The Little Red Hen

Little Stitches - Aneela Hoey

While at Quilt Market, I had the pleasure of meeting the lovely and talented Aneela Hoey and also picked up a copy of her book, Little Stitches: 100+ Sweet Embroidery Designs 12 Projects. 

Miss P, of course, perused all of the books that I brought home from market. In fact, she filled this one with sticky bookmarks and notes for me about which embroidery designs she likes. 
I flipped through and read her notes. She likes this one but she wants the mamma bird to keep a watchful eye on the baby. I thought these birds were particularly cute and simple enough to be stitched on thick terry/velour fabric,  I added this little design to her Halloween elf shirt one day while she was at school. I love the transformations that fabric has taken - Bathrobe to costume to cute shirt with embroidery. 

Aneela's book is full of sweet designs to dress up existing clothes or home dec items or add to just about any sewing project. There's even a pull out section with iron on tranfers of the designs included in the book. So many cute little animals, delightful girls, and fun every day objects to stitch.

I know Miss P wants more of these designs embriodered on some of her other clothes. Just look at all those book marks! I think I'll let her do some of the embroidery though. 

She loves the spruced up top!

Spontaneity in Medallion Quilts

Earlier this week I went to the AQS quilt show in Grand Rapids. My favorite part of the show by far was this special exhibit of Medallion Quilts from Gwen Marston's book Liberated Medallion Quilts. 

There were many quilts made by Gwen 

and also some made by other quilters who contributed to the book.

I was very impressed with the variety of quilts in the medallion style.  Gwen had some very traditional looking quilts in traditional fabrics

and also some bright colorful quilts made with novelty prints like the fun frog quilt she made for her grandson, shown below.

I love the skinny spike/shard detail in the corner of the quilt below that uses more contemporary fabrics.

Gwen hand quilts many of her quilts. I would love to do that. 

So many beautiful quilts made by Gwen and quilters from her Beaver Island Quilt Retreat.

I have read Liberated Medallion Quilts cover to cover, as I do with all of Gwen's books. Really. If you can't have Gwen over for tea, reading her books is the next best thing. I adore her writing style. 

This book is full of photographs of beautiful quilts, and I love that she includes some background information for each quilt. I enjoyed reading what the other contributors had to say about their quilts and the inspiration behind them.  You won't find any specific patterns to make the quilts included but there is a lot of information on how to approach quilts in this style. She gives more of a "recipe" on how to make liberated medallion quilts. She has the quilts grouped into chapters of different medallion styles. Seeing them grouped this way makes it easier to understand how the different quilts were made. 

Thanks Gwen, I think you hit another home run with this one.

Quilts That Make Our Hearts Sing

A few years ago I picked up the book Small Blocks, Stunning Quilts by Mary Elizabeth Kinch and Biz Storms. I tell you, these ladies speak my quilting language. Like me, they love quilts made with small pieces of fabric. 

I love how they show an "actual size" photo of a block of the quilt along with the full view for each project. 

This is one of my favorite pages in the book:

The cutting directions read:

"From the assorted dark prints cut a total of 7200 squares, 1" x 1" in matching sets of five."

Did you do the math??? Those little nine patches finish at 1.5 inches square! Yowza. 

I don't know if these ladies cut everything out before starting or not. I don't think I would; that just seems overwhelming to me. It is my favorite bit in the directions though. I think I would cut and sew them in batches. The authors give a lot of tips on working in batches for quilts like this.

At spring quilt market I learned that they had just come out with a new book, Small Pieces, Spectacular Quilts: Patterns Inspired by Antique Quilts. I went to the "school house" talk given by Mary Elizabeth and saw some of the quilts from the new book as well as some of the antique inspiration quilts. 

This quilt, inspired by antique rag rugs, is one of my favorite quilts from the new book. There are a few slivers of fabric in there that are just barely an eighth of an inch wide.  Stunning.

Both books open with a gallery of spectacular antique quilts which are followed the amazing quilts made by Mary Elizabeth and Biz.

With these two books I guarantee you will start to see your scrap bin in a whole new light. 

Welsh Quilting

As I am working out the quilting design for my latest quilt I thought I'd share some of my favorite quilting resource books with you.

I recently purchased two new books focused on Welsh quilting. 

Making Welsh Quilts the Textile Tradition that Inspired the Amish?  by Mary Jenkins and Clare Claridge is a great book that shows old and new quilts with Welsh quilting. I like that each of the project quilts in the book also has a complete quilting plan. You can study how the quilting works with the patchwork of the quilt and use those ideas on your own quilts.  Welsh Quilting Pattern & Design Handbook  by Marjorie Horton is an excellent source for Welsh quilting motifs and patterns. It has no color photographs and shows no finished quilts but is jam packed with quilting ideas. Both of these books are geared to hand quilters but with a little creativity you can do similar things in continuous quilting on a long arm or domestic sewing machine. I'm working on that right now. 

In looking through the Welsh quilting books, I can see that Gwen Marston has been influenced by Welsh quilting. Her book, Quilting with Style: Principles for Great Pattern Design, another of my favorite quilt resource books, features many similar designs and also shows how to draft cables and feathered vines to fit any space. 

The random number winner for the GenQ drawing was 2, Emmmylizzzy! Congratulations.

Generation Q Magazine

The folks at Generation Q had an inviting booth. You may not be able to tell from this photo but that is a tub couch a la "Breakfast at Tiffany's". 

I won a little goodie bag made and filled by Scott Hansen of Blue Nickel Studios, one of the Gen Q team, for being one of the first to visit their booth on Friday. I love that he filled the bag with blue items and even included a piece of vintage fabric. 

And those tiny little monkeys are just adorable. They were quite a hit with the kids when I got home.  Miss P covets them. Thanks Scott. 

I actually met Scott in the lobby of our hotel on Thursday morning where he was still binding a couple of quilts for display. Now THAT is some last minute stitching. 

Generation Q  also had a door prize give drawing which I won later in the day! I scored this fab box of Cotton Couture solids by Michael Miller. 

Oh yeah, they have a print magazine now! I had a chance to read the magazine while I was there and on the LONG ride home. I think it is a great magazine. I love the conversational tone it has.  It made me feel like members of my local stitch group were talking to me. It is packed with a variety of articles, projects, an iron review, and much more. I also like that it is in a small size format that will easily fit in your purse. 

Congratulations to the Gen Q team on their first print issue!

I picked up an extra copy that I'll give away to a lucky reader. 

To enter, tell me something you would most like to see featured in a quilt magazine. I'll keep comments open until Sunday night and announce a winner on Monday.

Wordless Wednesday

New York Book Show 2012

Congratulations to Gwen Marston! Her book, 37 Sketches, has won an award in the category "Special Trade General Book under $75" to be presented at the 2012 New York Book Show in March.

You know, it's not every quilt book that shows up on the New York Book Show list!

Gwen changed the way I approach quilting. I take any class of hers that I can because I know I will always learn something unexpected. I am glad I have been able to attend so many of her retreats and now I am thrilled that her latest book has gotten this recognition. Kudos and thank you, Gwen!

If you want to be a proud owner of one of these special books you can order one directly from Gwen.

Order from Gwen Marston, Box 155, Beaver Island, MI 49782.
U.S. $29.95 plus 3.99 shipping
Canada shipping 6.00
International shipping 12.00
Checks payable to Beaver Island Quilts

You can read more about the book on her website.

Thanks, Gwen, for doing what you do, and doing it so well.

Week in Review

The sewing room was buzzing with activity this week but I finished nothing.
I was listening to audio books while:

knitting two pair of socks - I'm on the second of each pair
spinning up some roving - just over half finished with that ball of roving
making little stars - I have about a hundred of them so far!
helping P with a commissioned sewing project - we're 3/4 the way finished

I enjoyed listening to Jim Dale read the entire Harry Potter series so much last fall that I am listening to it again. I have heard the first three books but the fourth was not at the library when I went so I had to find something else.

Earlier this week I heard The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman read by the author and am currently listening to Year of Wonders A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks also read by the author. I love listening to Geraldine's voice.

Do you like to listen to audio books? If so, which books have you enjoyed?

 

 

37 Sketches

I'm back from my retreat up north with Gwen Marston. This year we used Gwen's 37 Sketches as inspiration for our liberated projects.
Gwen's self published book, 37 Sketches is beautiful and inspirational.  Each quilt has a full page photo and a short description of the inspiration or idea for it. The text is like poetry. There are no how to's in this book just the 37 sketches. It is an elegant little book that is great for studying liberated piecing and inspiring you to try your own small sketches. Working on a small scale is a great way to try new techniques and work with different colors or fabrics. Since the book is self published there are a limited number and are only available directly from Gwen.

Order from Gwen Marston, Box 155, Beaver Island, MI 49782.
U.S. $29.95 plus 3.99 shipping
Canada shipping 6.00
International shipping 12.00
Checks payable to Beaver Island Quilts

You can read more about the book on her website.

Back to the retreat recap...

Gwen had her little works of art displayed so that we could study them up close.

I made these at the retreat:

Sketch 1:
10 x 13 inches

Sketch 2:
8 x 10 inches

These little quilts were fun to do and they are even finished!!

I also have an idea of what I want to do with these fabrics from Pink Castle Fabrics! I plan to make a quilt for P based on the idea of the sketches. I'll do blocks in a little bigger scale and fit them together for the full quilt. I plan to make them loosely based on the log cabin block.

I didn't get started on that quilt while on retreat because I got side tracked by   another project inspired by a quilt someone brought for show and tell.

I have a weakness for little stars.

These stars will finish at two inches. They are smaller and not liberated like the ones I did last year.
I have no idea how I will set these. They may be a quilt of their own in a nine patch setting or maybe a border for a medallion style quilt. Right now I'm just having fun making them.

Quilt retreat is very "grounding" for me. All of the ladies who come every year really make it special and help me put things in perspective.  I love coming home and feeling like I have a focus and direction.  Thanks ladies, it was a great week.

A New Chapter

While traveling in the car on our trip we listened to a recording of The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdasll. Our local librarian recommended it as a good book for the whole family. I think everyone liked the amusing story of four sisters and their adventures on summer vacation. I know I did.

They got into just enough trouble and adventure to keep everyone interested without overwhelming the youngest in the car. I have also just seen online that there are more books about the Penderwick sisters. We'll have to check those out!

Speaking of stories about siblings, our family is starting a new chapter this month.
Yesterday M moved out and into the dorm.

D will be moving this weekend. All three kids start school Tuesday after labor day. Our schedule here at home will be much more relaxed with only a first grader. P wrote M a letter when we got home from dropping him off at college. "Evrea day at skoole I will cri my ise aowt.  Love P"

I am hoping I'll be able to get lots of sewing done!