Ooh, long time no blog

Yikes, did I really let so long go between posts.  I used to post about 27 times a day and now I'm managing about once a month.  But I have a few projects bubbling under which I want to record on here.  The first is making a quilt for my big sister who has just moved from Paris to Grenoble.  The second is the dolce quilt blocks I hand pieced over the summer which need to be pulled into a quilt.  The third is my neice's quilt which I can now get on with as I have my sparkly new machine (Janome 7700 for anyone who's interested).  I'll be talking about the second and third ones in posts over the next few days but will start with  Julia's quilt (she calls herself Rolleiflex when she comments on this blog and made a hilarious picture of herself to make me laugh when she comments so look out for her and her comedy picture.

In a flickr bee, we were asked to make a block showing a "collection".  Scared of complicated piecing, I decided to go for books.  Which are square and I can do square.  This is the block I made:


And now for a whole quilt of these - 56 books in total.  So I got my fabrics yesterday to get started (from Simply Solids of course).  Three metres of Kona Snow (Julia, this is off white) and a Robert Kaufmann dusty palette jelly roll.

So three questions for blog readers and Julia.  Firstly, will a quilt look good in a mix of all these colours, one per book or should there be more of some, fewer of others, no purples or whatever.  Secondly,  should we have any patterned fabrics in there or just plains?  Thirdly, I need 56 classic penguin titles.  You can see I have six already and a few more in my head but I'm not up to 56 yet so, if you can think of a few classics for me, that would really help.

Step one in making this quilt is pre-soaking the Kona Snow in Bubble Jet Set.  More of that in my next post.

Comments

  1. NO PURPLES??? Good God woman, do you not know me? I hereby over ride anyone who thinks there should be no purple in MY quilt? Let there be piles of purples, lashings of lavender, mountains of mauves, increments of indigo, vastnesses of violet. Got it?

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  2. I did wonder where you went, then saw you on the pincushion swap I joined up to. The book quilt is a great idea and I was looking to do something like for my tutor, would a tutorial be in the works????
    I would use just plain fabric and probably match the colour to the title, pinks for romance, sea blue for Moby Dick, black or red for Dracula...is that weird??
    Heres a list of books on my shelf at the moment

    Dracula Bram Stoker
    Frakenstein Mary Shelly
    Pardonners Tale Chaucer
    (can you tell im doing the gothics at college!)
    Turn of the Screw Henry James
    Macbeth Shakespeare
    Animal Farm - George Orwell
    Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
    1984 - George Orwell
    Bleak House - Charles Dickens
    The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas
    Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - CS Lewis
    Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
    Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel - Garcia Marquez
    Middlemarch - George Elliot
    Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
    Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
    Emma - Jane Austen
    Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
    The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
    Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
    The Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
    Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
    Watership Down - Richard Adams
    Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
    The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
    Jane Eyre - Charlotte BronteOn the road - Jack Kerouac
    One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    Tess of the D'Ubervilles - Thomas Hardy
    Ulysses - James Joyce
    War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
    Persuasion - Jane Austen
    Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
    The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
    A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

    Karen x

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  3. ps and here is a complete list of all the Penguin Classics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Penguin_Classics,

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  4. I've got this roll and they all go together beautifully so use them all I say.

    As for titles, well I can think of a few authors instead. Dickens, Shakespeare, Austin and Bronte unless you are going for all 20th Century. Kipling, D.H.Lawrence, Tolkien, Robert Graves, Virginia Woolf, E.M.Forster.

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  5. Hey, Nice to see you back on top of my blog roll. Those penguin books blocks are just so cool! Only you could come up with something so clever. As for titles I think the others have got it covered (excuse the pun)though I wonder if you could sneak one in called "Lilys Quilts" by Lynne.

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  6. What a 'fantastabulous' idea! I so LOVE it! I'm a readaholic and this would be a perfect quilt for me :) {my name is Julia, too...is there a chance that you would mix up the addresses? *lol*}.
    You're a genius! Keep us updated with the process...can't wait to see this quilt finished.

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  7. I'm still gushing over this block! Can't your parents adopt me so I can be your sister too and you'll make me a penguin book quilt pleeeease?
    I'd go for the solids if there's enough of them in the jelly roll.

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  8. Hooray you're back!!

    Now I hope you're going to detail/tute how you make this quilt as its going on my 'To Do' List for the New Year. I'm an avid reader and to make this quilt for me, just for me, will be fan dabby dosey!!!

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  9. I'd go solids (sounds like weaning advice), I think the plain Amish solid colours adds to the analogue aesthetic of a classic books quilt!

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  10. BTW you might have to update your profile to include a super duper high performance sewing machine

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  11. I have a question. How do you get the titles on? Do you print them on an iron on transfer?

    I can't wait to see what else you have been up to.

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  12. ps now everyone knows I nothing about quilts, I just like curling up under them, what is bubble jet set? It sounds like a group of wealthy people who drink champagne all day long.

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  13. Wow! Breezy Bree, you have just about everything covered there, except I didn't see Wind in the Willows (is that a Penguin?). This quilt is going to be the coolest, Lynn! And I'm pretty sure she wants purple.

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  14. So pleased to have you back! I have missed your blog.
    I think all solids and lots of different colours scattered evenly (ish). I will scour my bookshelves to see if I can come up with any old penguins that aren't listed already. This is going to be an amazing quilt!!

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  15. Fabulous idea! It will look great in the plain colours and I'd use them all. I think you probably have enough book titles by now so I won't add to the list. I own a bunch of those penquin classics...

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  16. Finally you return! I know we've had lots of contact but I do miss blogs! This quilt will be fabulous so I think it's only fair that you do a tutorial for us :)

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  17. Good to see you're still out there. This is such a brilliant idea. I'd definitely mix the colours but steer clear of patterns. Juliex

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  18. Hey! Welcome back, life sure gets busy! Purple, definitely! LOL and all solids too! keep with the penguin tradition. Gonna be fab that's for sure!

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  19. I adore this and want to make a square cushion for one of my good good bookworm friends ... :)

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  20. What a great idea! And I think it will look good with all the colors. Don't hold back! How about some of these personal favorites?
    Women In Love
    Animal Farm
    The Secret Garden
    Howard's End
    A Room with a View
    Emma
    Sense and Sensibility
    Jane Eyre
    Wuthering Heights
    Pride and Prejudice
    Frankenstein
    Mansfield Park

    The list can go on and on...

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  21. Oh thank God you are back ... and busy .. fab

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  22. I'm sure our parents would adopt the other Julia, they are kind souls, but you have to understand that we'll fight you to the bitter end to keep you out of the inheritance.

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  23. Here's a few of my favorites:
    "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt
    "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck
    "I Know Why the Caged Birds Sing" by Maya Angelou

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  24. This is such a great idea! Keep it solid is what I'm thinking.

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