Book Review and Giveaway WINNER!!!

Hi peeps! 

I thought I would share a book I received for Christmas, as I realized it has been ages since my last book review! This is Make+Love QUILTS, by Mary Fons. Does her last name sound familiar? Well it is, because her mom is Marianne Fons of the dynamic quilting duo Fons & Porter! Mary Fons is also the Editor of Quilty magasine, which has become a new favourite!

The book is very well-written with lots of colour photos, and is a Stash Books publication(a niche division of C & T Publishing)…I own several Stash quilting books and have never been disappointed by their quality and attention to detail. 

The first 39 pages are dedicated to Theory + Practice; fabric, design fundamental and construction basics, then you move on to the 12 quilt projects.

This is the quilt from the cover…and my main reason for putting this book on my Christmas List! Each quilt photo is paired with colour suggestions. This one is the biggest quilt in the book, as-is the measurements are 108" x 126", but it is easy enough to adjust your quilt to be smaller.

I should note that all of the quilts in this book are made with scraps, but you don't have to use only scraps, you could go with a more controlled palette.

As you already know, I am a big fan of COLOUR! Not so much a fan of low-volume, but what attracted me to this quilt is the use of right-angle triangles. I also have the Accuquilt right-angle triangle die, so I knew I would be able to cut the pieces for this quilt easily…and from my scraps of course!

I must confess that the Bow Tie block is a top ten favourite block(Churn Dash wins hands down!!). It would be fun to make this quilt using the pictured black background with a multitude of scraps for the bow ties.

You gotta love a quilt named "My Dear" right? Those simple Nine-Patches mixed with a row of Rolling Stones blocks really give this quilt a modern edge while still making the blocks accessible to any skill level.

What can I say??? Of course I chose this Churn Dash quilt as the final quilt to show you!!! So easy to do up in scraps or with a coordinating 4-fabric bundle plus border!

As I said above, there are 12 quilts in this book. I have only shown you my favourites.

In my last post I showed you the cover of my Moleskine block ideas/design book. I though that you might want to have a glimpse at what I do when I am sketching and designing! 

You can find a design book for yourself at Massdrop.

This is a block I have been working on re; the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris earlier this year. I also included the two towers of 911 in New York as I felt that both horrific incidents were connected by tragedy. 

I don't yet know if I will be doing a tutorial of this block…some bugs to work out!!!

This is not an original design. I was working on changing the measurements of the finished block and also of the first square and resulting logs.

Here you can see where the first idea got trashed and the second attempt is so much better. I prefer to work on unlined paper, even though I have to draw the lines myself. That way I can play with the dimensions a bit more.

One thing I forgot to mention about Connecting Threads are the cute little postcards they include with each order. They have the Customer Service phone number on them so you can easily reach them if there is a problem.

After many years of no-trouble purchases I had a minor issue with one this year and called the Customer Service Department. The person on the phone looked up my order and listened to my problem, then corrected it quickly and politely, just like that. No hassles whatsoever! Gold Star to them!!!

I was on the Connecting Threads website yesterday and I noticed that Make+Love QUILTS(reviewed above) was in their Clearance section, at $10.33, which is 55% off!!! Woo-hoo!!!

Also in the Clearance section is this week's Weekly Deals, which are website-only specials that usual offer great discounted prices. This week's deals are on marking tools and acrylic rulers!

Now for the giveaway winner!!!

Wow, there were several hundred comments(YAY!!!) and it was hard to choose, so I asked Mr. Random(aka my Hubs) to choose a number and he chose…

#154. sherryberrybim, who wrote:

sherryberrybimSaturday, March 7, 2015 at 6:28:00 PM PST

I would make a lap quilt with this bundle of Luminescence.

I have sent an email!

Thanks so very much to all of you who entered and made this giveaway a big success!! Thanks also to my many new/continuing(can't say 'old'…just didn't sound right) followers who choose to allow me to come to their mailboxes a few times a week! I will endeavour to keep you entertained!!

Sharing is caring!!!
Don't forget that I am happy to share…feel free to pin to Pinterest, post on Google+ and Facebook, and Tweet away! Just please make sure your posts link back to this blog. 

*If you mouse/hover over the top right corner of my photos, a red pin-it button will show up and all you have to do is click it to be taken to Pinterest. There is also another red button right beside it for posting to Facebook and Twitter. Or, you could always use the little grey square buttons just below my signature. 

Thanks for reading and have a great day! 

Quilty Huggs, 

Jacqueline 

PLEASE NOTE: This post may contain affiliate links and I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase after clicking on my link. Thanks!

Tutorial Tuesday: Deconstructing a man's cotton dress shirt for it's fabric!

Hi peeps!

So I thought I would show you how I take apart a men's dress shirt for the purpose of using the fabric for quilting. I like using X-L or Large-sized long-sleeved 100% cotton men's shirts as you get the most useable fabric out of them.

Here we go! 

Pick up a men's dress shirt from your local thrift store, or even your husband's closet-just make sure it's one he doesn't wear anymore! I get mine at Value Village, usually when they have a half price sale. Give it a good wash and dry. You'll be tempted to iron it, but I have found it easier to just start cutting as-is, then give the fabric pieces a nice press afterwards.

Start by cutting the collar(with collar-yoke attached), cuffs and button plackets off. 

Cut off all the sewn edges of the cuffs and collar, removing the collar yoke at this time. I save all the buttons of the shirt and safety pin them together(bottom left of photo).

 

Turn the entire shirt inside out and remove the sleeves by cutting them away just below the  shoulder seam line. Cut out the button placket too(as above) and add the buttons to the safety pin you have already started for this shirt.

 

Next, cut the shirt-back away from the shirt-fronts at the shoulders, again cutting just before the seam allowance. Cut the yoke off of the top of the back piece, then cut around the edges of the yoke to separate it into two pieces.

Edited to add: I usually trim the bottom hems off at this step.

If one of the shirt-fronts has a pocket, cut that front section right across the middle side to side, just under the pocket. Then cut around the three sides of the pocket(left, right and bottom), just inside the seam. You can see the two pocket pieces and cut-aways above left.

Or, you could save the pocket for another project such as; using it when you construct a tooth-fairy pillow or, hand-sew the pocket to your quilt back, after you have finished quilting it. Then you can store a few pieces of the fabrics that you used in the quilt for mending it if it gets damaged or worn. Just make sure you leave yourself a nice seam allowance(before cutting) so that you will be able to sew the pocket into your item and to sew the little pocket full of fabric shut if it is stitched to the back of a quilt.

Here you can see the skinny strips above left (from the cuffs and collar), as well as the two yoke pieces and both front sections. I have ironed all pieces at this point, except for the button areas. The skinny pieces will go into my tub for string quilts, and I will probably cut the larger pieces into my favourite sizes( 2" sq, 2.5" sq, 4.5" sq and 5" sq charms).

Here are the back(folded) and sleeves(folded). The sleeves are great for cutting 2'5" strips and they will go into my strips tub. It always surprises me how much fabric is in a sleeve! I will leave the back as-is, as it is quite a large piece of fabric. This one measures 24" by 27" at it's widest points.

This is perfect TV work. I will grab my handy little seam ripper and release the buttons from the plackets, then I will store them on that same safety pin, in my button jar. The label is easy enough to remove with same ripper. Then, to camouflage the stitch holes where the label was, I just run the tip of my seam ripper gently across them. You will see the stitch holes 'magically' disappear.

This little pile is ALL that is left over. Pretty cool, eh?

I got started on the table runner I mentioned in this post. 

I finally got my Frixion pen to work. The little metal ball at the tip of the pen was stuck, so I got some rough, heavy-duty paper(that had some 'tooth' to it) and just scribbled away till the roller ball started working. Oh, duh!!!

I was having so much fun(not!) drawing the sewing lines on my pairs of squares that I went overboard(didn't pre-read the pattern…) and traced out the sewing lines on ALL of the squares. Double-duh!!! But it is with the Frixion ink and the marks will just iron away.

Then, over to my chair, watching TV, I used my 'special' pins(they are very short and very sharp and I keep them for when I am working on batiks only) and just pinned near my starting and ending lines. Now I am ready to shoot them through the sewing machine.

I found a new-to me magasine at the grocery store today. It is called Make it Vintage, and has loads of ideas for changing up old or thrifted items and making them your own. There was another magasine that was similar, called Vintage Style, but it was a lot more than I am willing to spend on a magasine…so I just had a quick look through it!

Question of the Day:

Have you bought, or looked through a new-to-you magasine lately? and, if so, which one was it?
Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Quilty Huggs,

Jacqueline