Mary - Uncovering an Old Block Design for a New Baby

Mary

48” x 48”

The matriarch of a close but spread out family. Cousins looking out for each other, uncles closer to brothers, babies of all ages. She did not live to see it all, but she knew what she set in motion. She created a life, a space, a family, that welcomed everyone. Her small frame held a big heart.

On of my husband’s cousins had her third baby last summer. I knew I would be gifting a quilt so was exploring my options of already made or at least pieced projects in the stash. But when the little guy arrived none of them felt quite right. With his name starting with the letter T, I decided to lean in to that and pulled a quilt block and book from the archives.

Back when Modern Quilting became something we capitalized, I contributed to a book called Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favourite Designers. The block was called To a T, because it was essentially a giant capital T. But put together gave you some cool secondary designs. I made up a big quilt, that, after some snuggles at home, sent it off to a kid’s cancer camp. It was a lot of fun to play with it again.

I dug into my fabric - both scraps and stash - to make an eclectic but soft version of it. I’ve got some fabrics in there that must be at least 15 years old, and some much more recent. I love mixing it up and pairing things in unexpected ways. Like classic large florals with modern geometrics. Keeps it interesting and not flat.

I dug into my fabric - both scraps and stash - to make an eclectic but soft version of it. I’ve got some fabrics in there that must be at least 15 years old, and some much more recent. I love mixing it up and pairing things in unexpected ways. Like classic large florals with modern geometrics. Keeps it interesting and not flat. I finished it with a simple loopy quilting in cream. Nothing fancy, but enough to give it great texture for snuggling.

The binding? Well, she’s a bit extra. Mary did love some statement jewelry at times. Instead of just simple big stitch finishing I opted for Xs, but alternated colours. It’s a lot easier to do than you might think and really doesn’t take much longer than normal hand finishing. I used Valdani 8W for the stitching. The solid fabric for the binding it out of my norm, but it was what I had in the stash that worked well.

The baby in question - Taz - was born in July and it wasn’t until winter started that I got myself organized to make the quilt. Then I moved pretty quickly to finish it. After that I procrastinated for months on sending it to them. I just really hate going to the post office. These pictures were taken in January! Finally, Taz’s Mama sent me a kind text asking if I would make a quilt for Taz, as I had for their other two. Wasn’t she in luck? I washed the quilt, wrapped it safely, and sent it out a few days later. Who am I to turn down a sweet request for something I had already done?!?!

Oh, and the namesake for the quilt? Baby Taz’s great grandmother, Mary Ross.

Book Cover Quilts

Join me for this crazy little exploration in quilt blocks.

For each book I read in 2025 I am making a quilt block inspired by the cover. Not necessarily by the book or the story itself, but by the cover. So it is really a block inspired by the book designer’s work. And they would have been guided by the contents of the book. Sometimes the covers use original artwork, created just for this purpose, sometimes they pull from existing artwork.

Credit where credit is due - for both the book designers themselves and the woman who gave me the idea for this project. Margaret Fleisher did a similar thing for a 100 day project a few years ago. She is a great improv quilter! I was enamoured with her idea then and am doing my own version now.

I’m not here trying to make a literal interpretation of the book cover. Knowing that I am playing improvisationally I just try to capture the feel of the cover. Not every detail is included, and rarely is the text even referenced.

For example, for The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store above (amazing book by James McBride!) I used the illustration made by the designer Lauren Peters-Collaer as my started point. I picked fabrics from the scrap bin that were similar. To be honest, I debated going a bit more abstract as the human figure can be tough to translate, depending on the posture, and this posture is not an easy one. I am so glad I pursued the play! Of course, it is not exact, but it does have a clear relationship.

Don’t tell the others, but it is my favourite of the blocks so far! Probably also my favourite book of the year.

Someone on Instagram asked me if I was choosing books based on the covers. Nope! I read all sorts of books and choose them based on my mood more than anything. If you look at the books I’ve read this year I have memoir, literary fiction, historical fiction, cozy mystery, cozy Japanese, history, and more. I do consider audio books reading, so they might make the list too. Here are the books so far in 2025:

• Moon Road by Sarah Leipciger, cover art by Grant Haffner

• The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittle, cover design by Alysia Shewchuk, image by Xavier Noel

• Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock, cover illustration by Alessandro Valdrighi

• This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett, cover design by Robin Bilardello

• The Wager by David Grann, narrated by Dion Graham (this one is absolutely worth the audio book version)

• The Maid by Nita Prose, cover by Elena Giavaldi

• What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster, cover by Sara Wood

• The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr, cover by Ingrid Paulson from art by Janet Hill

• Crook Manifesto by Colton Whitehead, cover by Oliver Munday

• The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl, cover design by Charlotte Struck, with art by Billy Renkl

• The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride, cover by Lauren Peters-Collaer

• The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, translated by Jesse Kirkwood, cover by Vi-An Nguyen

I’m not the kind of person who sets reading goals. As long as I read every day - even if only for a few minutes before bed - I am content. I usually keep a list of books read for the year and I finish about 20-30. So I am looking at the this list and kind of surprised I am already through a dozen!

For the blocks, I wait until I’ve finished 3 books, then I make the 3 blocks. It becomes a little afternoon of playtime and remembering the books. If you want to follow along a little more ‘live’ then make sure to check out Instagram. As for what I will do with the blocks? That remains to be determined.

November Morning Make 2022

Well this was a different month!

I have a Creative Bug membership. In fact, it is like a gym membership for me. I pay for it each month and almost never use it. Oops! But the daily practice I did in November made it all worthwhile. Every day I worked on a book structure, as led in a class by Faith Hale: 30 Structures in 30 Days - A Daily Practice in Bookmaking.

There was an investment in supplies to start - book board, an awl, an Xacto knife fancy paper, glue, waxed thread. I shopped at two local art stores and the big A to get it all. In all honestly, the paper cost the most and I have a lot left. I was nervous about the knife, having sliced off part of my thumb as a kid with a similar blade. This time I followed instructions and I am 47, not 7.

Faith did a great job of moving through a number of techniques for folding, cutting, and assembling the book structures. Some were super simple and only took a few minutes. Others were a multi day process. We stitched sometimes, others we just folded. Some books have hard covers some are just paper. I even got to add fabric from my stash to a few because there was no official book cloth to be found.

The simplest ones are my favourites. Or the ones with interesting folds. Or the ones with hard covers. I picked out some of my favourites and filmed them for more detail.

I can definitely see making some of these again as gifts or for special notes for special people. All of these are currently blank. Now that I know how to make them I would like to try again with the pages already filled or at least planned out prior to assembly.

All in all, this was a fantastic month! I absolutely enjoyed this creative challenge. It still had me playing with colour but was a new to me experience. Totally perfect for Morning Make.

Wish Upon a Star

Wish Upon a Star

48” x 48”

For a little baby boy, born to parents raised across the country , a quilt to make all the wishes. Or, just to spit up, poop, and play on. And hopefully keep you warm. Heading your way soon.

This quilt is a slight adaptation of a pattern by Kristyne Czepuryk in her recent book, Perfectly Pretty Patchwork. The only change I made was to skip the outside round of stars, thus reducing the overall size of the quilt. It was a definite change in making for me - using templates and all that precision piecing! Changing things up can be good though! Keeps you on your toes.

Most of Kristyne’s work is soft, pastel, and oh so pretty. It’s gorgeous stuff but not necessarily what I am drawn to for my own quilts. Not wanting to go shopping I decided to see what I could do with what was on hand. I’d been saving this Carolyn Friedlander print for a totally different project. It had been sitting long enough, however, and deserved to see some glory. The rest of the colours came from an Ikat butterfly print by Tula Pink. You can see it there in that corner star, and again on the back (below). The nice thing about this pattern is that I could dig through my stash and scrap bins to cut the diamonds for the stars. It meant a lot of variety; scrappy all the way. The prints used are a combination of old and newer, modern and boring, bright and simple. All together I think they balance nicely and create so much visual interest.

To quilt it I simply did an edge to edge wave, varying the thickness of the lines as I went. It was nice to have the change in texture from the points on the pattern. With a pattern like this I think you can really emphasize all those points with ditch or echo quilting, or you can contrast it. Bonus: contrasting it is easier. My thread choice was a dark turquoise Aurifil in my stash. It doesn’t stand out too much anywhere but doesn’t quite blend in. I rather love it.

Binding was an unexpected choice. I didn’t have enough of any green or yellow that worked to make it around all 4 sides. I debated using the same dominant blue print. Grey seems boring too. Then I spied this other Tula Pink in the stash. It’s a really cool pixelated print of tigers. (Both the binding and the inspiration/backing fabric are from her Eden line.) Cut for binding it looks totally different! I rather like the change and I think it frames the quilt nicely.

Again, because I couldn’t pop out to the store and wanting a backing done when I wanted it done I got creative with my stash. There wasn’t enough of the butterfly print to make it so I added these big blue dots (a leftover piece of Lotta Jansdotter fabric from our collaborative Lilla quilt) as a frame. This might be one of my favourite quilt backs ever.

Thank you for pushing me out of my box a little here Kristyne! I won’t lie, I’m a little sad to send this one out the door but a certain baby boy will surely appreciate it.