Lynn Carson Harris

A Common Thread

Gwen Marston's latest book, A Common Thread, is one I've been wanting for YEARS.  It is full of beautiful photographs of beautiful quilts. I also think it has the perfect title, A Common Thread. The book shows Gwen's varied quilt styles from traditional, to applique, and liberated but every quilt also clearly reflects HER style. 

The chapters in the book include Traditional Patchwork, Applique, Liberated Patchwork, String Quilts, and Abstract Quilts in Solids. The entire books is filled with photographs interspersed with introductions Gwen wrote for each chapter.  The left side of each spread is a full shot of each quilt. The right side of each spread has one, two, or three close up photographs showing details and interesting parts of the quilt.

This spread shows the quilt, Little Stars, that inspired my Twinkling Stars quilt.

The photography is beautifully done and you can see every quilting stitch in the detail shots. You can even see the quilting lines in the full quilt photos.

I love looking at all the details. I can even study how the pieces were sewn together. 

The quilting  in the little liberated log cabin quilt that I'm currently working on was inspired by this quilt, Abstraction.

If you like to look at beautiful quilts, this book is for you. If you want to be a quilter, this book is for you. If you know how to quilt and have mastered the basic liberated quilt making techniques, this book is for you.

I would keep writing more to convince you that you need this book but I need to go sew. This book has given me lots of ideas of things I want to try in my next quilts. I have a few log cabin ideas to explore, I want to dig out my reproduction fabrics, and of course I love the Little Baskets on page 36. What should I work on first?

Thank you Gwen for making such beautiful quilts and an excellent book that features them. 

You can get your own copy of A Common Thread from Amazon with this affiliate link. 

Build-a-Barn

You all know how much I enjoy photography. Over the years I have taken many photos on our property. Our barns and out buildings have always been an interesting photo subject for me. 

When long time internet friend, Julie Sefton, was writing her book, Build-a-Barn, no pattern construction, she asked if she could include some of my barn photos. Sure!

I was thrilled to see that one of my photos graces the colophon page. Yeah, I had to look up the name of that page. It makes it sound fancy, doesn't it! 

Her book walks you through the steps to build your own barn quilt blocks - from an inspiration photo to the finished barn block. There are also lovely photos of different kinds of barns sprinkled throughout the book. Here's another photo of my barn.

If you've ever wanted to make a barn or house block, or even just wanted to learn more about the free piecing technique, this book is for you! I love all of the creative interpretations Julie and her team of "barn builders" made. 

I love Julie's See Rock City quilt on the cover! Julie talks a lot about the making of this particular quilt. She had it pieced together as a finished top and then, after deciding that she didn't like it, cut it up and reworked the entire quilt layout. She really goes into a lot of detail about her process to get to this fabulous finished design. Often we only see the end product but I love that she shared the one that really wasn't as good as well as the newer version of her quilt. 

You can read more about the book and barn projects in it here.

Autographed copies of the book are available directly from Julie Sefton.

The book is also available for purchase through AQS, and amazon (affiliate link).

Modern Elegance

Miss P and I have enjoyed coloring together since she was quite small. Even in preschool, P prefered the "fancy" style coloring books and pointy colored pencils. The last couple of years we haven't spent as much time coloring as we did when she was smaller. 

We jumped at the chance to review fabric designer, Amanda Murphy's, new adult coloring book, Modern Elegance. 

Amanda sent us the digital version of the book. We looked through it and printed off a few of our favorite pages, broke out the big girl prismacolor pencils, and had some quality together time. 

The designs in the book are line drawings of some of her fabric designs. You can look at this post on the Benartex website and see the coloring pages paired with the corresponding fabric design. How cool is that?

I love all of Amanda's designs, we will be using our colored pages as gift wrap for small gifts this month. 

Thank you, Amanda, for helping us get back in our coloring zone!

(posted late due to technical difficulties)

Monday, November 30 

C&T Publishing

 

Tuesday, December 1st

Benartex

 

Wednesday, December 2nd

The Little Red Hen

 

Thursday, December 3rd

American Patchwork & Quilting

 

Friday, December 4th

Sarah Vedeler Designs

 

Monday, December 7th

Brewer Sewing

 

Tuesday, December 8th

Generation Q Magazine

 

Wednesday, December 9th

Quiltmaker

 

Thursday, December 10th

Cherry Blossoms Quilting Studio 

 

Friday, December 11th 

Amanda Murphy Design

 

Wanderlust Winner

Faye is the winner of Mandy's book, Wanderlust Quilts. She says:

So many places on my list! I really want to go to Vancouver. I also really want to go to China. And India. And Vienna! Oh, and I really want to go to South Africa! I hope I have a lot of life left to live, because all of these trips will take a while to achieve! :)

 

Congratulations Faye! 

Wanderlust Quilts

I love traveling and have always enjoyed taking photographs of interesting things I see along the way. 

My friend, Mandy Leins, has turned some of her travel photos into quilts and also a great new book.  In her book, Wanderlust Quilts, Mandy merges her background in archeaology with her quilting talents. She presents 10 original quilt designs along with the places, photographs, and stories that inspired them.  She shares her love of classical art and architecture and shows us how to translate our own travel photos into beautiful quilts. 

My favorite quilt in the book is Going Places, which was inspired by the cobblestone roads in Europe. (Courtesy of Stash Books.  Photo by Nissa Brehme)

When Mandy asked if I would participate in her blog hop and share one of my own travel photos that I could interpret as a quilt I knew JUST the photo I wanted to share. Years ago, I snapped this photo of a mosaic floor in the Roman Museum in Koln. It has amused me for twenty years. 

I have made up a conversation about the mosaic - where the wife asks the husband if he has seen the neighbor's new courtyard floor. Nag, nag, nag, and then not wanting to hire a professional the husband does it himself. This is what the wife gets.

I have often wondered about the maker of this mosaic. Today it might be called a "modern mosaic", "improv flooring", or a "pinterest fail". Some day I want to make a quilt inspired by this mysterious mosaic.

Be sure to hop over to Mandy's blog and get all the details on the blog tour.The publisher is giving a copy of the book to a lucky winner at each stop on the blog hop!

To enter, let me know where in the world you would most like to visit. Entries will close at midnight on, November 16. 

 

Be sure to visit all of the stops! I have enjoyed seeing the inspiration photos each participant has chosen

November 2: Kickoff with Maddie Kertay at Bad Ass Quilters Society (official link available now!)

My podcast interview with Sandi of Crafty Planner (official link available now!)

November 3: Stephanie Palmer the Late Night Quilter

November 4: Christa Watson of Christa Quilts

November 5: Gen Q

November 6: Casey York Designs

November 7: Bill Volckening

November 8: Angela Walters

November 9: Kitty Wilkin, the Night Quilter

November 10: Lynn Harris of the Little Red Hen - you are here!

November 11: Latifah Saafir Studios

November 12: Rose Hughes

November 13: Rossie Hutchison of Rossie Crafts

November 14: Sam Hunter of Hunter’s Design Studio

November 15: Cristy Fincher of Purple Daisies Quilting

November 16: Mandy Leins

So, you're wondering how you can get your own copy of the book if you are not one of the give away winners. Here are some options:

1. You can get an autographed copy of Mandy's book, Wanderlust Quilts from her at her website. 

2. Ask your local quilt shop to get a copy.

3. Order online here from amazon.

Red & White Quilts - Infinite Variety

I had to share this beauty that was just delivered to my doorstep, Red & White Quilts Infinite Variety.

This book does not disappoint - 352 pages of red and white inspiration. There is some background information about the Rose collection, red and white quilts in general, and the Infinite Variety show. The rest of the book is filled with amazing full photographs of all of the quilts. 

Each of the eleven chapters of the book features a different type of quilt such as Log Cabin, Triangles, Stars, Curves, Applique. 

The book arrived just as I was packing for a quilt retreat and after a quick flip through the book I now want to pack a bolt of red fabric and a bolt of muslin to play with this week.

Red and White Quilts is a must have for any serious quilter's library. 

Desert To Sea

Meet my friend Jane Davidson. She's a fabulous professional longarm quilter who lives in Australia and has just self published a book. I met Jane a couple of years ago at quilt market and was able to spend a bit of time with her this spring in Minneapolis. She is such a fun, warm, and generous person. I hope you have the opportunity to meet her in real life someday too.

You may be familiar with Jane's Nested Churn Dash Quilt. I know I have seen quite a few quilts using this pattern on the web.

I asked Jane which of her quilts makes her the most proud. She says she is equally proud of Grey Matter

and APQ 4-Patch Quilt.

Desert to Sea is the title of Jane's new book.

It includes 10 quilt patterns by eight Australian designers. They did the photography themselves and Jane did all of the diagrams, styling, and layout herself. The book is available print on demand through Amazon. Jane will be selling them to Australians in her online shop. Quilt shops around the world can register here for a wholesale account to purchase books for resale.

I made a single block from Jane's Rock Pool's quilt pattern that I'll turn into a pillow. There were instructions for both regular piecing and paper piecing for this block. 

Jane is incredibly creative; she also took the design of her Refractatorium block and had it etched into buttons! Aren't they cute? She says she will have the buttons available for sale in July. I hope she adds some larger sizes. I think larger ones would look great on bags or as an accent on a dress.

Jane's favorite non quilty thing to do is play the piano and sing. She claims she's not good at either one but I don't believe her. 

Here are all of Jane's online links so that you can keep up with what she's doing. 

Shop: www.wantitneeditquilt.com.au

Site : www.quiltjane.com

IG @quiltjane

FB : Want it need it quilt

Twitter @quiltjane

 

 

 

Every Last Piece

I arrived home from spring break to three big boxes of books!!

I'm packing up preorders today. Thank you to everyone who preordered a book from me. If you haven't ordered yet, you can order a signed copy from me today! As a special thank you for ordering directly from me, I'll include a free handmade greeting card with each order.

Here's a peek at page 9, where I talk about why I love scrap quilts.

Ask your local quilt shop to order some copies if they haven't already! 

 

Autographed Copies of Every Last Piece

I've been getting a lot of questions from people asking if they can order an autographed copy of my book. 

You can now preorder autographed copies of my book from my etsy shop. 

I'll sign them and ship them out as soon as they arrive in May.

Thank you so much for supporting me.

Every Last Piece

I have been waiting on pins and needles for the day that I could share this news with you!

Here it is, all of that frantic and late night sewing last year was for this. A BOOK! I can hardly believe this is really almost a reality. My love of using scraps led me to write a whole book on scrap quilting!

A huge thank you to all of you who encourage me to do what I love and try to use Every Last Piece of fabric in my scrap pile. There are scrap quilt designs in the book that you can use no matter how big your scrap pile is. The first quilts in the book are full on all scrap quilts. As you work your way through the book, the designs use fewer scraps the idea being that if you make all of the quilts in the book you can actually use up your scraps. 

The book, Every Last Piece: 12 Beautiful Design Inspirations Using Scraps, Strings, and Applique  is now available on amazon for preorder and will be released next May.