Gwen Marston's Books

I wanted to see what my bed quilt was going to look like so I threw it on the bed even though I still haven't gotten the binding on it ("it" the quilt, not "it" the bed). I am really happy with it. Pokey and Lily had fun running around and even though I made this quilt to use, knowing cats were going to sleep on it etc, I worried those little claws would snag the fabric or quilting thread. eek.





No, I still haven't posted a full picture of the bed quilt. You can see several pics here amidst the alphabet tutorial over on Quiltville. The quilt on the wall is Stars.



I received an email today asking about Gwen Marston's Liberated Quiltmaking, which as you know is my favorite quilting book ever. Ever. Since I get similar emails every once in awhile, I figured I would answer here. Last year it looked like Liberated Quiltmaking was going to be republished by a small company, but it didn't happen. Unfortunately. So the only way to get the book right now is to pay an outrageous price for a used copy. I love the book, but $100???


Liberated Quiltmaking teaches you how to improvisationally piece great looking cotton crazies (aka crumb or utility quilts), houses, stars and free-piece anything you set your mind to. Gwen shows you how to reinterpret classic patterns such as Shoo-Fly, Log Cabin, Nine Patch. But you don't just learn how to make these blocks because she teaches the process, the technique that you can then adapt to making anything. It was this new way of thinking that led me to try making letters and you can see where that has led.



The book completely changed how I approach quilting, making it so much more enjoyable and allowing me to find my own way of working. No more Quilt Police. The other great thing about the book is that Gwen shows how this used to be an accepted way of quilting and can easily be seen in many antique quilts.



Collaborative Quilting, which Gwen wrote with Freddy Marston, is another fun book and in many ways a sequel to Liberated Quiltmaking. There are differences though. The colors are much brighter and in your face. LQ has a more traditional look and teaches in baby steps. In CQ you have to work harder at understanding how it goes together.



Gwen's Liberated String Quilts is a marvelous book as well but truly focuses on string quilts. There is a bit more than that (fractured fabric) but not much. I love the book, but it's stringy, not improvisational.



String Quilts is also written in a completely different style than LQ. String Quilts is patterny. In Liberated Quiltmaking, Gwen just talks her way through making her quilts. She explains how she did it, but doesn't provide any kind of pattern or yardage requirements. She tells you how to get started on your own and explore. That just really speaks to me.

Another fan of Gwen Marston's style is Dianne of Persnickity. She's shown a couple of her liberated quilts recently in her blog. She's also spoken movingly about being a quilter with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) as have Siobhan of Scraps and Threadtales and Karen Dianne Lee at Living Life at LeeHaven. I urge you to check their blogs out, particularly their entries for MS Awareness Week (March 10-17th).



Mary in MN asked if I was charging for teaching the Summer Class. The answer is no. For my first ever online class I asked for donations to the MS Society and was thrilled that we contributed almost a thousand dollars. But I admit that having people pay made me worry the whole time if the students were getting enough for their money. Were there enough quilts finished? Did I provide enough encouragement or arm twisting?



Anyway, not paying works well for me. I do this for love and interaction with other like-minded quilters. The Summer Class is off to a great start. Brenda and Juliann have already made some great progress. Check out the blog here.



A wonderful friend sent me some more Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles episodes. I had a mini marathon last night and watched three of them. I LOVE that show. I'm not saying it's perfect or anything else, but I love it. Fox, you'd better renew this show.



But holy cow, can I just say the commercials suck? The show is so choppy shown this way. Five minutes of the program, three minutes of advertising alternated over and over. yeesh. The reason so many people watch pay cable tv shows isn't because those shows can use swearing and nudity it's because the flow of the show is so superior.



If only Showtime would return to making science fiction programming, or even better if HBO would start. Where's our pay cable SF/Fantasy channel that would make better programming decisions than Sci-Fi.



Yesterday I took a photo safari down to the Grand Palais. I took lots of photos but I haven't actually downloaded them yet. I know I got a fingerprint on the lens and I'm not sure how well I cleaned it off. I'm afraid to look.



That's it from here. Ya'all take care.