More Circles! This time for Lucky Spool's Essential Guide to Modern Quiltmaking

Do you know what these are? Just some of my favourite tools in an arsenal of circle making things. Front and centre is my compass and elementary school geometry set. School supply nerds take note! You can find out about these and how I use them in the new book from Lucky Spool,

The Essential Guide to Modern Quiltmaking

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This great book is like taking a workshop from each of your dream teachers - Jacquie Gering, Denyse Schmidt, Penny Layman, Angela Walters, and more. If you can't be in the classroom with us, this might be the next best thing! Each teacher has a chapter devoted to a specific concept or technique. You get the benefit of their experience and all their Quilter to Quilter tips. And then you get a pattern that uses those techniques.

At the end of the book is a phenomenal gallery of modern quilts. Some serious eye candy there.

My quilt in the book might be a new top favourite of mine. It comes with my chapter on Circles and Curves. You could probably call it a sampler of the techniques, but it is more than that. Inspired by two favourite fabrics it takes geometric block design to a really fun place. You could make the pattern as is or you could change up the layout to suit your own preference. Or maybe make repeats of your favourite blocks for a completely different look.

I debated long and hard about the colour selection for this quilt. It needs high contrast and I really wanted to keep it to two colours. But it is me and where one fabric will do I will pick 10! You could say this is a pretty masculine colour combo with just navy and gray, but I call it calming. Despite the bold geometry of the quilt, it has a very serene quality. Keeping the background fabric to a single choice really helps with that. 

To check out the other contributors and see what they are saying about the quilt, you can follow along with them.

Kari Vojtechovsky

teaches on The Principles of Color

Alissa Haight Carlton

teaches on Working with Solids

Dan Rouse

teaches on Working with Prints

Denyse Schmidt

teaches on Improvisational Patchwork

Jacquie Gering

teaches on The Alternate Grid

Penny Layman

, of course, teaches on Paper Piecing

Heather Jones

teaches Large Scale Piecing

Angela Walters

teaches Modern Machine Quilting

Heather Grant

then takes us on a Study of Modern Quilts.

Lucky Spool

is a new publisher on the book scene for quilting. Led by Susanne Woods (formerly of Stash Books and Craftsy) they are bringing a number of exciting books to the market. Their Essential Guide for Modern Quiltmaking looks like it is going to leave its mark for quilters everywhere.

Right now you can get the book on a great discount from Taunton Press (Lucky Spool's distributor). If you buy it from them get a 20% discount between now and July 21.

Click here. Use the discount code EGMQ20

UPDATE: the correct code is EGQM20. My apologies for the typo.

Floral Wraps from A Month of Sundays

With no offence to my awesome kids, the best present for me is a day of no-obligation sewing. Just me and the chance to play. So when Hubby offered that up one afternoon on Mother's Day weekend I took advantage. Sure, it was tempting to sip tea and read but I decided I needed to flex my muscles and take something off the very long want-to-do list: Floral Wraps.

In one long afternoon I got five of them cut and nearly all sewn to completion. I was an assembly line machine. Barely took a washroom break. And it was so worth it. Not only was it satisfying, but now I have these great gifts.

The pattern comes from my book, A Month of Sundays. These days we have reusable totes, shopping bags, and even snack bags. But I'd never seen a reusable floral wrap. Sure, the flowers are gorgeous, but the paper and plastic they come wrapped in, not so much. Now you can buy your own flowers and bring them home safely and in style. Or, you can make a wrap and give it as part of the gift!

The floral wrap uses laminated cottons. There are so many available these days. You could, if you preferred, make your own by laminating vinyl to your favourite material. I am lucky, though, in having a few local shops with a good stash of laminated cottons. (In fact, I may need to stock up a bit more now.) Oil cloth works too, but it is a bit stiffer to work with. If you can't source them locally, make sure to check out your favourite online retailers.

Each wrap contains a pocket to hold the stems and ties to keep it all together. By using the laminated cottons your wrap can be simply wiped dry when you load the flowers into a vase, not to mention the ability to keep them moist as you transport.

These are what my girls' teachers are getting this year as gifts. And perhaps a few other people in our lives. Think of these for Mother's Day, birthdays, hostess gifts, just because...

The Curve of Time (Weekend Reads)

Our summer last year started with a road trip. An epic family road trip that saw us meander through the interior of British Columbia, spend a few days with me quilting (teaching) with the Fraser Valley and Vancouver Modern Quilt Guilds, and then hopping on the ferry for a week of camping on Vancouver Island. It was a magical family vacation for us.

Thank goodness our kids are adventurous travellers and don't get car sick.

We did the trip with the modern conveniences of hotels when we didn't want to camp, grocery stores to stock our bins of food at the campsite, and Goretex. So it was both inspiring and deflating when I started reading The Curve of Time while we were on the Island.

M. Wylie Blanchet wrote The Curve of Time, documenting the summers spent on a boat with her five children. The would leave from the coastal home that looked like a fairy's log cabin to board The Caprice as summer began. Up the water ways of the BC coast, both Island side and coast side they would explore. Just her and the kids, and usually the dog. And this was in the 20s and 30s!

Here I was thinking we were brave for a 2 week road trip in our German engineered station wagon.

The stories in the book are haunting at times, light hearted at times. They tell of the growth that happened among the children, of the joys of discovery, of the tension of travel by sea. Mostly they tell of the challenge of motherhood. Because even when you are battling current, ghosts, and storms you are still raising your children. It is a most definitely enlightening tale of mothering, amongst all the scenery, sailing, and adventure.

On that same trip we were on my husband coined the now often used family quote: It's only an adventure when not everyone who left returns, otherwise it's an excursion. The Curve of Time is certainly a book to inspire exploration and install an adventurous spirit in any woman. And to encourage this mama herself to find a few more excursions for her family.

Being Present

It must be said, I cannot do it all.

Writing books and articles, quilting, patterns, and teaching. Mothering, being a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend. Cooking and cleaning. Being here. I cannot do it all. Something, somewhere, always falls to the side in a heap of lack of time or enthusiasm. 

Thankfully I have kids who don't see the mess that I do, who beg to go out for steak even when I do want to cook, and who patiently model for me. Thankfully I have a babysitter willing to put in extra hours and friends who will pour me tea when they see my shoulders hovering somewhere over my ears. And family who send texts and understand why I haven't called. And dear readers here who send notes because I haven't blogged in weeks.

The last few weeks have been a blur of a photo shoot for the latest book, then finishing all the details for that book. There were family visits and trips to the ER, movie nights and snuggles, afternoons enjoying the sun then evenings watching the snow. I had to work and sneak in living my life. Laundry optional.

But the manuscript is in, the photo shoot done, the bathrooms cleaned, and some brisket in the oven. So I can sew for fun again and laugh with the kids over bad knock knock jokes. I can sit down with my husband at the end of the day instead of burrowing into the studio. I can catch up with the world.

Speaking of the photo shoot for the book...

Kate Inglis came out to shoot this book as well. It is an insane collaboration that I am proud to be a part of. She shot A Month of Sundays too. We hit the ground and five days later it feels like we surface into regular light and reality. And along the way we shoot. Well, she shoots the things I tell her too and she translates my obscure thoughts into gorgeous images, capturing the light and the quilts in a way I didn't imagine. In between we eat and drive and talk and fall into dreams.

Now she is home, celebrating her own book, Flight of the Griffons. The universe may explode from her creative powers. 

And I am home, here. Quietly being who I am.