Misc

The finalists have been chosen! Head on over to Alyssa’s/Pile O’ Fabric to cast your vote!

Everyone did an amazing job! I absolutely LOVED seeing all the different interpretations of the quilt!

I’ve extended the QAL codes through the end of next week (November 10th) if you’re itching to make your own Groovy wonder. Click here for the shop.

Scott Hansen of Blue Nickel Studios has put together the Bar Hop Quiltalong and asked me to play along. Sure! Why not!

Scott sent 4 prints from Clothworks‘ European Taupe VIII Collection by Kinkame.  Though we were alllowed to add a fabric, I opted to not.

First, cut and arrange your strips.

Sew them all together using very accurate 1/4″ seams.

Add the first border.

Add the second border and you’re all done!

Measurements and assembly diagram are in this spiffy PDF: Road to Nowhere

Have fun! And visit all the other stops on the tour:

A short break from my own blog tour going on right now to participate in Miss Julie’s Blog Tour for Skip the Borders! And yes, humorously, today is her day on mine. Hardy har har!

Julie‘s Skip the Borders is full of fun, bold and geometric quilts. Top notch, clear and concise step-by-step illustrations fill the book plus easy-to-follow cutting lists plus dynamic photography make this a +1 in my opinion.

Skip the Borders is made up of 15 patterns ranging from beginner to intermediate level and none have borders! It also includes a section on ‘The Structure of a Borderless Quilt” which I love because it talks about looking at the quilt as a whole, rather than focusing on a block and then standing there wondering what in the world do you do with it now!?

And an odd point to make, I love the paper it’s printing on. It has a good feel. Why do I notice these things?? The back cover also rocks. It seems to be a forgotten afterthought on so many books.

Some of my personal favorites…

I love this. And depending on how you look at it, you see different things (think Rorschach test):

There’s something about this quilt. I’m very drawn to it though it’s not something I can seem to put into words, it’s just…

And I must have a thing for Ohio Star-ish type quilts because I love this:

And let’s not forget… this is what quilting is really about. Being happy and snuggling. This gets lost a lot in the everything of today tizzy of life (yes, I meant to type it like that. Far from proper, coherent English …).

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Three questions…

#1. All of the quilts in Skip the Borders are… borderless! Do you skip borders on most of your quilts?

I tend to approach quilt designs from the big picture. I have a large canvas to fill. What is going to fill it? Sometimes things end up with borders (though, still very different than what a traditional quilt border looks like) and often times there are no borders.

#2. In the intro to my book I give you Permission to Break the Rules. Do you break some quilting rules? What is the number one rule you break and why?

I have no formal quilting training so if there are rules about certain things, I never learned them (and I’m ok with that!). I think everyone needs to go about their quilting in a way that works for them rather than what someone somewhere says the *should* do. Do what makes you happy! Ignore the over-opinionated know-it-alls.

#3. It’s no secret that I love binding! In Skip the Borders I included an entire chapter on binding. So the million dollar question, is do you use bias or straight of grain most of the time?

Straight. Unless I’m doing curved edges. And after seeing the binding chapter, I can confirm that Julie really does love binding!

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Giveaway!
Your chance to win a free eBook of Skip the Borders!

What kind of binding do you like? We’re not talking straight vs. bias here. I’m talking dots vs. stripes vs. gingham vs. solid vs. tonal print vs. whatever you have enough of vs. whatever you want to get rid of vs. coordinating small print vs. …

Winner will be chosen next Thursday, October 11th.

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Visit the other stops on the tour!

Summer, while fun, has been incredibly overwhelming. It seems like everyone is waiting of everything from me. I’m working on it (all) but no matter how late I stay up and trying to get kids stuff, home stuff, life stuff and work done it’s just never enough.

Things of note:

- Teaching in Sisters was amazing. As was the show. As were the hostesses. I need to post pictures!

- I’m working on a lot of awesomeness right now. I can’t wait to share it!

- Pixel Play comes out next week! Blog tour and awesome giveaway details to be announced (really) soon.

- I’m teaching more! Really! Details on that soon.

- I really wish political ads were banned during the Olympics.

- I like the beach.

- It’s 11:46pm and I really need sleep.