Big Rig in Print - Fons & Porter - Summer 2012

It's just received my complimentary issue of the Summer 2012 Fons & Porter Easy Quilts - why a comp - well I have a quilt in the magazine.

I had a lot of fun creating this quilt - entitled - UDDER DELIGHT!  Yes I had some fun naming the quilt - normally the magazine will come up with their own name for quilt, but I guess they liked what I had on the label.

The quilt uses the Holy Cow line of fabric from Windham Fabrics.

The fabric line has a great country feel to it.  If you subscribe to the magazine you should be receiving it in the mail shortly - and it will be on the news stands in the next few weeks.  I designed the quilt in EQ7 - can you figure out which is the actual quilt and which is the virtual quilt? Check at the end of the post for the answer

QUILT A

QUILT B

If you like what you see and can't find the fabrics in your local shop - not to fret - Fons & Porter is offering a kit! Click here for more info on the magazine and the kit!

Pop on over to the Windham Web site for another pattern I designed called - "MOO-LICIOUS" using this fabric line. (Yes, I am a frustrated "namer" -  my fantasy job would be to work for Crayola Crayons and name the new colors)

Happy Quilting - all this talk of cows and milk makes me crave an ice cream cone - what flavor??? (Hey second fantasy job - taste testing and naming the new flavors for Ben & Jerry's!)

(Answer to the question - which is the real quilt - Quilt A is the actual quilt, Quilt B is the virtual quilt from EQ7)

I've been blogged....

Well, some people don't waste any time. I hardly had time to read my issue of The Fat Quarterly when I found out someone had already gone and tried out the block I created for the issue. Yes, I haven't even had time to toot my own horn (that will come in a few days - stay tuned for what the challenge was and how I came up with this block!) Here is my virtual version of the block. It used fabric from the Spin Fabric line by Windham.

In the meantime - have a look at Debby's blog to see what she did with this block I designed.

And --- check out The Fat Quarterly now! A pattern for a quilt featuring this block is featured in the article.

Tool Box Tuesday - Modern Quilting Designs - Book Review

No matter if you are a longarm quilter or if you quilt on a domestic sewing machine this new book which features over 90 quilting designs would be a welcome addition to your library.  I would call this book a “design library” book.  It does not give advice on how to do longarm quilting  or domestic machine quilting, but rather it provides a wealth of line drawn designs.

The book begins with a section entitled Design Inspiration. In this section Bethany shows us how she takes a photograph - it might be a fern, it could be some jewelry - and uses it as inspiration for quilting designs. Personally, I have been collecting photos for this purpose but have never moved to the next step - this section is giving me the needed nudge to pull out some pictures and see what I can come up with.

The remainder of the book is what I would call a design library. Each of the subsequent sections: The Essentials Freehand Background Fillers), Doodle Away (Continuous-Line Designs), Showstoppers (Unusual, Fancy Continuous-Line Designs), Nature’s Patterns (Feathers, Ferns, Vines and Leaves), and Dynamic Focal Points (Medallions and Borders) present a wealth of different ideas. It is refreshing to see how Bethany has taken some designs we may have seen in the past and added her own look to them. She also gives us many new designs that we can use and adapt in our own work. The final section, Mix It Up (Design Combinations), was a great surprise and a welcome one. Here she shows how she might combine some of the designs presented in this book in a single quilt. By that I mean - a central design for the body of the quilt, a different design for the small narrow inner border, and finally a design for the other border.  I might not have thought of some of the combinations she presents - but guess what - they work!

This is a great book to have in your library and to pull off the shelf when you have “hit the wall” and don’t know what to do.  I think it can help spark your own creative imagination as you seek to develop and let your own quilting style grow and evolve.

The book is 111 pages long and is available in paper or as an E-Book from C&T Publishing