Just a Stitch or Two

More Book Pics

Here are a few more of my favorite pictures.     

This is the main, block-of-the-month quilt.  It is divided into 12 months.  Do you get the Jacobean feel with the chunky branches and fantasy flowers?  I used embroidery for some of the detail on the flowers.  A couple of the blocks are a little more complicated, but some are easy too.  The quilt uses three different fabric lines from Moda - two are from the Collections for a Cause by Howard Marcus - Legacy and Heritage - and the third one is Aviary by Three Sisters.

This next page from the book only shows half of the block (the other half is on the facing page and I couldn't figure out how to put both together -- still learning!)  I think Brian Grubb, the designer for the book, did a fabulous job with the look and feel of The Graceful Garden.  I had submitted photos of flowers with the manuscript because I thought it was fun to see the "real" flower and the fantasy flower side by side.  Brian took it a step further and actually painted the "real" flowers -- I am so pleased with what he did!  And the whole title/font/flourishes thing makes me happy ....

 

The photography for the book was done at my friend Paula's home.  She has a beautiful house that was built in the 1800's.  I didn't realize until a couple of days before the photo shoot how perfect the colors in her home were for all the projects.  She also has an incredible park-like backyard.  It wasn't the best time of year to be doing outdoor shots (February), but we lucked out with a spectacular day and had plenty of settings for the photos.

Sophia's Field of Greens is another quilt in the book.  This photo also shows the embroidery project.  Both of these were contributed by friends, Sophia and Jean.

There's also a how-to section on the starch method of applique. 

Ok, enough pictures for now!  Next up, we'll celebrate with a give-away!

Thanks for stopping by,

Announcing ...

   

I am so excited to be able to share this with you!

Back in February of 2008 I was asked to do a book with Kansas City Star Quilts and boy am I glad I said yes.  What a great company to work with. 

After the initial contact, it was up to me to come up with an idea for the book.  I love the combination of applique and piecing, so that was a given.  Block of the month quilts are fun to create because of the variety of blocks so that was another decision made.  And then the big question was the subject matter of the block of the month quilt.  I hemmed and hawed for many months on this decision.  Fortunately, they were very patient with me :-)     

One of the assignments in a design class I'm taking was to create a layout and eventually paint a Jacobean fabric design.  It is a huge assignment because of the nature of a Jacobean.  Jacobean refers to a 16th century style of embroidery.  The flora and fauna motifs are currently used in a lot of home dec. fabrics.  Jacobeans feature fantasy flowers with lots of detail, big thick twisting and turning branches, and leaves that curl and wrap around.  The branches kind of come and go and are partially hidden by the beautiful flowers. 

I was busy creating my layout with these gorgeous motifs when it occurred to me that I could turn them into applique and several months later, The Graceful Garden was complete (not my jacobean painting however!)  The Kansas City Star Quilts staff is very talented and I love the final outcome of the book.  It really captures the feel and look I wanted and the projects are beautifully presented.  The book is available for preorders from Kansas City Star Quilts and I'll have a limited number of signed copies available on my website before too long.

      

I'll show you more of the book including the other projects in the next couple of days and you can help me celebrate with a few give aways from Lecien shortly.