Amy Barickman’s love of textiles started at a young age.
Barickman, who is now a Prairie Village resident, grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, where her mother, Donna, owned a textile store that sold patterns for fabric projects and hosted craft classes, ultimately getting into quilting.
Her passion for the arts veered away from textiles when Barickman studied fine arts at the University of Kansas in the late 1980s, with emphases on jewelry making and glass blowing.
Through her mother, Barickman found her way back to textiles. She ultimately started her own companies, Indygo Junction and Amy Barickman Creative, that offer sewing patterns, fabric-related books and guidance for other textile projects.
Aside from her family, Barickman’s love of fabric projects is only rivaled by one other thing: Her “forever friends,” the relationships she built as a student at KU.
“Those friends that you don’t talk to for a few months and you pick right back up and there’s always comfort and joy when you connect with them,” Barickman said. “I’m fortunate that we’ve stayed so well connected.”
Through her new book, “Love You to Pieces: A Gift of Friendship,” Barickman hopes to inspire readers to share in the joy of friendship and creating with their hands.
“Love You to Pieces” features a single poem about a “special friend,” describing what friends might do for each other or experience together over time.
A single sentence, clause or phrase from the poem is displayed every two pages next to pictures of corresponding quilts and stuffed animals or dolls.
The book features quilts from Barickman’s collection
Barickman owns a few hundred quilts in her collection.
When she had the idea to blend her passion for quilts and textiles with her deep friendships, Barickman said she started pairing quilts from her collection with quotes from the poem and the stuffed doll and animals in the book.
“I started companioning them together, and it was just like almost like magic how the quilt worked so well back with the characters,” Barickman said.
Barickman said the process of matching quilts to the stuffed dolls and animals in the book took roughly three to four months.
“A little sunshine”
As a KU student decades ago, Barickman joined a sorority, Pi Beta Phi, and fostered friendships with other chapter members.
When she wrote the poem for the book, which is focused on friendships, Barickman said she thought of her entire group of friends.
Barickman said she remains close with friends she’s had since college, some of whom inspired her to write the poem. They’ve all participated in an annual ornament exchange since college, she said.
“As you get older, I think you just value your friendships even more than when you’re younger,” Barickman said.
With “Love You to Pieces,” Barickman said she hopes readers gift copies to friends as a way to bring them “a little sunshine in a sometimes sour world.”
The book includes patterns for “fabric treasures”
Barickman’s book includes a QR code that features patterns for three vintage dolls featured in the book, Yo-Yo Clown, Sock Monkey and Sunshine Polly.
Barickman also created corresponding YouTube tutorials for each of the three patterns.
That same QR code that shares patterns and YouTube tutorials also takes readers to a history of quilting, Barickman said.
Barickman said she encourages readers who need help finding supplies for these projects — particularly now that Joann Fabrics in Overland Park is closed — to call their local quilt shops.
“It’s been difficult (without Joann Fabrics), particularly when it comes to price and affordability,” Barickman said. “But what people are learning, because they’re being driven to these local independent quilt shops, is they’re learning about quality fabric.”
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