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.

My Liberated Sampler is complete! As I mentioned in my original post, I decided to make a small sampler of “liberated” or “wonky” quilt blocks as an example of a specific type of modern quilting for a presentation I’m giving next week. I think the final quilt came pretty darn close to the Photoshop mockup I created. This wonky churn dash is one of my favorites.

I have received a lot of comments and emails about this quilt in the last week, most asking for a pattern. Well…I don’t have a pattern – at least not at the moment. It is something I am considering, but I just made these blocks up as I went. But I don’t want to leave you all with nothing, so I did some Googling (is that a word?) and have some tutorial links for you.

· Wonky Star Tutorial by Silly BooDilly
· Wonky String Block by Malka Dubrawsky
· Nine Patch using “Map of the States” technique by Oh, Fransson
· Churn Dash by Sew JOY Creations
· Cross Blocks by Lollyquiltz
· Square in Square by Quilt Dad

I decided to quilt my sampler using randomly angled horizontal lines. I think it put a nice finishing touch on the quilt. The binding is scrappy.

If you make your own liberated sampler, I’d love to see it in the Fresh Lemons Quilts group on Flickr.

Since I am still Bernina-less, I have decided to work this weekend on liberated (or wonky) quilt blocks. I’m having trouble getting an accurate 1/4″ seam on my backup machine and I figure the seam size doesn’t have to be perfectly exact with this type of block. The above square is an improvisational string block and will be squared up with white sashing.

I’m speaking next month to the String-A-Long Traditional Quilt Guild in northwest Indiana on modern quilting. I thought it would be fun to bring a mini sampler full of liberated quilt blocks. Below is a mock up of my plans, and hopefully I will have a finished quilt to share next week!