Wine Gums in Progress

When we were writing the book I was in awe of Amanda Jean's quilts. She specializes in making use of the teeny tiny scraps. It's a great use of fabric, but all those pieces do mean that even a small quilt takes some effort. Don't be fooled by the size. You get great impact and an amazing use of fabric. And truly, it is hard to appreciate the scale of some of these quilts from the book.

It wasn't until we were giving our schoolhouse at Market that I could appreciate this. And now that I am out and about giving trunk shows I realize that I need to share these quilts to show more quilters the awesome opportunity presented by these designs. The first of Amanda Jean's little pieces quilts I'm tackling is Gumdrops.

I actually started this quilt in March, when I got my new scissors. And when cutting up little pieces of fabric was about all my big ol' pregnant body could handle. The little pieces then got put aside in favour of the baby and other work. But after my last trunk show I decided they needed return to daylight and be put to use.

Of course, I had to do things differently than Amanda's pattern. I have such a hard time following patterns. This time, however, it was unintentional.

In the pattern Amanda suggests fusing the scraps to a lightweight fusible BEFORE cutting the shapes. I neglected to read these instructions before I started cutting out my gumdrop shapes. That meant I would have to add fusible in tiny pieces, after the fact. That bit of work did not appeal to me. But, I do think you need some stabilization of the pieces to the background prior to assembly.

This piece has you sew down your applique and quilt as one step, so the pieces need to be stabilized prior to basting.

Instead of fusible I rummaged through the girls' craft supplies for a glue stick. Yup, a plain old glue stick. A little bit of glue on the back of each piece tacks it to the background. Then you can sew your strips together, baste, and quilt. As long as you don't coat the back there is no residue left after quilting and washing. You also don't get the stiffness associated with even a lightweight fusible.

As a bonus, this becomes a craft project with a bored preschooler missing her big sister at school all day. An excellent alternative to the endless tea parties.

Mountain Meadows

I have this quilt in mind. In fact, I've had it in mind for a year. We went on our first family hike in the mountains near us. It was a gorgeous day, everyone had fun, and I was completely taken with the mountain meadows. One usually focuses on the view, but I couldn't stop staring at the little bits of colour in the flowers all around us.  And now I hope to capture some of that magic in a quilt.

The inspiration:

Gathering fabrics, courtesy of Modern Quilt Guild members who responded to a plea for solid green scraps. Yes, solids. I'm pushing myself here! Now, let's see where this goes.

Scrappy Sunday - All Together Now

If you've had the opportunity to see our book, Sunday Morning Quilts, you know that the photography is gorgeous. It isn't just a bunch of quilts on a bench/chair or quilts on a wall. Sadly, we weren't able to participate in the photo shoot but we were absolutely thrilled when we were sent the photos to preview. The photos show the quilts being used, something very important to us. And they reflect the spirit of the book perfectly.

To achieve this C&T smartly used some gorgeous and real people, in addition to simply loverly settings. My favourite photo in the book is this one:

Those feets and legs are none other than Kristy, C&T's Art Director. On a photo shoot you make use of all the folks around you!

One of the girls, our cover girl, is none other than Sarah, the niece of a longarmer that one of C&T's staff, Ruthmary Schauer knows. Did you follow that? Amanda posted her story. Contrary to popular belief, she is neither one of our kids.

The photos in this book reiterate just how much putting together a quilt book is about collaboration and working as a team. It wasn't just Amanda and I sewing and writing furiously to produce beautiful things. That is the crux of the work, yes, but that doesn't make a book. The editing, the photography, the design/lay out work - they all come together with the projects and words themselves to create something beautiful and cohesive. We had an amazing team in Stash Books. They respected our vision for the book, but translated it with their experience and market knowledge. There was so much back and forthing between us and them that we never felt like the rest of the process wasn't also ours once the quilts and manuscript were submitted.

And even though the book is out in the world, and has been for months now, it still feels like we are a team. We all want the book to do well. And we are treated like part of their family. It's been a wonderful experience.
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We're wrapping up our Scrappy Sunday series today. At this point we'd like to celebrate the next phase of the book process - what happens when readers get their hands on the book! Honestly, this is the most exciting part. We've seen posts, received emails, and had conversations with people inspired by the book. Whether they tackled their scraps or made a gorgeous quilt, we love to see it and hear about it. If you are a store teaching classes based on the book, or you've got a wonderful sample display, we'd love to see it!

To this end we're hosting a linky party. Share with us, we want to see and celebrate with you. And speaking of celebrating, of course there might be some prizes for all of your partying with us!

Thank-you so much for making this entire experience ever more wonderful.

Scrappy Sunday - Alternatives

When Amanda and I started on Sunday Morning Quilts we had grand plans of showing two versions of each quilt. Well, aren't those plans grand?! It isn't in the book, but we've since decided to sew our way through the book. In addition to all the great versions other people are making, we wanted to make our own version of each other's quilts. This is the first instalment of us sewing our way through the book.

Skittles

62'' by 88''

On this one I went to the opposite spectrum from Amanda again. I emptied out my string jar, dividing the colours into warms and cools. (And I still had strings left over!). My Monster has already claimed this one because it is striped. 

Scrap Like Dat

72'' by 72''

This is an alternate colour treatment for Scrapper's Delight. Amanda did an amazing job with random, colourful scraps. I didn't want to recreate that look, so I went to one of my favourite quilts from the book. I took the fabric choices from Sunday Morning for this version. And a controlled use of pale grey in each block.

Both of these quilts were long-armed by Janet Madeyski, from Pieces and Threads quilting.

Don't forget about our  Sunday Morning Quilts Flickr group. Share your projects there too.