and a quilt.

This July, I hit the quilting jackpot. First, I won a Quilting Arts video from Malka of A Stitch in Dye. Her blog was one of the first I began reading, and her work is truly artisitic and inspiring. In the show, she demonstrates her shibori technique for overdying and bleaching commercial fabrics to mimic piecing. So interesting.

Then, I won a pattern from Emily at Carolina Patchworks. I found her through her lovely Dear Jane quilt, and I'm constantly amazed at the beautiful quilts and patterns she turns out for her Etsy business. I chose "another brick in the wall," a pattern which very cleverly uses just one jelly roll plus background fabric, but, as you will see below, I had a different plan for my version.

Finally, through this flickr swap group, I was able to connect with Alison in London and trade some of my remaining Erin Michael Lush for some of her Anna Maria Horner Good Folks fabrics. It was just what I needed for the focus fabrics in my quilt. Thanks again, Alison!

So, without further ado, here she is..."book stacks"...a quilt for my sister that's been in the works these past couple of months. It's the last of the sibling quilts on my list for this year.



I adjusted the pattern by using fewer blocks and making only two columns instead of three to get a smaller lap size quilt. When I purchased the backing and binding, I thought I picked up exactly the same color turquoise that I used on the top, but they were quite different. No problem, I used the new turquoise for the backing and used white for the binding. It was a happy accident, because I love the white binding and turquoise would not have looked as good. I added some of the extra pieces of Good Folks in a brick path-style column on the back.



It measures approx. 55" x 68" and is quilted in all over paralell lines.