Dare to be Square at the Block Party

Firstly, thank you to all those who left such lovely comments on my birthday post.  They made me smile and re-affirmed (if it was necessary) why blogging is such fun and how many wonderful creative people you meet across the blogosphere!  I received an email from my uncle who titled it `All the 4s, Droopy Drawers`.  While I never knew he was a frustrated bingo caller, I realized this would have been a much better title for my birthday facts post!

One of my presents from my lovely mum was this book, The Modern Quilting Bee block party by Alissa Haight Carlton and Kristen Lejnieks. Another lovely quilting book to add to my collection. 

The book is modern quilting eye candy and features twelve projects, one for each month in a year long virtual quilting bee, featuring uber talented women in the quilting world such as Rashida Coleman-Hale of iheartlinen.typepad.com, Jacqui Gering of tallgrassprairiestudio.blogspot.com and Elizabeth Hartman of ohfranson.com!

These are a few of my favourite blocks...

Miss December (Megan Rise of philistinemade.com), The Confetti Block - simple, random and very beautiful.  Great for using up all those little scraps of beautiful fabric, which you can`t bear to part with.

Miss September (Sarah Johnson of sarahlookingin.blogspot.com) Uneven Coins block or as I prefer to call it the Stacked Books block..and...

Miss November (Elizabeth Hartman of ohfransson.com) Wonky Stripe block - a strip of stripes showing off the different colours and fabrics.

Having never been to a quilting class, the clear and simple instructions and illustrations for each block are great for me, but I`m not sure it will teach those with more experience anything new. However, the book certainly serves as a source of inspiration - this is definitely the direction I lean towards. I love quilts made from squares and rectangles. I`m not so much a triangles girl. I guess I`m a bit of a square.

Having never been in a quilting bee, it was fun reading about how one is run and the experiences of the women involved.  I watch with a certain amount of envy each month as some of my quilty blogging friends receive fabric for that month`s block and plan their own. If anyone has any tips about how to get into one (it can be difficult when you have no previous experience of one) do let me know.

In the meantime, this book is available at all good booksellers or if like me you don`t have one you can pick it up here.

I love quilting books.