Category — Books / Magazines

I picked up a couple of books last week. One of them was Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters. I had been thinking about getting this book ever since it came out (Angela is widely known in the quilting community as being an AMAZING quilter), but I wasn’t quite sure what it was all about and if I needed it. I noticed a few other bloggers were being inspired to try new free motion quilting designs after getting the book and decided to see what it was all about.

I have many quilt books I like, many I love. I mostly use them for inspiration. This is one of the few books I can honestly say needs to be in your quilt book library. (And no, I wasn’t paid or asked to say that. )

Angela provides detailed, step by step instruction on how to make a huge variety of free motion quilting designs. She breaks them down so well that even a novice can figure out what to do.

As soon as I opened the book and started to absorb how much awesome information was in there, I dropped all my current projects, ran to my sewing room, and made some quilt sandwiches. I needed to try everything immediately!

Obviously I have more work to do, but this is my first try and it’s not horrible. I am particularly desperate to perfect some of the swirl designs.

Now Angela is a long arm quilter, but these designs can be done on a home sewing machine as long as you are set up for free motion quilting.

I had made a few quilting sample sandwiches several months ago to practice different types of quilting…

And now I plan to make a sandwich for my favorite designs from Angela’s book as well.

I’m back! I had a great few days away in Michigan and am now busy unpacking from our trip and getting ready for my sister and her family to arrive in town tomorrow! While I was gone, one of my lovely readers emailed me and told me she found the latest copy of Modern Quilting Magazine, with my Pick Up Sticks pattern, at her Barnes & Noble. You can read more about the quilt and magazine here. On our drive home I stopped at the bookstore and found my own copy.

The issue is the one with “Meet Tula Pink” on the cover (Issue 2). While I was flipping through the magazine looking for my quilt and pattern, I saw this!

Not gonna lie, I was pretty excited to see my blog photo. It was all I could do not to bust out and tell the check out girl about it. She already was looking at me weird for buying a quilting magazine with a giant smile on my face. Ha

So if you are interested in making the quilt or seeing any of the other wonderful patterns in the magazine, go check out your local Barnes & Noble. The magazine is $10 (as it is an international magazine).

I also thought I’d share a few fun pictures from our weekend. We were up at Crystal Lake in northern Michigan. The water is really this clear.

The kids did their first tubing with Mr. Fresh Lemons. You don’t think they liked it do you?

Even my husband’s 91 year old grannie took a jet ski out.

Bonfires…

Sunset…

I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday. It’s almost the weekend again!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Today we are going to celebrate by checking out Pat Sloan’s new book, Focus on the Center. So pull up chair, grab your margarita of choice and let’s take a look!

Focus on the Center, published by Leisure Arts, is all about quilts with an interesting center. I have some definitely favorites…

I think I might make just the center of this one…

Using maybe this fabric…what do you think?

Want a chance to win the book? Leisure Arts has been nice enough to give away copies of this book to TWO of you! All you need to do is leave a comment. I will pick the winners Monday evening, May 7th.

If you want even *more* chances to win the book, each of the stops this week on the blog hop are giving away another TWO books – as well as Pat herself! All the giveaways end on May 7th, so there is still time to enter them all.

Tuesday May 1
Carrie http://lavieenrosie.typepad.com/lavieenrosie/
Vanessa http://www.vanessachristenson.com/

Wednesday May 2
Bonnie Hunter http://quiltville.blogspot.com/
Michele http://quiltinggallery.com/blog-posts/

Thursday May 3
Victoria http://bumblebeansinc.blogspot.com/
Rachel http://www.psiquilt.com/

Friday May 4
Jackie http://cvquiltworks.blogspot.com/
Dana http://www.oldredbarnco.blogspot.com/

Saturday May 5
Vicki Welsh http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/
Me! (Saving the best for last??) http://www.freshlemonsquilts.com/

Good luck everyone!

++ Closing comments to pick the winners! ++

Congratulations to the winners!
#96 Cathy said “I love your fabric choices. Would love to win this book.”

++++ Edited…since the email address doesn’t work for one of our winners, I selected another. #185, Mags! Congratulations! ++++

A few months back I mentioned that I was going to be in a book! It seems like forever ago that this process started with a submission request for quilt blocks. I want to say it was before Labor Day, 2010. Well a couple of weeks ago I finally received my copies of the book and I must say, seeing my name actually *in* a book was pretty exciting.

The book is called Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers. Here is a picture of my block in the book, called Boxed In.

You can use this pattern to make something similar to my Echino Squared quilt, simply by incorporating white into each quadrant.

I really think this book has something for everyone. I brought it home to show my family over Thanksgiving. My mom (who is more of a traditional quilter) found lots of blocks she liked and so did my sister (who is a modern quilter).

It is available on Amazon and maybe even at your local quilt shop. If you make any blocks from this book, be sure to post them in the Flickr group!