodbye and happy quilting! Happy quilting! Joen