We Love Colour Book Review - Craft Book Month

At last it's my stop on the Craft Book Month blog hop over at Craft Buds.  When Lindsay first asked me to take part I jumped at the chance, after all, I had a book or 20 in stock to choose from, and I originally had planned to use a completely different book, however life happens and I went off the idea.  Instead, my eye lit on this book and I had an idea:

The quilts in this book are made by a collection of different quilters, each of whom is showing off some of Robert Kaufman's Kona Cottons.  The one on the cover caught my eye particularly, and although a full sized one would have been fabulous, I just didn't have enough fabric or time to hand, so I decided to go mini and shrunk it to 1/3 of its original size.  Using my Kona colour card that I won at the same times as the book (thanks to Candi)  I was able to see that although I didn't have the exact same colours, other than the snow and the curry, I had fabrics that were just 1 shade different in one direction or other, so I gleefully hauled them out.

One of the great things about this pattern is that every piece is measured and labelled, which appeals to my anal side (rather than 'cut 4 size A x B and 5 size C x D')  For the quilt maths, as I didn't want 1/3 of a 1/4" seam, I subtracted 1/2" from the measurement on each side first, then divided by 3 to get my new dimensions and finally added 1/2" back on again.  I got to have loads of fun with my coloured post it tabs at this point, labelling as I cut ;o)

There is a diagram that shows how all the bits are joined together, so I stopped reading any written instructions at that point, and just used the photo, which all went well until I went to put the 2 sides of the blue box together, only to find I'd cut the bottom cross bar 1/2" short on the top side (totally my fault for forgetting to add it back on again), which in turn had an effect on the white bit to the right, which in turn had an effect on the whole block to the right of that *sigh*, so had to do some unsewing of 3 bits to sort that one!

When it came to the quilting I desperately wanted to mimic the fabulous quilting used on the big one on my machine.  Have I mentioned I've never done any FMQ other than 1 stippled lap quilt?  Oh well, nothing ventured and all that, I started with all the straight line dense quilting in the boxes with my walking foot first, before switching to FMQ for the pebbling.  I watched the 3 minute video on Leah Day's site, and decided I knew all I needed to and plunged right in...

Well, there may be a few of my pebbles could stand a bit of grout between them, but I don't think I did too badly.  The only thing was that having done the smaller white background and the white centres of the boxes, my forearms and wrists were in agony.  I've had RSI before, and this hit both arms in a oner - ARGH!  So on the Saturday night I marinated them in ibuprofen max-strength gel, switched to projects that wouldn't put any strain on them, and on the Sunday I donned a couple of what turned out to be a small collection of splints I've built up over the years from the NHS (they're not returnable, they can get horribly sweaty and grubby)  With my quilting gloves over the top it looked quite comical, but it did the trick and I got through the remaining pebbles with no further incidents.  The only conclusion I can draw from this is that I was resting my forearms on the quilting table a bit too heavily and the vibrations during sewing did not help.  I did the wavy stitch in the blue section using a stitch just that shape on my machine and my regular walking foot.  Finally in the pink section I took some drawings that Trudi  had kindly loaded into Flickr for me, and another Leah Day tute, and got down to it.

So what did I think of the book as a whole?  Well due to the fact that there are 16 different sets of contributors, there's a nice range of styles and projects.  Each project lists the exact Kona colours used, although you could quite easily wing it yourself with your own selection of colours if you wished.  There are nice, clear diagrams and cutting instructions, and you will gain a whole new appreciation for solids as opposed to the patterned prettiness you usually work with.  I'm now itching to try some other solids projects, wonder what to hit next...

Now head over to see Jess and see what she has for you today :o)

This post is part of the Craft Book Month blog hop at Craft Buds.

Week One

Sunday 9/2: Hopeful Threads / The Jolly Jabber
Monday 9/3: Stitchery Dickory Dock / Me Sew Crazy
Tuesday 9/4: Olive & Ollie / Sew Sweetness
Wednesday 9/5: Fabric Seeds / The Busy Bean
Thursday 9/6: CraftFoxes / Stitched In Color
Friday 9/7: Katie's Korner / A Prairie Sunrise

Week Two
Sunday 9/9: Sweet Diesel Designs / missknitta's studio
Monday 9/10: Sew Tara / Clover and Violet
Tuesday 9/11: Sew Fantastic / amylouwho
Wednesday 9/12: Projektownia Jednoiglec / Two More Seconds
Thursday 9/13: Ellison Lane Quilts / Don't Call Me Betsy
Friday 9/14: Live a Colorful Life / LRstitched

Week Three
Sunday 9/16: Fairy Face Designs / Canoe Ridge Creations
Monday 9/17: Inspire Me Grey / Freshly Pieced
Tuesday 9/18: Lindsay Sews / The Cute Life
Wednesday 9/19: The Littlest Thistle / Sew Crafty Jess
Thursday 9/20: Urban Stitches / imagine gnats
Friday 9/21: Sew Bittersweet Designs / The Plaid Scottie

Week Four

Link up your craft book project at Craft Buds from Sept 23-30 from your blog or Flickr account, and enter to win prizes. Winners will be announced on Monday, October, 1!

To participate in the month-long contest, just link up any project you've made from a pattern in a craft book. That easy! One entry per person, and all craft book projects must have been completed in 2012. Just create a new blog post or Flickr photo (dated September 1, 2012 or later) and link back to Craft Buds in your post or photo description.

No time to create a project? This month, just follow Craft Buds and comment to win some new craft books and lots of giveaways!

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