Block-Buster Quilts: I Love Star Blocks

It is here and you can buy your copy today. Check out all the amazing quilts in the new book by Martingale Publishing: 'Block-Buster Quilts: I Love Star Blocks'.

It is always such an honour to be able to contribute to their books, plus they are absolutely fabulous to work with.

Here are a few of the quilts in the book.

This one is mine.

'County Fair' by Melissa Corry

'Dashing Stars' by Kimberly Jolly

To see all the rest of them, please go here. If you want to win an e-book, go here. 

Published! I Love House Blocks

What an absolute delight to see my sweet house quilt in Martingale Publishing's newest book, 'I Love House Blocks'.

When I created mine, I wanted a modern look yet still have fun with it. 

It is made with 2 blocks that I called 'fat and skinny houses'.   My kids loved seeing what color combinations I would come up with and where I would put them on the quilt. 

It is called 'Village On A Hill'. 

Here are a sampling of a few of the other quilts in this book, and they are all wonderful!

My Hometown by Christa Watson

Home Is Where The Heart Is by Melissa Corry

Four Generations by Amanda Niederhauser

A giveaway will be taking place on the Martingale blog today, and if you go to my facebook page, I will also be giving away one of the books. 

Published

The excitement of getting that package in the mail and opening it to see your quilt block in print is one of the best things in life!

I had the privilege of being selected to appear in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks volume 15 with one of my blocks.

This is the block that was chosen to get in with so many other wonderful blocks!

It incorporates my hexies that I make from a circle, where you can see the tutorial for it here. 

In the meantime, I have been finishing up another project that will be sent off next week!  I really did a lot of free motion quilting on this one, so I hope they like it!   Here are some sneak peeks of it. 

I did notice when I used the dark pink thread on the light blue fabric, it really showed my stitches and hilited if my circles were not quite perfect.  Then I started getting nervous that they weren't perfect and made them even more messy. Finally I calmed down and continued on, realistically, it is just a quilt=)

I hope you are getting some quilting time in now that spring is here!

I am quilting on my Janome MC9400

Whew, I have been doing project after project and forgot to share over here! 

The great news is I have 3 projects on QUILTsocial next week for you to check out!  They are cute, fast and just in time for Christmas!  In fact I made all 3 in a weekend and they are now all wrapped up for Christmas presents!

Can you guess what those orange shapes are?  I am hoping you guessed carrots!   Yes, you bet I have a quilt that uses those carrots and it is stinkin' cute!  

 I love this picture, one because I love getting to the 'binding' stage of a quilt and second it means I am almost done a Canada 150 quilt that got shipped off to the publisher! It was so much fun to use my NEW Janome MC 9400!

My most exciting news is getting published in another book with Martingale!

It is a wonderful book and I will have more on that next week with giveaways to boot! 

Here is my sweet quilt using Riley Blake fabrics!

Come by next week for 3 projects and a giveaway!

'I Love Nine Patches' Book

I can't wait to see it! Martingale Publishing has done it again. With their fun 'I Love' series, they have put together a book with 16 adorable quilting projects in it centered around the nine patch.

I have the privilege of being in the book with TWO quilts! I don't mean to brag ( ok, I really do want to just for a moment) but the image of the quilt on the right hand side, second from the bottom, is my quilt!  That means I am a cover girl! Technically probably a 1/4 cover girl, but still... that is pretty exciting!

This book is all nine patches! And we know that those are super simple to make. Yet the quilters turned them into gorgeous quilts.   I picked just a few to show you how incredibly fun this book is!

Counted Nine Patch by Sherri Falls

Bespoke by Corey Yoder

Lollipops by Barb Cherniwchan

To The Nines by Audrie Bidwell

Old Nine by Tammy Vonderschmitt

The next two are mine! I remember madly sewing these up as my kids were out of school and I had to get them done and off to the publisher to make the deadline! It was so much fun and Martingale has to be the sweetest and kindest team of people in the publishing world that I have ever met! They treat you so well from start to finish, I simply adore them!

Jewel of the Nine by Jackie White

Take a Bite Out of Life by Jackie White

There will be some fun giveaways in a few weeks as the books hit the stores, so stay tuned! 

Goodbye May and June! Now onto quilting

I can't believe how time has just flown by! And life is full of surprises and unexpected events.
In May, there was a very unexpected death in the family and that shook life up to never quite be the same again. But I think that is one of those things apparently we have to go through, get through and somehow move on.

But this blog is not to make you sad.   June came in like a hurricane as it was all prep for Quilt Canada! Our national conference in which I got to play a small part in.  Up to it, my stomach was butterflies as I had some incredible opportunities to speak in front of quilters and of course was nervous.  

Quilt Canada arrived and it was unreal!   Literally. I designed and with the help of a great friend, set up our booth.  It won Best Booth award!  Ok, there wasn't really an award, but I know if there was an award it would have won!

 I used my Accquilt to cut out the circles... but still there are over 1,000 and I then had to glue and pin all those circles on! But really it is circles and I fell in love with it. 

See those cute lollipops out of pool noodles? Oh it was just the most delightful booth ever! Lots of people even took their picture in front of the circle heart! 

This quilt below is by Helen Fujiki and it won Best of Show.  All the winners are here. 

 Cinzia Allocca won an award with this fabulous black and white quilt!

Leanne Chahley also won an award with her fantastic blue circle quilt!

 I gave ten tours of the National Juried Show over the four days. One day had four tours, three of them back to back and 45 minutes in length.  It was tiring but it was so exhilarating being able to educate quilters on our National Juried Show and talk about how hard the judges work and the difficult decisions they have to make. 

I even lucked out and got to emcee the Juried Show awards night! Not the best pic of me but just wanted to show you that I was right up there where the action was! Really the best place to be when big awards are being given out! And it was a super fancy microphone, and the place was packed! Like standing room only! There is a chance it was because they wanted to see who won, but I secretly think they came to see me speak.   (totally joking!)

On the last day of show, the editors from 'A Needle Pulling Thread' give me the latest edition of the magazine.  Guess whose quilt that is?  Okay, did you guess me?  Yeppers, my quilt is right smack in the mag!

After two days of early bedtimes I think I am ready to head back into my studio and get quilting!

Terrific T-Shirt Book

One of the things I love most about quilting is seeing my projects in print!  I have been so fortunate to work with Martingale Publishing a number of times. They are the most wonderful publishing company to work with, from start to finish, they are helpful, kind and oh so creative!

My latest project can be found in 'Terrific T-Shirt Quilts', a book geared towards taking t-shirts and showing you how to make them into a lovely quilt.  We all keep t-shirts, whether it be our kids shirts, or from college or a sport we love and they sit in a drawer waiting to be used.  

This book solves that dilemma and you can pull your shirts out and turn them into a beautiful quilt. The book talks about working with the fabric and how to combine t-shirt fabric and cotton to create quilts.

My quilt is this fun little pink and green one using pink t-shirts as the focal point.

Having 2 boys in the house meant a trip to the nearest used clothing store, 2 hours away to find pink t-shirts=)

 Here are some of the other super projects in the book!

'Congrats Grad' by Mary Burns

'Go Zags' by Janet Nesbitt

'Got Spirit' by Penny Barnes

'In Tune' by Andy Knowlton

'Road Trip' by Andy Knowlton

'Too Precious To Pitch' by Krista Moser

'Tween Dreams' by Sheila Markewicz

'Winning Combination' by Jamie Mueller

Be sure to check out this book, it is chock full of t-shirt quilt ideas!