June Book It!

After entering for the first time and winning the May "Book It!" charm, I had thought I would not have another "Let's Book It!" project until at least July.  However, I realized two recent finishes are actually perfect "Book It!" subjects!

I have been participating in the 2014 Finish-A-Long being hosted this year by Katy Cameron at The Littlest Thistle blog.  For the second quarter I had pledged to finish covers for three of my quilt journals.  After finishing the last two, I realized that the books I wound up using to help finish them had been purchased on the same book order back in December 2010.  Both are books with applique designs in them because in the Fall of that year I took an online hand applique class and (as often happens when you learn a new technique) that made me hungry for ideas or projects that I could use my new skills on.

The first project finished in June was my fourth journal cover (the full post is here):

While the front block was one of the projects from my class, the back block was made from scraps and the design was from this book:

The book offers a sampler of eleven blocks designed by Barbra Brackman the noted quilt and fabric historian.  She had designed a sampler for a guild back in 2000 based on blocks she remembered seeing in the book “The Romance of Patchwork Quilt in America” by Carrie Hall and co-authored by Rose Kretsinger, another one of the pioneers in designing quilts for the crafting market.  When Ms. Hall's book was published in 1935, it was the first comprehensive index of quilt block patterns and showcased 850 block designs.  Both Ms. Hall and Ms. Kretsinger are inductees in the Quilters Hall of Fame.  Amazon.com has listings for copies of the original version  of Ms. Hall's book as well as an updated version from 1988 and a book of patterns of over 200 of the book's blocks published in 1999 by Bettina Havig.

Admittedly my hand applique skills are a little rusty but it was fun to try a classic block and to get to do free-motion echo quilting for the first time as well.

The timing of the making this next cover coincided with my continuing to work with my Civil War Reproduction stash.  I took scraps from that stash and used a design that combined piecing and applique although this time the applique was fused and finished by machine:

The design for this cover was my variation of the "Square Dance" quilt from Lori Smith's "Fat Quarter Quilting" book.
 

As noted in the full post on the project, all the quilts in this book finish at 16" x 20" so are already almost perfectly size for a binder cover (which I needed to finish at 11-1/2" x 22").  I'm a big fan in general of Ms. Smith's "From My Heart To Your Hands" designs.  I've also tagged other patterns in this book to use to make future covers for journals that will be dedicated to series quilts that I want to do.  I also have plans to turn another one of the book's pattern designs into a pillow to coordinate with quilts I plan to finish/make out of my stash of 30's repro fabrics. This was a great introduction to this book and I look forward to making more from it!

You can head over to Sharon's Vrooman's Quilts blog to see what everyone else is has been "reading" this month.

For me,  these projects made me think about all the quilt books I have and why I bought them and how it relates to my quilting.  If you don't mind me sharing a few thoughts on that topic, check out my next post!