The Modern Blocks Quilt Along is starting today! You can join in at SeamedUp.com. Stop by each day to find out what that day’s block is, learn more about the block’s designer and fabric, and see what color and fabric choices other members use when they make the blocks. (That’s always one of my favorite things about quilting: seeing what colors and fabrics other people choose.)

The blocks for the Quilt Along come from the book, Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers. These 12-inch blocks are fresh, fun, and beginner-friendly. So come quilt along with us!

What is SeamedUp, you ask? It’s a new online fabric crafting community where you can keep track of your fabric stash, patterns, and projects, discover what’s new in the world of fabric, as well as share photos and ideas with fellow fabric enthusiasts. Sign up at SeamedUp or take a video tour below with founder BryeLynn.

Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers is available on Amazon or as an eBook download from C&T Publishing.

Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Designers

Really. Fun. 12-inch blocks to mix, match, and make your own. Piecing, applique, paper-piecing, and embroidery. Beginner friendly. Something for everyone.

Check out my block from the book below, Quarter-Cut Daisy. I’ve finished the center panel, and am now contemplating what to do with the borders. I’ve got 8 extra sashing strips, so I suspect that once upon a time I had planned to make 4 more blocks for the corners of the quilt. Hmm…

Here’s a peek at a few of my favorite blocks from the book:

After Hours
by Louise Papas

Fungus Family Portrait
by Amy Sinibaldi

Missing Your Kiss
by Penny Michelle Layman

Mondrian
by Jamie Moilanen

Besides being a wonderful collection of quilt block patterns, this fun book also dishes up a generous serving of eye candy. You can find Modern Blocks on Amazon or as an eBook download from C&T Publishing.

I’m also giving away one eBook copy to a lucky reader! Just leave a comment telling me your favorite kind of quilt block, currently. After all, a quilter has the right to change her (or his) mind from time to time. If you want to add a link to a photo of one of your favorite quilt blocks, that’s even better. One can never have too much eye candy to enjoy! The giveaway begins Friday, November 4, 2011 and ends Sunday, November 13, 2011.

Happy quilting!

Find “Collage Couture: Techniques for Creating Fashionable Art” on Amazon
Visit Julie Nutting’s website

While Christmas-time can be frantic and stressful, it doesn’t have to be. With a little help from our friends, we can reduce our stress and not only survive the holidays, but thrive! Here are my top ten holiday survival tips:

1. bake some Christmas cheer

There’s something special about the taste of made-from-scratch cookies, but making them doesn’t have to be an all-day affair. Gingerbread and sugar cookie dough can be prepared a few days in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Or if you prefer, uncooked dough can also be frozen for up to 9 months. Just thaw your frozen dough overnight in the refrigerator. Then enjoy a magical afternoon of cookie baking with the kids.

2. crafty decorating

If the kitchen’s not your thing, you can still have an afternoon of holiday fun with ready-to-paint Christmas tree decorations. One Christmas my daughter and I painted these mini wooden birdhouses. We still enjoy hanging them on the tree and the memories of making them together. You can also find paintable ceramic ornaments.

3. use your imagination

I have a red felt poodle skirt that I made for myself one Halloween. It doesn’t fit me very well, but the poodle skirt makes a fun Christmas tree skirt. What unusual things do you have around the house that would make unique holiday decorations?

4. personalize photo cards the easy way

If you’ve got a digital camera, chances are you already have all your family photos right there in your computer. I like to order my Christmas photo cards online because you get a wider variety of sizes and styles to choose from and you get to preview onscreen what your pictures will look like in the cards before you buy. Tiny Prints Christmas Cards even has fun die-cut designs.

Tiny Prints provides stylish, modern and unique stationery from photo cards to personalized greeting cards to thank you cards and business cards. Offering exclusive designs from the nation’s top designers, easy card personalization, a powerful preview engine and top-notch customer service and paper quality, their designs have been lauded by numerous television networks, publications and celebrities. With Tiny Prints by your side the Holidays will be a cinch! They offer adorable Thanksgiving Cards, Christmas Cards, Hanukkah Cards, and even New Years Cards. All fully customizable and personalizable.

5. craft a Christmas tradition

Crayola fabric markers are a fun way for children to create holiday mementos. How about a Christmas art quilt? Prewash 100% cotton solid white or muslin fabric, cut into the desired size squares and iron fabric squares to freezer paper (find it in the plastic wrap/tinfoil aisle), shiny side facing the fabric. This stabilizes the fabric so it’s easy to draw on. Let the kids draw Christmas pictures on the freezer paper-backed fabric, then remove freezer paper and heat set according to marker directions. Make a few new squares each year and save them up for a Christmas-art-through-the-years quilt.

6. treat yourself

In the midst of all the holiday hustle and bustle, don’t forget to take a moment or two to treat yourself. My fave is a coffee treat, but others might prefer a chocolate truffle,  a soak in a bubble bath or watching a favorite movie. Afterward you’ll be refreshed and ready to jump back into the middle of all the holiday fun.

7. kid friendly decorating

Have small children in the house? Decorate a mini tree or wreath just for them. Find party favors in their favorite theme: princess, pirate or whatever they’re into most this year. Tie them to the tree or wreath with pretty ribbons. You won’t have to worry about the decorations breaking, and after Christmas is over, pass the party favors out to your children and their friends or save them for birthday parties or small rewards in the coming year. Next year choose a new theme to decorate the mini tree or wreath with.

8. gift from the heart & hand

There are probably at least a few people on your gift list who would love a handmade present. Try a mini purse or piece of jewelry from my book, Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry: Make Gifts & Glamour in an Afternoon (C&T Publishing). They really are fast, fun and easy, and with all that wonderful fabric out there to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect print for that special someone.

9. customize a gift

Tiny Prints’ Customized Day Planners make a perfect holiday gift. There’s nothing more quick and simple to do if you already have a photo ready in your computer, and it’s a stylish and thoughtful gift the recipient will enjoy using all year long.

10. stock up for Christmas crafting

When you’re hitting the after-Christmas sales, don’t forget about holiday fabric. Pick up a few yards and stash them away. You can sew up Christmas trinkets in April, August or whenever the crafting bug bites. Then next year you’ll be ready for Christmas gift-giving, decorating or stocking a booth at your holiday craft bazaar.

What about you? Please share a holiday survival tip or two of your own.

We Shall Be Changed

… Well, not just me. Author, editor (and friend ) Christy K. Robinson compiled this book of 365 devotionals for 2011.  It’s a year’s worth of inspiring and uplifting stories from everyday life … and even quilting!

Read a sample devotional: That We May Be One
Visit Christy on her blog
Find We Shall Be Changed on Amazon

I love Asian fabrics for my cover-button jewelry. Here’s a sample I made recently for Maeda Importing. This one is the Silk Fabric Cord necklace from my Fast, Fun & Easy Fabric Cover-Button Jewelry book. I substituted Maeda’s beautiful hand-dyed satin cord for the silk fabric cord. Wild Iris is the colorway I used.

If you use craft glues you’ll be interested to know about a new adhesive I tried for the findings on this necklace, Beacon’s Tiger Bond. I don’t like using glues with fumes, and my previous fume-free favorite was discontinued last year. I was excited to give Tiger Bond a try. Here are my results:

Tiger Bond vs. E-6000

As you can see, Tiger Bond performed equally as well as E-6000 with the added bonus of not having to worry about health issues and headaches from the fumes. This will be especially useful for my jewelry-making workshops. If you think the fumes are bad with just one person in the room gluing stuff, imagine what it’s like when there’s 20 people gluing stuff, even with the windows open.

I’ve also noticed with jewelry that even after the 48 hour curing process is complete, you can still smell the fumes for days and sometimes even a week or more afterwards if you put the jewelry on. (Depends on the weather how long the fumes stick around.) I always set my finished jewelry in the garage to air out for a week or two before I wear it if I used E-6000 on the findings.

Tiger Bond is more expensive. But here’s the thing, I don’t use my glue every day, or even every week. So usually my tubes of glue, whether large or small, dry up before I use it all. I don’t know how many large tubes of nearly full dried up E-6000 I’ve thrown out over the years. So unless you’re making stuff like crazy to sell on etsy or give as gifts, you’re probably not going to use up that entire super-sized tube of glue anyways. (And if you are using that much glue, you should really consider something that’s easier on your lungs.)

I used a 40% off coupon at the craft store for the Tiger Bond, but now that I’ve tried it, I like it so much that I’d buy Tiger Bond again, even without a coupon. In fact, I can’t imagine why I’d ever go back. E-6000 has been around for over 25 years, and it has served crafters well. But technology is changing at a rapid pace, and it’s great to now have more products to choose from that are just as effective, but safer.

If you like glue (and who doesn’t like glue?), there are some great resources on Beacon’s website, including a glue guide and helpful hints for working with glue.

Finally finished! You might remember the sneak peak of this quilt way back from summer 2009. (Read the post from July 15, 2009)

The pattern is The Gift by Brandon Mably, found in the book, Kaffe Fassett’s Country Garden Quilts. I made this quilt for a book report at my guild. Now I’m not going back to school and presenting you with a formal book report, but I will tell you a few things about Country Garden Quilts: The whole first third of the book is chock full of gorgeous photos of vibrant quilts that look like they just sprouted out of magnificent gardens (set at Great Dixter in Sussex, a 15th-century English manor). It’s enough to just sit back in a comfortable chair and flip through the pages. Pour yourself a glass of lemonade and enjoy!

If you must break out the needle and thread, this book is more than just eye candy. There are clear instructions, great tips, full views of the quilts, alternate colorways and suggestions for quilting. Projects are divided into easy, intermediate and difficult. I really like that with not just one, but a whole team of quilt designers, you get a wide variety of styles to choose from. Mostly pieced, but a bit of applique as well.

I chose The Gift not only because it was so charming, but because it combined fusible applique with the piecing. A little secret: I made my version at half-size, 13.5″x16.5″ because I didn’t want to take the time to find a copy machine and enlarge the pattern pieces. It worked splendidly right out of the book, and the math to reduce the block sizes was quick and easy to do. I included some of the Kaffe fabrics from my stash, as well as some other prints that I thought were in keeping with the overall feel and scale of the original. I hand-quilted it with salmon pink thread like the original, and added hot-fix crystals for a touch of bling.

I wholeheartedly recommend Kaffe Fassett’s Country Garden Quilts, whether for actual quilt-making or simply the sheer beauty of the book.

Speaking of Kaffe quilt books, I’m reminded of Kaffe Fassett Patchwork: Over 25 Glorious Quilt Designs, one of the very first quilt books I ever owned. One of the very first quilted objects I ever made uses several of the quilt blocks from this book as well (including that glorious cover quilt) … but that’s another story for another day.

In it Robbi Joy Eklow, Quilting Arts Magazine’s Goddess of the Last Minute shares her free-motion machine quilting technique and tells how to make 16 fun free-motion quilting designs. She gives many tips as well. My favorite is, “This is not billiards, in which you have to say what you plan to do before you try to do it. If you are striving for a motif and it morphs into another shape, go with it.”

happy quilting (whatever shape it may turn out to be)! =(^_^)=

I love Clement Hurd’s charming illustrations, especially that stylish old phone, the kind with the real dial for dialing (no buttons or voice recognition!) and that wonderful curly cord. As you turn the pages it really does get darker and darker in that quaint little house. Here’s my fabric interpretation of that phone.

I also like the line, “Goodnight nobody. Goodnight mush.” That always made me smile. Hmmm … I wonder what a quilt about mush would look like?

And here’s the back of my quilt. You can really see the quilting. (except nobody’s getting ANY sleep with this noisy phone!) Click here for more great book challenge quilts from my fellow quilters at Fast Friday Fabric Challenge. And browse through your bookshelf or local library for a little quilty inspiration.