With sashing?

No sashing?

“Reassembled” blocks?

Some of both?

Or I might go in a completely different direction all together! We’ll see!

In other news, we just found out that we’re moving. To the house directly next door to my sister.  Needless to say, that’s great! The house is slightly bigger than where we are now (we’re talking moving from 700 square feet to 850? Maybe?) and I’ll have a dedicated sewing space so we’re really excited. It’s gonna make the blogging mellow for a bit but you’ll all be here when I get back, right??  We’ve been in our place for almost seven years so there’s loads of packing that has to happen that will cut into the sewing time! I can’t wait for a fresh start with a new place though. It’s a cute little old house (old for California – build in 1927) that we’re excited to make our own!

It’s such a great book. It starts with a very thorough run down of quilting – how to and loads of tips and tricks. All the info you need in one place. Then you get to the quilts… oh the mini quilts!

That last one there was made by Liz, a member of my guild, the LAMQG. In an aligning of the mini quilt stars, we had a mini quilt swap at our meeting last night.

Mini quilts are so wonderful because you can try something new or whimsical or out of your comfort zone, on a small scale.  You can take a risk or two that you wouldn’t dare take on a huge project that takes you ages to make.

Check out some of the great quilts from last night with their happy recipients…

Quilts made by Latifah,                 Emily,                                                                  and Lori

That last one deserves a zoom in…

On the To Do list?

“Buy more fabric” – so clever!

Whip Up Mini Quilts divides the many included patterns up into different categories.

I think the one I made fits nicely into…Geometric!

Right?

Mini quilts are great because you don’t have to concern yourself with the functionality of making a quilt – you’re just having fun with an artistic expression.  The book  captures that so wonderfully, providing such a great mix of practical information and pure inspiration.

Do you want a copy of this fantastic book? Just comment here and tell me your favorite thing about mini quilts! I’ll post a winner on Wednesday!

Here’s the run down of the whole blog tour!

6/1 - Craftzine – essential quilting tools
6/2 - Crafty Pod – book review & giveaway
6/3 - Chronicle Books – Behind the making of the book
6/4 – Indie Fixx – Designing your own mini-quilts
6/7 – Craft Sanity – Piped binding tutorial
6/8 – Handmade by Alissa
6/9 – My Love for You Background on Mini Quilts
6/10 - Film in the Fridge
6/11 - The Haystack Needle Decorating with mini quilts
6/12 – West Coast Crafty

Oh and P.S. … guess what I spotted in the book’s crafty blog resources list?

I was completely surprised by this and didn’t know about it until I was flipping through the book.  Truly made my day!

I have managed to squeeze in a block or two for bees and so on…

Got to work with some beautiful shot cottons for Sew Connected 2.

And a couple of blocks for the raffle quilts we’re making for the L.A. Modern Quilt Guild. You’ll be hearing more about these quilts for sure!

Otherwise hope you all have a wonderful Monday!

Got some bee blocks done recently:

For Linda and 12Squared:

And for John and Bee Imaginative.

And to wrap up, you’ve all met my cats before, but not my dogs.  I was able to snap a particularly good photo of them this weekend, so I thought I’d put it here to add some cuteness to your day. Happy Monday!

Put this little house up on Flickr yesterday (for the Bee Imaginative bee) and people seem to like it so I thought I’d pop it up over here on the blog too.

Yes, Mr. Gnome IS off gathering more mushrooms while deer & birdie wait for him at home. He’ll be back soon. And then they will all enjoy some mushroom soup.

I made two more blocks for 12 Squared:

The request was any sort of block you want. Was tough to decide but there’s a lot more fabric so I might make a couple more!

And all of the blocks that I’ve gotten back from Sew Connected 2! I had asked for no triangles and otherwise, no limits! I’m loving the blocks I’ve been getting back. I’m thinking white sashing (am I ever thinking anything else really??) but we’ll see once I’ve gotten all the blocks

Meanwhile slow and steady wins the race (I hope) with quilting the Lantern Bloom quilt. Dang stitching in the ditch (or right next to the ditch as I’ve found works a lot better for me) takes a long time! But I’m getting there! Just a glimpse…

A happy weekend to you all!

I’m thrilled to announce that I will be writing a book with Kristen, my co-host of Block Party and we are so excited.

C & T Publishing will publish it and it’s going to be about YOU!  Ok, well, maybe not you specifically, but about all of us: the online modern quilting community.

It’s not going to be your usual book of quilt patterns and projects, but instead a “how to” book that will also be about all of the virtual quilting bees and the amazing sense of community that we have found online.   Quilting bees have always given women a chance to get together and quilt, but now in the age of the Internet we have virtual quilting bees that have revitalized quilting and community among modern quilters.

I’m so excited that every member of Block Party has agreed to be a contributor to the book.  There are so many talented women involved and I’m so honored to include myself among them.

And the most exciting part is that we’re going to be including all of YOU in the book too!  We are going to be switching our Block Party blog over to a quarterly quilt along and we hope that lots of you will participate.  We are including photos of some of the blocks you all make during the quilt alongs in the book, so please do join in.  Your block might end up in the book!!

There will be more details coming along very soon so please keep an eye both here and over on the Block Party blog.

And lastly, thank you!  All of you are so kind and generous and have made me feel like I’m a part of something exciting.  We are so happy to have that wonderful community and energy transfer over into a book that represents all of us and the fun modern quilts that we have been creating.

Some wonky stars for 12 Squared.

and some houses for Sew Connected 2!  You’ve seen the dog before, it’s just taken me forever to get to making the second little house.  Let’s pretend that the wind blew the roof to one side a bit.

Happy weekend!

Oh batting! You have such potential…

Or actually having a little something going on on the design wall…

Progress on blocks for one of the bees I’m in.

On a completely different topic…. A couple of you have mentioned Project Runway so I thought I would clarify.  This season that’s about to start airing on the 20th is not the one that I cast. Season 6 got all caught up in a legal battle when the show switched to Lifetime and now it’s finally airing. It’s gonna be the same great show so please do watch! And then… watch again next season when you’ll see all of my hard work!

I made a cute sample quilt for my class later this month.

It’s little – 24″ x 36″ and makes me realize I need to branch out in my quilting more. I love the texture all these straight lines give it.

Also  stitching up labels…  I like that these fill my TV time along with binding stitching.

And bees! I’m all caught up on all of my bees! Just need to pop all of these into the mail…

Block Party:

Sew Connected 2:

And 12 Squared:

Now I need to dive back into a this quilt…