A new book......

Life has been busy here with Gregory teething and my husband doing his full-time internship, approaching law school graduation. I joined a local mother's group and I am pretty excited to meet new people - they do some sort of get-together every day!

Gregory's bottom two teeth finally came up and now he is much happier. When he was crying and having such a hard time of it, I didn't get anything done (including sleeping). So the sewing has been a little slow lately. But now he is much happier and taking naps again and I am ready to get back to it.

I really do like quilting books a lot because they are so interesting to look through and I enjoy trying to visualize how I would interpret any kind of pattern. But it's been a while since I have bought any because now that I have discovered the modern quilting world and the hundred's of blogs out there - I approach quilting in a whole different way. I used to pick out the pattern, pick the fabrics, and sew. Now - I really like to start making a quilt based on the fabrics I have and like, THEN I start to compose a pattern -usually visualizing it in my head or drawing sketches, for weeks at a time. And lately I have been trying to do patterns that are more about individual blocks rather than strip piecing, for example.

So anyway, I saw this book Material Obsession: Modern Quilts with Traditional Roots by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke at Barnes and Nobles a few weeks ago. I never buy books for full price at book stores, so I was happy to see it later at Joann's when I could use my 50% off coupon. A big reason why I wasn't fully willing to pay the full $25 for it is because I really want to make only one quilt in it, the one pictured here on the cover.

This quilt, in my opinion, is a real show-stopper. I love absolutely everything about it but am especially in love with the uses of red and white polka dots, the scrappy element, and the idea of using an overall dot print rather than a solid. Someone in my Chelmsford quilt guild made one like this with lavendar polka dots and it was one of the best quilts I have ever seen.

This quilt has a lot of challenging elements for me: applique and curves. But I really want to challenge myself and force myself to be patient. For a while, I was only sewing plushies and purses because I wanted the instant gratification of having a project finished quickly. But I know it would feel really awesome to tackle a difficult technique, learn something new, and hopefully become good at it. Look at what these amazing quilters are doing here, here, and here. These are the type of projects that take TIME but will be/are worth it.

I do have to say that it may be a little while before I can justify buying 8+ yards of fabric (the polka dots) for this quilt, but I have plenty of complementing fabrics to do the dresden plates.

So in the above picture, I had to throw in a daisy print from the Katie Jump Rope line. I received this half yard cut in a swap and have to say that I am in LOVE. I'd only seen this fabric online and wasn't that impressed. Seeing it in person - wow, the colors are so rich and vibrant and the daisy bunches are more dense than I thought they were. The fabric is amazingly soft too. I love to support local quilt shops and not buy so much online - but there are only a few in my area (none of them closer than 30 mins away), they rarely carry what I am looking for, and the prices are not terribly competitive. Buying online is a mixed bag - sometimes there are errors in your order, you risk losing a package in the mail, but the most annoying thing is that you can't really tell what a fabric is really like until you see it in person..... How do you prefer to buy your fabric?