Winner!

Thank you for everyone who entered the giveaway of the book, Quilting with a Modern Slant.

The random number generator's choice was 14. 

That means the winner is Jenny!

Congrats, Jenny!

I will contact you shortly!

Reviewing Quilting with a Modern Slant

[Photo credit: Storey Publishing]

Welcome to the last stop of the blog tour for this new book, Quilting with a Modern Slant by Rachel May put out by Storey Publishing. I am excited to share with you about this very inspiring book today.

[Photo credit: Storey Publishing, Quilt credit: Alexis Deise]

It is a comprehensive encyclopedia about everything you want to know about making all sorts of quilts, finding inspiration, learning techniques, the modern quilt movement. Whether you are a confident quilter or a completely newbie to quilting, I am sure you can learn a lot from and feel very inspired by this book.  This book is great in that it encourages you to take freedom and follow your heart to discover your own style. I truly think that real fun of sewing/quilting comes from discovering what pleases you and what makes you most comfortable and follow your heart to work on projects.

[Photo credit: Storey Publishing, Quilt credit: Katie Pedersen]
There are more than 70 quilters introduced in the book, who have developed their own style. There are many of them that I have admired for a long time, like Rashida Coleman-Hale, Elizabeth Hartman, Tacha Bruecher just to name a few, but I also discovered a lot of new people that I am very much excited about reading in detail. My copy of this book is still on its way to my door, so I haven't read through it, but I am pretty excited to, because I know reading about how those creative people found their own style will inspire me.

My favorite part of the book is that along with interviewing people, there are step-by-step instructions for various sewing/quilting techniques such as curved seams, machine quilting, and needle down applique. I am a very visual person, so this is very helpful. There is even a section on sewing with kids and on creating your own fabric etc! It sure is a great source of inspiration and resources!

Here is a sneak peek of the book, and be sure to read what these inspiring people said about the book :)

Jan 29th - Patchwork Posse
Jan 30th - Inside Storey
Feb 3rd - Craft Buds
Feb 6th - a cuppa and a catch up
Feb 11th - In Color Order

Would you like to win a copy of this book? If so, leave one comment by Sunday, February 16th. I will announce a lucky winner next week!

Zakka Handmades

I am sure you've all heard of this great book, Zakka Handmades by now. The author of this book, Amy Morinaka of Chick Chick Sewing, has been a very good blog friend of mine for years. I was absolutely thrilled to hear that she was putting together a book! Knowing how lovely her projects are, I knew her book would be full of cute, lovely, and useful zakka projects, and I was so right :) You can pretty much tell that from the cover of the book. Cute overload!

There are many great projects for home in this book that I would love to make, but my favorite projects are these irresistibly cute baby projects! This book came out right around the time my baby girl was born, so it was waiting for me when I came back to my apartment in Tokyo with her for the first time. What a thrill it was to see all the cute projects. Now that my girl is old enough to play with toys, I want to make this soft ring toy for her especially the bunny version! Amy, thanks for writing such a lovely book. It is just as lovely and sweet as you!

These are a few of hexagon pouches I made for friends last year! (I am so behind! Trying to catch up here!) I made many of them, but these are the ones I didn't forget to photograph before gifting. I truly enjoyed making every one of them. The great pattern is in a Japanese book, From Quilter's Studio, by Kumiko Fujita. (The only place I know you can locate the book is Etsy here.)

Hope you are staying warm!

500 Quilt Blocks

This book, 500 quilt blocks by Lynne Goldsworthy & Kerry Green, is one book I had been very much looking forward to getting my hands on since the moment I knew about it! I love love love it for so many reasons!

1. It is written by my very dear lovely friends who have been my biggest inspiration! 
2. There are so many blocks in it. Literally 500 blocks! How could you not find blocks you want to make?
3. There are blocks for everyone. There are simple ones for beginners and advanced ones for confident quilter. 
4. Most blocks are traditional blocks, so the construction is very easy to understand.
5. All the blocks are made with modern, beautiful fabrics, so you can see how modern prints look with traditional blocks, which is just what I need to see often!
6. There aren't just 500 blocks in it. There are many projects that you can make with the blocks in it!
7.  The book is little, handy, and so cute!

When I need some inspiration, I flip through the book and always feel itching to get started on making lots of cute blocks! It is one of those books I feel I want to make everything in it. Thank you to Kerry and Lynne for writing such a cool book. I. just. LOVE. it!

Speaking of quilt blocks, this is the most recent block I made using Paper Panache's awesome guitar pattern. It is a bee block for Melinda. I would be so embarrassed to tell you how late this is. I was hoping it's better late than never and wanted to get this done. One of my resolutions for this year is no more procrastination, that applies to all aspects of my life. I want to become more organized and feel better about myself. Getting late blocks done this year is definitely one promise I made to myself! I am very thankful of my patient friends.

I hope you have a great weekend!

Patchwork Tsushin No.178

I've done it again! I have never intended to neglect this blog, but it has been too long

 since I last came here and said hello! Thank you to all of you patient readers for putting up

 with this bad blogger! I have lots and lots of things I want to talk about, 

so I will have to get caught up in the span of a few blogposts. For today, 

let me talk a bit about Patchwork Tsushin No.178. 

This is the first issue of my one-year-long baby diary series. Along with my short diary

about Honoka, I have baby related projects and a paper-pieced block or two for every issue

which will be all put together to make a baby quilt in the end. 

It is still unbelievable to me my projects are in this amazing magazine. 

I feel so inadequate, but am enjoying this so much because I bet Honoka will have fun

seeing the series after she grows up!

I took this picture right after I finished this bib, and...

this is how she looks now. Yes, she is growing so fast!! I thought she was born just yesterday, 

but somehow she is almost half tall as me! How did that happen?? 

This set of a bib and a diaper cover was gifted to a friend who just had a baby. 

I used my bib pattern in the mag.

This Patchwork Tsushin issue is absolutely awesome. It features quilting stars like Suzuko Koseki and

Jacquie Gering. There are lots of large hexagon projects etc too! It is all in Japanese,

but it has a lot of step-by-step visual aids, and patterns are always at full size.

Patchwork Tsushin can be found at a Japanese bookstore like Kinokuniya if you have one in your neighborhood.
If not, check out superbuzzy, eQuilter, and Etsy.

I also sell some copies on Instagram when I receive the mag, which is usually 

around  the 21st of an even month. (I am "ayumills" on Instagram)

Feel free to write me email if you want to sign up for a subscription for the next five issues.

I will be back soon. This time, I mean it!!!

Hope you are having a lovely week :)