Lazy Days in Quiltville - the Proposal

I'm finally ready to tell you about the book I'm working on. It's going to be about letters, strings, crumbs and orphans. The title is Lazy Days in Quiltville. I bet you can guess who my co-author is.


Yup, Bonnie and I are doing this book together. I'm really excited about it, although so far it hasn't gone beyond putting a rough outline together. This is the fun part, before the drudgery of the actual writing kicks in and before compromises have to be made with what the publisher wants. (Assuming we get one - but we're a long way off from worrying about that yet.)

Poor Bonnie has been working herself to the bone to get her own book complete (Scraps and Shirttails, due out in September from Kansas City Star Quilts - check out their homepage here) and I've been pestering her about this other one.

So letters are going to be in the book, with an emphasis on the basics. Nothing fancy, just learning how to make them and practising with them. Oh and using words in the border. Plus, Crumbs, Strings, orphans, Lazy 9-Patches, Maverick Stars and Hearts. Not to forget the freehand fans quilting.

So there won't be any free-piecing or houses. Just an emphasis on playing, casual piecing (mismatched seams on purpose!) and making personalized quilts. The strings are going to be basic as well - rows or squares. The string stars will be in the theoretical next book.

I'm really hoping that ya'all will get involved in making quilts for the book. If you're interested, please send me an email and I'll give you some guidelines and throw out ideas. Do be warned though that financial considerations will probably mean using quilts with U.S. (including APO and FPO) or maybe Canadian addresses in the book. Practicality sucks.

By the way, those L-O-V-E letters I showed you at the top of the blog? That's a project I'm working on with Bonnie. I actually thought of it more than a year ago and Bonnie sent me some additional solids to help round out the Amish color scheme but I've been sooo slow to finish. I made us duplicate blocks so that we can each make a quilt. Will be interesting to see what we each come up with.

I didn't just make duplicate blocks for the two of us. No, I sewed more and it made me nuts. I have three more sets to offer to anyone who wants to play with Bonnie and I. The goal is to use the set of blocks however you chose to. You can add more letters as well as strings, crumbs, stars, and hearts.

You can add other blocks or applique so long as they are your own design or in the public domain. Or from Quiltville - I'm sure Bonnie will give you copyright approval. Do think mismatched and casual though - nothing fancy.

These quilts might just go in the book. And no they don't have to be big quilts. The top has to be finished by the end of the year - no showing it on your blog (if you have one) - it has be kept a secret until we've all finished our tops.

If you're interested, send me an email: tartbr47 at hotmail dot com. I'm completely open to bribery and extra credit will go to those who will hand quilt it cuz I'm a sucker for that. If you have an idea of how you might use the blocks, tell me - I'd love to hear. The "drawing" (I warn you now it may just be rigged and completely unfair) will be held on the 4th of July - a nice, easy to remember date.

Part of me is tempted to show you examples of how L-O-V-E blocks have already been used, but I don't want to influence anyone's choice.

If you're interested in playing along, albeit with blocks you've constructed yourself, then hop on in. Four sets of L-O-V-E blocks. Use solid fabrics if you want to (I excluded yellow, white, bright orange and lime green) or go a different route.