Quilts Are Calling

Summer has come to Wisconsin like a lion. We went from 50 degrees to 90 in a matter of days. Luckily, the heat stayed at bay until I cast-off one of my large wool projects...the other will just have to wait until fall. It's time to work with cotton fabrics...and maybe even do some hand-work while sitting on the porch sippin' lemonade.

The siren song of making a pieced cotton quilt is calling me. Maybe I'm in over my head... maybe not. For help and inspiration, I bought this book:



The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman has some really great general tutorials and the beginner projects have very clear directions. After much thought, I have decided that this is where I'd like to start:

I'm going to make the Small Plates quilt...yeah!

It seems like a project that is straightforward enough to be done well by a beginner, yet the finished product is dazzling! I plan on adding colorful hand-quilted elements to really make it my own. (That is a technique I've been wanting to explore for a while.) I hope to share this process that is new to me as I go. Hopefully some of you with quilting experience will post good hints and tips for me in the comments section. Maybe I will even come up with some of my own to share.

As a rule, I like to buy most of my fabric locally if possible...but that doesn't keep me from peeking around online. Fabric is just too fun.

Ooh-la-la... Amy Butler's Passion Collection

Awesome woodland fabric by Antioniamanda on Spoonflower

Mmmm... Bubblegumlove by Anna Maria Horner

I found this intriguing George Washington print on fabric.com

So I will be hunting for just the right fabrics to begin this adventure. If you see an indecisive woman sighing over bolts and bolts of fabric in a local craft supply store in Madison, Wisc., yeah, that would be me. ;)

–Cassandra