Posts Tagged ‘quilt books’

Mourning a quilter I never knew

Written by Diane Harris on April 12, 2025. Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Inspiration, Quilt Lifestyle

When I visit my family in Maple Valley, WA, we usually go thrifting. One second-hand store has its books well organized with a section just for quilting.

So I recently thrifted Simple Strategies for Scrap Quilts by Lynn Roddy Brown. I’ve known of Lynn for years and met her briefly once when she contributed to Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks. She’s a maker of scrap quilts like I am, and she’s written several books on the topic.

As soon as I started reading Lynn’s introduction called “Understanding Scrap Quilts,” I wanted to hug her. She was saying all the things I know to be true and have been trying to communicate to my own students. She was covering all the bases and doing it well.

Best Books for Scrappy Quilts

Written by Diane Harris on December 12, 2022. Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Inspiration, Quilt Lifestyle

I have a lovely surprise for you today!

Martingale is one of the leading book publishers in our industry and they’re having a BIG sale. Many books are priced at just $8. This includes titles released very recently, and this price is way below the wholesale price for books. Depending on the original price of a book, sometimes it’s more than 70% off.

Here are my recommendations for the best books featuring scrappy quilts. I’ve learned a lot by studying scrappy quilts made by others and I think you could, too.

Where else can you get 44 scrap quilt patterns for $10? This is an absolute steal. Find it here.

I love LOVE the quilts in this book: Fresh Start Quilts. This title comes from the Iowa gals Mary Etherington and Connie Tesene collectively known as Country Threads.

Isn’t that cover quilt just beautiful?! The book is on sale for $8, down from $26.99. Find it here.

Kim Brackett has written most of my all-time favorite scrappy quilt books, and her latest one ranks up with the rest.

Scrap-Basket Knockouts by Kim Brackett is another winner.

Scrap-Basket Knockouts delivers a punch and I wonder how Kim keeps a full-time day job AND continues to put out these dynamite designs. She’s my scrap quilt idol. Find the book for just $8 here.

A couple of others that are well worth owning at any price are 99 Machine Quilting Designs by Christa Watson…which is $8 on sale.

And Feed Sacks by Linzee Kull McCray—so many wonderful pictures and a wealth of information if you like historical fabrics as I do.

I’ve only had my copy for a few months but it’s dog-eared already! Marked down to $8 from $29.99. Get it here.

You should know that these are not affiliate links and I’m not making money off your purchases. I just think it’s a great opportunity to get some helpful resources on scrappy quilts and other topics. See the entire sale right here: ShopMartingale.com

Quilt on,

Books, Books, Books

Written by Diane Harris on March 22, 2022. Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Inspiration, Quilt Lifestyle

I’ve collected books full of antique quilts for many years.

I buy most of them second-hand. They are a great source of inspiration and I return to them again and again. Many of their titles are similar, and so I struggle to remember which ones I own.

American Quilts, The Democratic Art by Robert Shaw.
Sterling Publishing. 2009, updated 2014.

What’s interesting is that many weren’t written for quilters. Each book’s aim is slightly different, but only a few feature patterns for making the quilts inside.

Giveaway #5 at Stash Bandit

Written by Diane Harris on April 3, 2021. Posted in Blog, Giveaways, Quilt Lifestyle

We’re up to the fifth giveaway of 10. I’m going to try and get all the rest of the giveaways posted within the next 10 days so stop back often to leave your comments on all of them for a chance to win.

Today’s giveaway features a variety of really cool stuff! The Fat Quarter Shop is one of my favorite businesses and I’m a big fan of their products of all kinds. A while back they purchased the Triangles on a Roll business and it’s a marriage made in heaven!

Dog ears, bunny ears, or triangle trims…

Written by Diane Harris on February 9, 2021. Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Inspiration, Quilt Lifestyle

My friend LeeAnn is this sort of person: kind, smart, analytical, take-charge, open, wise, funny. So when LeeAnn says something, I listen up.

LeeAnn recently mentioned trimming the “dog ears” from half-square triangles.

“I don’t understand why everyone thinks you have to trim the dog ears. They don’t hurt anything. It’s just extra work to cut them off.”

The pink arrows point to the **dog ears** on this half-square triangle unit.

This started me thinking about the dog ears: those tiny triangles—the seam allowance overhang, if you will—that appear when you make half-square triangles.

Dog ears are innocent enough when it’s just a few.

Dog ears are innocent enough when there are just a few, but here was my carpet when I did a big project recently:

I have always cut the dog ears off, but I can’t say exactly why. After LeeAnn’s comment, I thought about it long and hard. Know what I finally remembered?

Alex Anderson hosted Simply Quilts for more than a decade on television.

Alex made me do it.

That’s right. When I had kids at home and did not have another full-time job, I watched every episode of Simply Quilts that I could. And Alex Anderson said to cut off the “bunny ears.”

Who was I to argue?

I consider this the Bible of quiltmaking.

I went to the Bible of quiltmaking, Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! The Complete Guide to Quiltmaking by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes. What did these experts think?

The Complete Guide page with instructions to cut off “extensions.”

There it is, right on page 104 of the Second Edition, in the section called Making Half-Square Triangles that begins on page 103. Number 8 says to “Trim the extensions and check the accuracy of the unit size.”

I’ve never heard them called extensions but hey, Diana and Laura’s book had sold more than 800,000 copies by the late ’90s, and I’ve never even written a book, so there you go.

By this time I was having fun and my curiosity was burning, so I pulled out Pat Sloan’s Teach Me to Sew Triangles. And with that I opened another can of worms, which is this:

Making half-square triangles larger than necessary and trimming them down.

That’s a topic for another post. But right on page 10, Pat Sloan has a plop-box called Dealing with Dog-Ears:

She says, “Notice how by trimming the triangle-squares to size, you’ve also trimmed off the ‘dog-ears.’ Removing them makes sewing multiple units together so much easier! So even if you don’t need to trim your units to a smaller size, be sure to cut off the dog-ears before assembling your quilt blocks.”

Hmm.

I checked one more source: Becoming a Confident Quilter by Elizabeth Dackson. This is an excellent book, written more recently (2013). And I find not one jot about the dog ears.

Perhaps modern quilt makers have bigger fish to fry? Are they trimming their dog ears or leaving them in place? If they’re not trimming, is the accuracy of their quilts in question?!

Oh my.

I have a big pile of quarter-square triangles waiting for me right now. I’m not even close to being finished—I need hundreds more. So it would save me a lot of time if I could just leave those dog-ears alone.

I’d like to know what you think. Let me know in the comments:

Do you trim off the dog-ears?

Why or why not?

I am seriously thinking about leaving them alone. Because honestly…

I think LeeAnn has a point.

Collecting Older Quilting Books

Written by Diane Harris on February 17, 2018. Posted in Blog, How-tos and Ideas, Quilt Lifestyle

Once every few months, I get to spend a day at International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska, about 140 miles from home. Next to the quilts, the best part of these visits is checking out the used books for sale in the museum gift shop.

I always leave with my arms full of books, and not just any books. They’re the kind of quilt books that hold all sorts of treasures, sometimes literally and sometimes in the form of inspiration for my own work.

I collect books from state quilt documentation projects, and Florida Quilts by Charlotte Allen Williams is one I do not have. A steal at $4.

Double Wedding Ring made by Edna Earle McKee in 1931 in Cottondale, Florida, 78″ x 78″, pieced by machine, hand quilted in a fan pattern, cotton batting.

And if this Double Wedding Ring quilt photo was the only one in the book, it would have been worth ten times what I paid. I mean, have you ever?!? Quilts like this give me courage! Edna Earle McKee made it in 1931 in Cottondale, Florida. Edna was a woman after my own heart. Edna wasn’t too worried about whether the fabrics matched.

Texas Quilts, Texas Treasures from Texas Heritage Quilt Society goes into my collection, too.

Pattern quilt c. 1900 by Nancy Fredonia Chapman Sears, Rusk County, Texas

The color photos in this one just never end, and the quilts are from all sorts of people. I can’t get enough of it. This sampler, called a “pattern quilt” in the book, inspires me to make a sampler from all the extra blocks filed away in my studio.

A slightly damaged America’s Quilts and Coverlets was just $1. It’s by Carleton L. Safford and Robert Bishop.

Inside the book were some interesting things: A triangular cardboard template, an advertising card for coffee, and some clippings with quilt patterns.

I wonder who clipped these out and tucked them inside the book. Did he or she use the Grandma’s Wedding Ring quilt pattern? What happened to that quilt? I hope it went to a good home.

Here’s an example of the quilts pictured inside.

Patchwork quilt, unnamed design, c. 1800.

No maker is listed in the book for this quilt, and isn’t that heartbreaking? I view this quilt as a permission slip to do whatever works in the moment. Notice that there are full blocks, half blocks, and even a quarter block up in the corner. How fun! We worry too much about everything. If your quilt isn’t quite long enough, then just add another border along the bottom and presto! Just right.

A woven coverlet

I’m also interested in weaving, so the coverlet section of the book intrigues me. I’d love to be able to weave something like this someday! I was given a floor loom a few months ago (for free!) but that’s a story for another day.

And if these vertical sashes aren’t the happiest, yellowest, staunchest pillars you’ve ever seen…! And consider this: There is hardly any other yellow in the quilt. I think we can all stop stressing over our sashing choices.

This black and white photo from the book is especially useful. You can see the values (lights and darks) without being distracted by the color. Isn’t it curious that this quilt maker used diamonds to create fan blocks instead of sewing the sections together to make a bursting star? I love this idea. It will probably show up in my own work.

Contemporary Quilts from The James Collection is from 1995, two years before the quilt treasure-store of Robert and Ardis James (New Yorkers with Nebraska roots) came “home” to establish International Quilt Study Center and Museum. Now boasting the largest publicly held quilt collection in the world, it has grown into an international phenomenon with quilts and related items dating from the early 1700s to the present and representing more than 50 countries.

The booklet is based on an exhibit at Museum of American Quilter’s Society curated by Penny McMorris, whose name you may recognize. She has worn many hats over the years, and today she is one of the owners of The Electric Quilt Company, where the quilt design software Electric Quilt originates. Quite a peek into the last 30 years of contemporary quiltmaking.

Whether your quilting library has new books or vintage titles like these, pull them out regularly. Browse for inspiration and soon you’ll have so many ideas, you won’t know where to begin.

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