A Life With Quilts (the book)

I am so excited to introduce to you the quilts in my new book, A Life With Quilts! Before I do that, I want to cover what all is in the book and then I’ll give you a better look at each quilt.

I want to spend everyday making quilts. Some days that might mean I sneak in fifteen minutes, and some days are ALL DAY LONG. I’ll take whatever I can get. A day with my hands buried in fabric or fiddling with patchwork is a day well spent.

I wrote this book for the beginner quilter who has just fallen down a rabbit’s hole. I wrote it for the seasoned quilter who needs a little fresh inspiration or a look into other ways of making. I wrote it for the quilter who just wants to look at yummy photos and hear a bit of rambling from a fellow quilt maker. I wrote it for my grandma whose well used hands would pet her quilts and tell me where the fabric came from. I wrote it for us, I wrote it for YOU.

Mariposa

Mariposa is the first quilt pattern in the book. It’s probably the most technical quilt in the book as well, but I had this quilt done in a handful days. It’s fast and bold. Measures 60″x70″. The blocks are HUGE! And the wide open spaces on the “wings” allow for you to get creative with your quilting (which I also discuss in the book).

Lulu Louise

Lulu Louise was the quilt I was most excited to make. I took the longest to design this one. It was not V shaped in the beginning. I was all over the place. I knew I wanted this look, but I took the long way to get there. I had intended for it to be a sampler quilt, and I’m SO GLAD that idea left my head. As simple as this design is, it’s one of my favorite patterns I’ve ever designed. It’s the biggest quilt in the book at 76″x96″.

Tracy Loukota quilted this one for me and I go into a lot of details about her work and thoughts in the book. She brought so much more to this quilt. Lulu ended up being so meaningful for me while I worked on it and I shared that with Tracy. I can’t wait for you to read her passage and her thoughts as she quilted it.

Sassy Granny

The whole A Life With Quilts book is because of this quilt here. Sassy Granny is one of the blocks that came from the Anthologie sampler. And when I tell you it is fun, I mean it! I loved choosing fabrics for it, I love the way it plays with colors, and I LOVE the background on this one. I just know you are going to like it too! I’m already making another one now!

Sassy Granny was quilted by Beth of Modernly Stitched using Ikat #1 quilting design. The texture on this thing is amazing and it was my favorite quilt to photograph. It measures 70″x70″.

Hello Posy

You know, I wasn’t sure about this pattern when I wrote it. It was an afterthought. It was also a tester favorite. And I was all, “This one is your favorite? Really?“. LOL! I had more testers tell me how much they loved this pattern more than any of the others in the book. The whole reason I included it in the book was because I was pining to quilt those petals and I’m so glad I did. It’s adorable and fun! You’ve probably seen patterns that are similar to Hello Posy, but I added in those block borders to this one so that you can really go bananas with your scrappy background. Which I did!

This is the smallest quilt in the book at 60″x60″.

Attic Window

Attic Window started with another block from the Anthologie quilt. And I knew already that of course I’d love it. I had been dying over the blocks in 2020! But I didn’t know it would be so fun to play with color on this one. These blocks are easy. Hand’s down the easiest in the book. It’s the first quilt I’ve designed on point, and I cannot wait to design more this way.

Some of the blocks have dark outsides and some have lighter outsides. I think this gives the quilt movement. Or for me it does, anyway. I feel like when you step back, your brain thinks that there are multiple blocks happening in this quilt, when really there’s only one.

Attic Window measures 60″x68″.

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I’ve done what I always do! I’ve made customizeable labels for all of the quilts. You can buy them individually or in a group set with 35% off.

I’ll also continuously be keeping bundles for each of these quilts. Just in case you need a little help choosing fabrics.

You can find all of this on the kit page here.

Other topics the book discusses

• Get to Know Yourself
• Precision
• What is Scrappy?
• Scrappy Backgrounds
• Nora’s Quilt Story (my great grandmother)
• Making the Backing
• Basting
• Free Motion Quilting
• Binding