100 Books in Blocks
A literary quilt in progress. 100 books inspire 100 quilt blocks. Follow along, add your ideas, enjoy the process.
Saturday 19 October 2013
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Saturday 12 October 2013
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Book:
The following about the author and book are from Goodreads:Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her Young Adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. Her works reflect her strong interest in modern science: tesseracts, for example, are featured prominently in A Wrinkle in Time..
One stormy night a strange visitor comes to the Murry house & beckons Meg, her brother, Charles Wallace, & their friend Calvin O'Keefe on a most dangerous and fantastic journey, a journey that will threaten their lives & our universe.
If you want to know more, check here.
The Inspiration:
This book was one of my favourites as a child and continues to have a strong hold on my heart. My favourite character in the book is Mrs Whatsit. (if you have never read this book but have seen the movie - read the book!) Mrs Whatsit existed at one time as a star but she sacrificed herself in the fight against the black thing ... IT ... evil. This block is a tribute to Mrs Whatsit.The Block:
All appearances to the contrary, I assure you that this block is square with straight sides. Weird picture angle. The block I chose for the A Wrinkle in Time block is a traditional hourglass block. (hourglass/time ... get it?) The yellow fabric is a nod to Mrs Whatsit's star incarnation and the black represents the dark sky as well as the 'black thing'. I also like the contrast of the colours which can be seen as the contrast between good and evil. This block has been trimmed to a 6 1/2 inch square. Here is a fabulous tutorial for making an hourglass block, if you are interested. Just a note about trimming the block - be sure the centre remains the centre - if you know what I mean.Thursday 10 October 2013
Spare Change by Bette Lee Crosby
The Book:
Olivia Westerly is the only person Ethan Allen can trust, and he’s not too sure he can trust her. She’s got no love of children and a truckload of superstitions–one of them is the belief that eleven is the unluckiest number on earth. Olivia avoided marriage for almost forty years. But when Charlie Doyle happened along, he was simply too wonderful to resist. Now she’s a widow with an eleven-year-old boy claiming to be her grandson.Winner of Five Literary Awards,BookBundlz Finalist, Voted Goodreads Best Unknown Fiction, FPA President’s Book Award Silver Medal
Great Book! Read my review here. Check out Bette's web page here.
The Inspiration:
OK, I have to admit - before someone calls me on it - this was a no-brainer. If there can be coin quilts, there can be coin squares. And what is a small pile of coins called??? Spare Change, of course. (warning: I am about to do a little name dropping) To decide on the colours, I messaged my friend Bette Lee Crosby (the name sounds familiar because she is the author) and asked her three questions:1) What is your favourite colour?
2) What is Olivia's favourite colour?
3) What is Ethan Allan's favourite colour?
This is the response I got:
" Olivia's favorite color is emerald green (the color of her eyes) Ethan's favorite color is brown (the color of dog) My favorite color is probably a dark russet/burgundy-ish red."
And these are the colours I chose:
The Block:
Saturday 5 October 2013
The Challenge
Every now and then I get a little bored with my life and decide to add a challenge. Usually I regret it in very short order. But when I finish, the sense of accomplishment does some bizarre thing to my brain and I forget the regret. Before long I am back looking for a new project and the cycle begins again. Most recently, my out of control project was to make a lone star quilt for my daughter and son-in-law as a wedding present. To make it even more challenging, I decided it needed to be queen sized and hand quilted. It nearly killed me but here is the result:
Not bad if I do say so myself.
From there I put together a couple of small projects but now 'the challenge' is calling. The more I looked, the more I was drawn to the Farmer's Wife quilt. If you want to know more about it, take a minute and check it out here. Very cool. And definitely a challenge. But did it really 'speak' to me? Well not out loud - it just kind of whispered. If I am going to embark on 'the challenge' it had better yell - not whisper. Then from somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, an idea began to jump up and down waving it's arms in the air to get my attention. I could use the Farmer's Wife idea and integrate my own passion into it.
To make a long story short ... here it is... my new challenge: make small quilt blocks that represent 100 books that I have read and put it all together into a masterpiece extraordinaire. I have psyched myself up to the possibility that this particular project could take a couple of years from conception to completion. I am thinking I can do one or maybe two squares each Saturday and then blog about the book, the inspiration and the block. Why blog? you may ask. The answer is simple: I need the accountability. When the going gets tough, I tend to decide to quit. I'm counting on the blog to keep me going. I am so excited!! First block will be ready to post next week.
Not bad if I do say so myself.
From there I put together a couple of small projects but now 'the challenge' is calling. The more I looked, the more I was drawn to the Farmer's Wife quilt. If you want to know more about it, take a minute and check it out here. Very cool. And definitely a challenge. But did it really 'speak' to me? Well not out loud - it just kind of whispered. If I am going to embark on 'the challenge' it had better yell - not whisper. Then from somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain, an idea began to jump up and down waving it's arms in the air to get my attention. I could use the Farmer's Wife idea and integrate my own passion into it.
To make a long story short ... here it is... my new challenge: make small quilt blocks that represent 100 books that I have read and put it all together into a masterpiece extraordinaire. I have psyched myself up to the possibility that this particular project could take a couple of years from conception to completion. I am thinking I can do one or maybe two squares each Saturday and then blog about the book, the inspiration and the block. Why blog? you may ask. The answer is simple: I need the accountability. When the going gets tough, I tend to decide to quit. I'm counting on the blog to keep me going. I am so excited!! First block will be ready to post next week.
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