Books and magazines

In the last six months or so it seems like I've been on a personal crusade to add to my library of books. I'm very much into the historic quilt books ever since I've realised what a wealth of inspiration they can be. Thanks to a post by Lene at fine stitches, I found out about the book below. She likens it to the one I am doing here.
Of course I had to get it. You can find it at Amazon.
While I was out today I also had a browse at the newsagents and found this issue of Fon's and Porter magazine. Now being from the States, it was quite expensive but I justified the cost by what was inside.

I am besotted not just by the quilt (note the colour scheme people) but especially with the trees. Aren't they amazing? No pattern but a very good article by Gerald Roy where he discusses the machine quilted works he judges at shows verses the quilting on antique quilts. He voices what I have long thought.

The quilt below is a reproduction of an antique in the same magazine so you could see how easily the first quilt could be reproduced by using this pattern and drawing your own trees.

I highly recommend when you are making a pattern that you haven't done before, to first make a test block which I did for the string pieced star in my last post.

Gwen's pattern is for a 19 1/2" star but it floats on the background. In reality it's more like 17"

I want a bigger star so re-did the pattern for a 20" star.
The only downside is the set in seams, not my favourite but in the photos below you can see how I mark and pin one of the set in sections.

Slow and steady gets me there but I can't pivot at the intersection because of the bulk of the stitch 'n tear I've used on the back. I have to back stitch, take it out and start at the exact intersection again.

It works for me!

I had good intentions

of making some small compass blocks when I went into the sewing room, but these scraps were calling out to me to play with them. It's true, they were just lying around begging to be used. Out came Gwen's book, Liberated String Quilting and what fun to randomly sew strips together!

Voila! One string pieced star on red, and oh I love it! I thought the background could have been cheddar or blue or red but the red won hands down. The block will finish at 18 inches.

I often do this, get distracted by something I've seen that plays on my mind and I tell myself that I'll just make a block to see if I like it enough to do more of them. Who am I kidding, I knew I'd want to do more after being totally inspired by Pamina. she makes the most wonderful quilts. Thank you Pamina!

I have managed to make a couple more of these blocks and only have two to do before I can put that quilt top together. There's also been a fair bit of hand quilting going on as well which I really want to get finished.