Quilt Book Review: Stitching Classic Americana

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C&T Publishing sent me a couple of quilt books to review.  I’ve had fun checking them out.  This one is Stitching Classic Americana with Masako Wakayama: 12 Projects Feature Quilting, Sewing, Embroidery & More.


I was immediately intrigued the moment I saw the cover of the book.  These are my colors…Americana is my thing.

I’m thrilled at C&T provided WAY more pictures than they typically do and I feel like I can give the book a better review for you.

Here are the pictures from the table on contents.

Check out this little coin purse… Continue reading →

Made By You! Plus Fun Tutorial

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I got an email the other day from Ernest S. (correction Judy in MO made this.  She uses her husbands email and the email wasn’t signed so I assumed we had a guy quilter-  Thanks for clarifying Judy!)  In the attachment was a picture of their version of our “Plus Fun” quilt.


Oh my…I love it.  When I saw this version the memories of the fun I had while making it came flooding back to me.  I love scrap busting quilts and boy, oh boy, did this one clean out some scraps.

This was originally published in McCalls Quick Quilts several years ago.
Mcmalls-1
I thought today I’d give you a free tutorial for this quilt as it’s such a fun one to make.  Normally I would refer you to ordering a back issue but here was an error in the pattern writing.  Please note, we do not write the patterns.  We only sell the design along with a rough draft of the instructions for the quilt.  The magazine companies write the actual patterns.

PlusFun

I thought to make this a pattern in our shop for sale but then thought instead we’d rather treat you with a FREEBIE tutorial instead.  You all have been so good to us purchasing several of our patterns.  We so appreciate your support and in return…a Freebie for you.

Here is our quilt….

Oh, I hate that picture of the quilt as you can’t see the goodness in it…the prints and that’s what really makes the quilt.

My suggestion is to focus on a few colors.  Note brown wasn’t included in the quilt. I used teal and not blue but of course, use what makes you happy.  Note in the close-up pictures there are white and off white neutrals but not tans.

This quilt is entirely made of nine patches…LOTS OF THEM!  So gather some scraps and let’s get sewing.  I’m going to take a second here to refer you back to a few blog posts I did on sorting scraps.
Scrap Sorting #1
Scrap Sorting #2
Scrap Sorting #3

All of these posts talk about how to use neutral background fabrics and colored fabrics.  You’ll notice that if you want to make the quilt like the one sent in by a reader or the one I made, you will want to focus on “white-based” neutrals or slightly off-white.  You will need a lot of them.  You will also notice that many of our white-based neutrals are highly printed.  I love these as they make the most interesting quilts.  A person can look a quilt for a long time studying the prints when you use an eclectic bunch of fabrics like these.

If you are someone who goes on a lot of shop hops or loves visiting quilt shops, this would be a great quilt for you.   You could pick up a fat quarter at each shop….make it a memory quilt of your shop hop.

Here is another picture for reference.  This is our “Thanks to You!”  quilt from our book (find it in the Shop)  We did one version in white-based and one in tan-based.   The Plus Fun quilt would be good in a tan version too.


Our quilt is in a 21 x 21 layout.  That includes the border as it is made from nine patches as well.  The blocks finish at 4 1/2″ so our quilt is 94 1/2″ x 94 1/2″.  Of course, you can make it smaller.


Look closely can you see how the quilt is all just nine patches? Continue reading →

What I’m Reading: Have You Seen Me?

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I’m on a roll with LOTS of good books from Hoopla.  It seems I haven’t hit a bad one in quite some time.  My latest pick was Have You Seen Me? by Kate White.  I hope I didn’t jinx myself by saying how many good books I’ve listened to lately….

About this book, good.  I was liking it from the very beginning.  It caught my attention and my attention stayed.  I was a little surprised at the ending.  There really were no clues leading up to the twist at the end and sometimes I do like to have a bit of a clue…just so it keeps me guessing.  Overall, it was good though….

Here is what Amazon had to say: Continue reading →

Community Quilt from Cheryl and Ann Dee

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A few months ago, I received this lovely brown quilt top from Ann Dee in Georgia.  It was on the bigger side, so I sent it on to Cheryl in Dallas as her favorite charity uses bed-size quilts.  Cheryl always sends lots of pictures of the quilt tops as they turn into finished quilts.  I like to see the work as it progresses.

Here is Ann Dee’s quilt top as it arrived in Dallas.  It is 67” x 84,” which is nearly a twin-size.

Each star is made of a square and four HSTs.  It’s an unusual pattern.  I love all stars!

The Georgia quilt top is loaded onto a longarm machine in Texas.  How’s that for cooperation?  Sometimes it takes a village to make a quilt.

Every village has dogs that want to help with the quilt, too.  Doggie keeps track of what’s going on underneath the longarm as the digitized computer is running.  Can doggie be trusted not to tear up the batting as it drapes on the floor?

 

The digital quilting pattern shown on the computer screen is…

Continue reading →