Category — Books / Magazines

Don’t worry, I didn’t just whip this quilt up in the last few days. (You probably figured that out based on the weather in the photo here.) Last December, I had the great opportunity to make a new, larger version and pattern of my baby Starfall quilt for Modern Quilts Unlimited, Spring 2013 issue.

I originally made this quilt for the class I co-taught at the Sewing Summit – Shapes and Angles. This quilt was an example of what you can make using the Partial Seams technique. (Speaking of…I do plan on *finally* putting up a tutorial for partial seams very soon.)

I fell in love, hard, with Denyse Schmidt’s Chicopee collection last year. So much so, that I made this second quilt out of the same fabrics. I mixed in a few fabrics from her DS Quilts Collections from JoAnns and one perfect green print from Anna Maria Horner’s Good Folks collection.

The background is all various shades of neutral fabrics, from Free Spirit Designer Solids and Moda Bella Solids.

The finished quilt measure 60″ x 72″ and I quilted it with straight lines, 1/2″ apart. As usual, that took awhile but was more than worth it in the end.

I definitely recommend picking up the magazine – not just for my quilt but for all the others inside. It’s full of beautiful patterns by all sorts of names you will probably recognize (Rossie Hutchinson, Patty Sloniger, Patty Young, Elizabeth Dackson, Victoria Findlay Wolfe and many others) and a great article about Negative Space by Jacquie Gehring.

I believe subscribers already should have their copies, and you will be able to find it at shops soon (if not already).

This post is going to be all over the place. But that’s not always a bad thing, right? I’ve been busy sewing over the last couple of weeks. Not really finishing anything but making good progress.

First up, my Arkansas Traveler quilt. After lots of cutting, sewing diamonds, paper piecing those diamonds, trimming, trimming and trimming, I have 96+ blocks! It really feels like a huge milestone.

You can find a tutorial to make this block on Lee of Freshly Pieced’s site. Those of you with an eagle eye might notice my template is a little different than the one from the Summer Sampler Series. I’m trying out something new Lee came up with, less seams, but maybe a little trickier to assemble the final block, depending on how you feel about sewing together shapes other than squares.

I know I said I wasn’t going to share my final design until I was done. I guess I lied. Here’s the plan! This weekend/next week I’m hoping to finish the quilt top assembly.

As a bit of a personal reward for finishing all those components, I cut into the little pack of Liberty of London Lifestyle fabric I picked up at Quilt Con.

I knew I wanted to pair it with some Essex Linen in Natural. I thought it would look super cute as one of Anna’s Open Wide Pouches. Great pattern, as usual! I made the smallest size because I only had a 10″ zipper on hand. (I bought my metal zipper from Zip It on Etsy.)

The inside is Stamped by Ellen Luckett Baker for Kokka.

This week I also performed a little surgery on my local Modern Quilt Guild challenge quilt top. You can read up on the sadness of unmatching white fabric here.

I finished the top yesterday (happy dance!) and will share the finished quilt next week. That is a promise – it’s due Thursday!

I also have been lucky enough to receive some new fabric in the mail this week.

Windham was kind enough to send some of Lotta Jansdotter’s Glimma Canvas for me to check out. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with canvas so I’m pretty excited to try something out. They also sent a charm pack of Ride, Julia Rothman’s second collection. I seriously love the little bicycle wheels. My son has already claimed this for his own, so I’m thinking of using it in some way to make him a tote bag for the library.

I also had a very happy surprise from Moda Fabrics – three layer cakes of upcoming collections.

These are S’More Love by Eric and Julie Comstock, Simply Style by Vanessa of V and Co, and Honeysweet by Fig Tree & Co. (Seriously, I don’t know how I got so lucky!)

I decided to immediately cut into Vanessa’s fabric because, well, I think she’s pretty fun. I found a block in 163 Favorite Patchwork Patterns : Japanese Craft Book, an awesome book I purchased a few months ago from The Workroom in Canada.

I had some questions on Instagram about this book. It is all in Japanese. There are diagrams that help give ideas about block assembly, but there are no directions or sizes in English. If you like a challenge and are good at figuring things out, this is the book for you. I do, and really, what do you have to lose except a little bit of fabric? Keeps my old mind sharp.

So anyway, I picked this cool design…

And started to layout a couple blocks…

And then something funny happened. I made these up at pretty much the exact same time Lee was writing up her post to announce her planned Bloom Bloom Pow Quilt Along with a very similar block! Yesterday morning we had a good laugh about how we must be totally on the save wave length after writing the book together. So! If you like the block, are interested in making the block, you are in luck because Lee’s about to start her quilt along and will have tutorials for you. Her block just has some great additional shading.

Phew! I hope some of you made it through all that! Next week is Spring Break here. (As I ignore the -4 degree wind chill and snow outside…) I’m not really sure if that means I’ll get more sewing done (not driving the kids all over the place) or less (more play time with the kids!). We’ll see. My newly 4 year old wants to put on a kid art show in the house, so we have big crafting plans. Very exciting! Have a great weekend everyone!

I’ve been waiting to write this post for what feels like a very long time. In fact, it has almost been 15 months since Katie emailed Lee and I and asked the big question – would we be interested in writing a book together? Fast forward to today and the projects are finished, the patterns are written, the photos are taken….and we are very, very excited to finally “spill the beans”.

Vintage Quilt Revival: 22 Modern Designs from Classic Blocks is a book full of projects focused on my favorite little corner of the quilting world, Modern Traditionalism. We aren’t allowed to share too much just yet. But see those Sampler blocks on the cover? Each one of those has it’s own project that uses the traditional blocks in an exciting, updated, beautiful, unexpected way. I wish I could say more. And show more pictures. Such torture! Let’s just say I am extremely proud of every project in this book.

Katie, Lee and I have known each other for about three years now and I could probably gush for pages and pages about how lucky I am to have them as friends and co-authors. We are very excited to share more with you over the next several months as we get closer to the release date at the end of the year.

Welcome to my stop of the Stitch Savvy Blog Tour! I was thrilled last month when author Deborah Moebes (of Whipstitch Fabrics) asked if I would like to review her latest book, Stitch Savvy: 25 Skill-Building Projects to Take Your Sewing Technique to the Next Level. This is Deborah’s second book, and in a way a sequel to Stitch by Stitch: Learning to Sew, One Project at a Time.

When the book arrived and I started flipping through it, I had some initial, non-content related impressions. First, it’s spiral bound – yay! Please tell me I’m not alone when I say I seriously get giddy over spiral bound craft books. I love having a book lay flat when I’m working on a project. Yes, it’s the little things in life. Second, there is a CD at the back of the book full of the patterns. I love this too! No spending time over at the copy shop scanning and enlarging pattern pieces. Third, this is a long book, there is a LOT of content in here. It’s over 200 pages!

The book is broken down into 5 sections – Home Decor, Patchwork and Quilting, Bags, Sewing for Children, and Clothing. That’s a huge variety of projects in one book.

I would say I’m primarily a quilter but I do like to try my hand at other things – sewing for my home, bags, clothing, sewing for my kids. There are lots of project in this book I would make. The above curtains would be great for my house. They are simple, classy and have some light embroidery at the bottom. Definitely something my husband and I could agree on for the house.

I am really drawn to this improvisational wall hanging.

So many bags, but I’m especially excited about the clutch with the metal frame. (The project on the cover of the book.)

I feel like everyone around me is having babies – how cute is this lovey?

And clothing – a knit top! Do I dare? It’s super cute so I just might.

Deborah also dives into a lot of topics that scare and mystify many of us – sewing with knits, buttonholes, installing invisible zippers, working with silks, selecting the right interfacing… These tips are scattered throughout the book like little bits of treasure.

Besides the book being broken down into the obvious sections or chapters, there are also work paths you can take through it. For example, after making the Sashiko Window Treatment I showed above, the book guides you to similarly styled projects such as the A-Line Skirt with Peek-a-Book Pleat (clean lines) or the Everyday Shoulder Bag (adding embroidery embellishments).

If you are looking for a book with a huge variety of projects, I think you will very pleased with Stitch Savvy. Thank you to Deborah and F+W Media for letting me check it out!