"And More!" - Quiltmaker 100 Blogs blog tour

 

Volume #8 of QM's 100 Blocks hits the stands next week, and we're celebrating with a blog tour! If you haven't been touring around cyberspace yet for a preview of many of the blocks, head on over to Quiltmaker's blog for all the details - and prizes. As if a visit here to Quilting Hottie Haven weren't prize enough.

While this volume does indeed feature lots of blocks "from today's top designers" as promised on the cover, I am very much aware that I personally am firmly in the "And More!" crowd. It's really terribly exciting to be hanging with the cool kids, though! Fingers crossed they invite me to sit at their lunch table.

One of my very favorite moments at Spring Market was when Carolyn Beam, QM Editor, wandered  into my booth and handed me the 100 Blocks entry form. I'd considered entering in the past but in all honesty had been too distracted (read: kinda too lazy) to locate the form. Now that it had been handed to me by the big guns I had no excuse.

Fabrics look familiar?

By some miracle, I didn't lose the form between Portland and home, and submitted "Hidden Garden," so named because I had just read "The Forgotten Garden" and the design certainly looks like my mind was still in a walled English garden. Lo and behold it became block #781.

I am absolutely amazed by the quality of the photo they took of my block. Clearly they have a fancier camera over there at  Quiltmaker than the one in my iphone. To see my block in shiny glossy splendor sandwiched between offerings from The Quilt Company and Jaybird Quilts (so very much NOT "and mores") is a little thrill every time I turn to page 65.

Those who know my "fun over fuss" style of design might be surprised to see so many points to match. Eh. There aren't as many as you think. Or maybe there are and you'll just have to give it a try and find out if I am turning over a new leaf or if maybe I just got distracted by the pretty fabrics. (Hint: It's the latter.) Loved these fabrics and they screamed "Garden!" to me. I told them to use an inside voice and we got creative together.

I played around with the block a lot this summer, and as I am wont to do, changed it up a little here and there to show what you can do with both the actual block as seen in 100 Blocks and with a few minor changes.

Set it with sashing in two solids from your color palette:

You might want to fill in that one sashing square I left blank. Just saying.

Try two different solids with the same prints:

Make nine of these blocks and you'd have a sweet little baby quilt. For a girl. I've heard boy babies don't love florals and hot pinks.

Change up the outer solid border to a scrappy one in prints rather than a solid for a truly scrappy runner:

Well, it will be a runner when it is bordered, quilted, and bound, but you get the idea.

Leave off the outer solid entirely and you get a cool new secondary design, as in this quilt I sewed my face off on all Labor Day weekend to get it submitted by the deadline, and woo hoo! it made it into the Designer's Gallery! Thank God, and thank Carolyn for putting it in, as I used it as an excuse to get out of all childcare responsibilities over the long weekend, and if it hadn't been included I couldn't have pulled that excuse in the future.

Those familiar with my style recognize this quilt as more my thing. Even one of my 10 year olds saw this and said "Uh, Mom? That's just Kickin' Stash." Well, no. It isn't, actually, although it is unwittingly similar and apparently I have a type in quilt block love as well as in men. Circular-ish scrappy in blocks, left-handed and studly in men, for those keeping track of such things.
 
My favorite part of this design send-up is the four patch cornerstones in the border. Simple but fitting. Isn't it delightful when we amaze ourselves with our design choices?


And how fun to find my block among those used in the Block Tester's Gallery of Volume 8 as well, this time with a totally different coloration and set on point in the borders of a quilt by Shannon Ownby. If there is anything I shake my head at in quilting, it is the thought that a block can only be made in the colors and/or fabrics shown in the photo, and I absolutely love that a tester saw my block in a completely different way than I did and made it work in her design. Thanks to my friend and fellow contributor Anne Weins, who pointed this extra block sighting in Volume 8 out to me. Bonus excitement!

I hope you enjoy all of the blocks and blogs on this tour. Quiltmaker is graciously giving away a copy of the magazine to a winner from each participating blog, and I invite you to enter while you are here. Just leave me a comment telling me what your current quilt project is - I know, I know, you have 47 projects going on now, just pick your favorite - and you are entered to win. I'd love if you considered following me here at QHH for fun and quilty snarkiness on a semi-regular basis, but that is not required for entry.

AND

For a second entry, head on over to my EPQD facebook page and leave a comment on the post that links to this blog post. I'll send one winner a signed copy of 100 Blocks. Because my "and more" signature will surely up the value on Ebay, right?

Both entries will be drawn at 10:30pm EST (or is it EDT? I never know what we are in at whatever time of year, but Eastern Time) Sunday November 17. Be sure you leave me a way to find you, like an email. I've had no luck with smoke signals in the past.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you back soon!