Crazy Eights - The Big Reveal . . . . .

It Wednesday, and you know what that means, it's Thelma's Crazy Eights Big Reveal Day!

Crazy Eights is the pattern I selected for the Fat Quarter Winners book tour.

It won't be the only pattern I make from this book!

Ta Da ! ! !

Sometimes, when I look at this quilt, I'm curious as to what it would look like if I switched the position of the red and black fabrics. Not enough to make another one, but I wonder if the red would be less dominate if I switched them. I like the red, and love the quilt, but am curious just the same.

Why don't you give it a try and let me know how it works out!

One of my favorite things about Monique's Bundles and Bolts Website is the page where she displays quilts made by other quilters, using her patterns and, get this, with their pets!

So here's my attempt to get a good picture of Cooper in front of Crazy Eights, he got bored fairly quickly!

And even took off once. "Cooper, come back here!"

Is that the best smile you have for me, I guess so!

After you look at Monique's Pet Page, check out Twinkling Lights, a new pattern for April, I love it!

So as I went about my normal end of project cleanup, I had these leftover strips.

I'm an over cutter!

What to do with those lovely strips, I just hated for them to go to waste, which is what made me come up with this idea.....

Why not surround that lovely center with my leftover strips!

And made my Crazy Eights even CRAZIER!

I could not be happier with this quilt, believe it or not, it is even lovelier in person, the picture does not do justice to that fabric.

This is Lifetime Quilt #69, the entire time I worked on this quilt I always called it "Monique's Quilt", I think that's the name I'm sticking with.

This quilt finished at 74" x 85" and has approximately 1, 558 pieces.

Now for the winner of Monique's Fat Quarter Winners book and set of rulers . . .

Silly Sally!

I hope you're reading my blog this morning, I don't have your email address, drop me a note with your address and your gifts will be on their way to your door.

I hope you've enjoyed the book tour, I jumped from the Eventide sew along to the book tour with no time to think, what am I gong to do with myself now!!

Monique, congratulations on your first of what I expect to be many books, it's been a pure pleasure and nothing but fun participating in your book tour.

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Meet Monique . . . .

It's week three of the Fat Quarter Winners by Monique Dillard for C&T Publishing book tour!

For this week's tour, Lisa, Nicole and I are asking Monique a few questions and sharing them with you.

I'm curious by nature and love to ask questions, I'm a rapid fire questioner, I'll ask 3 questions in a row without giving the questionee time to answer question 1. I've even been told , "that's a nosey question"...really, I don't think I'm being nosey, I guess I just have one of those enquiring minds!

Monique was great to answer all the questions I asked of her and if she thought I was nosey, she was polite enough not to mention it!

Thelma's Nosey Question #1, " Monique, how did you come up with the name for your company, Open Gate?"

Monique's Polite Reply, "Actually, my mom was the one who came up with the name. I really wanted to incorporate my Old English Sheepdog love into the name or logo and we tried everything. I had my friends and my family thinking of names. My mom called me one day and said: How about Open Gate. She said it's an inviting name because it implies that you want someone to come in to your yard. I liked it right away. Then I had a friend that is a graphic designer and she drew out a logo with the gate open and an Old English Sheepdog at the gate waiting for someone to come in, perfect!"

I have to admit, before I even met Monique, I always looked for her patterns in quilt shops, it was the dog and that Open Gate logo that drew me in.

Great Job Monique's Mom!!

Thelma's Nosey Question #2 - "How many patterns have you published and what are your all time favorite patterns and why?" (see what I mean about the 3 questions)

Monique's Polite Reply, "My first pattern was published in 2004. I currently have 76 patterns. I have several favorite patterns. If I had to pinpoint a few, I would say: Courtyard (left), Dorchester Cottage (center), and Hidden Glory (right).

Courtyard - I love the diamond effect that you get when you put your blocks together in Courtyard.

Also, it has my favorite colors to use in quilts - red and black.

Dorchester Cottage - The name reminds me of the countryside in England. I have visited England several times and it's one of my favorite places to go. Another reason is the color selection and the diamond effect that you get again when you put the sashing and blocks together. The pinks and browns are so warm and inviting and with the cream color background, it just sets it off.

Hidden Glory - the main reason is that it is named after my dog that passed away. She was the sweetest, most loving dog that I have ever had. I miss her terribly. The other reason is that I love red, white and blue quilts and although this is scrappy, it's not overly scrappy. One of my favorite things about designing is the secondary designs that come out when you put blocks together. This is a prime example of that."

Thelma's Nosey Questions #3 - "What patterns are your most popular patterns?"

Monique's Polite Answer - "My most popular patterns are Quarter Scramble (left), Wine & Cheese (center) and Victoria Rose (left)"

Thelma's Nosey Question #4 - Since I can't live without my FTBG ruler, I would like to know what tool or tools you can't live without, also just how did you come up with the idea of the "Fit to be Geese" ruler, do you know how many are currently in use?

Moniquie's Polite Answers - "Besides my rulers, of course :), I couldn't live without my 6" x 12" ruler. The reason is that I cut a lot of fat quarters and I can fold the fat quarter with the ruler fitting perfectly. I also have a scissor fetish. I love little scissors that snip threads and fabric. My favorites are Dovo so I don't have too many. They are quite expensive but wonderful scissors. "

"My friend Sue and I were coming home from a retreat that I had been teaching at. I only had the Fit to be Square ruler at the time and the ladies at the retreat kept saying that I should design a flying geese ruler. So, I thought about it for a bit and on the way home, I bounced some ideas off of Sue and came up with the idea. Honestly, sometimes I don't know where the ideas come from. They just do and I'm glad!"

"I would guess that there are over 4000 rulers out there. I don't know if that's a lot or not but they keep selling and I'm thrilled about it!"

Thelma's Nosey Question #5 - I would love to know all about your sewing/design room and how you have it set up.

Monique's Polite Answer - "Actually I have two sewing rooms. I have one in the basement that I had set up when I first started quilting before I started designing. That one is now used primarily for storage and cutting of fabric for kits. It has lots of light and shelves for patterns and fabric. It also has lots of tables for cutting and a huge ironing board. The one that I sew in now is upstairs on the main floor. We converted two small bedrooms into one large room and put sliding french doors between them. I usually have them open and use the whole space. I have a bed that I lay my blocks on when I'm piecing. I have a desk where I have my laptop and speakers for my I-tunes. I have a collapsible cutting table that my husband made. It is high and has a drawer. Most of my furniture needs to be collapsible so that when I have visitors, they have space. I also have a drop leg table where I put my sewing machine. There is a high shelving unit that my husband made for me and put a pressing board on top. I have a barn wood cabinet where I keep some of my fabric. In the small closet, I keep some more fabrics and one more tall cabinet houses my fat quarters. It's a wonderful space that I love to spend hours in."

Thelma's Nosey Question #6 - What blog do you check first thing every morning because it's your all time most very favorite blog?

Monique's Polite Answer - Oh that's easy, it's Cupcakes 'n Daisies!

(OK, I might have made that one up.)

So what's a book tour without a giveaway?

One lucky commenter from today's post will win Monique's Fat Quarter Winners book AND a set of her fabulous rulers "Fit To Be Geese", "Mini Fit To Be Geese" and "Fit To Be Square".

To be eligible to win go walk your neighbor's dog, then leave a comment here. Twitter your outside temperature on Facebook and you can leave another comment here. I'm just kidding.....

Just leave a comment on this giveaway blog, Nicole's giveaway blog, Monique's giveaway blog or Lisa's giveaway blog (Lisa's will be tomorrow), 4 chances to win, 4 winners, it's that easy. My giveaway closes on midnight Saturday, April 23rd, CST.

I'll announce my winner on next week's book tour post.

I filled my basket with Crazy Eight blocks,

and made a quilt!

Yes, Crazy Eights is done, don't miss the big reveal next week.

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The book tour continues . . .

Just in case you missed last week's blog, Nicole - Sister's Choice Quilts, Lisa - Stashmaster, Monique - Open Gate Quilts and I are dedicating different days of the week during the month of April to talk about this new book,

Fat Quarter Winners, by Monique Dillard and published by C & T Publishing.

Out of the 11 patterns provided in the book,

I've chosen this pattern, Crazy Eights, as my first project to make from the book.

The first of many I'm sure.

So the quilt is made up of 84 of these blocks.

I'm going with a mix of black and red fabrics, some are from Sophia, by Windham, 19th Century Red, also by Windham, and any other black or red fabric in my stash that caught my eye.

The pattern calls for 8 blocks to be made from the same red and black fabric combination, and to use 10 different sets of black and red fabric, I'm going with 4 blocks and increasing the number of red and black fabric sets to 21. The pattern also calls for a scrappy background but I'm going with the same background for the whole quilt.

After I made my first 4 blocks I threw them on my design wall. It then occurred to me that this pattern would look really good with just three fabrics, one background and two contrasting colors. I've got all my strip sets cut so I'm going scrappy, but keep that in mind if you decide to make this pattern.

We thought it would be fun to each do a tutorial this week on a technique required to make one of the patterns in the book. For my tutorial, I'm going to explain how to use Monique's Fit to be Geese rulers.

My pattern does not use flying geese, but I'm such a huge fan of this method of making flying geese that I asked to do this tutorial, and since I whined and pouted about not getting to make Pinochle for the book tour, the other three ladies let me pick my favorite for the tutorial.

The Fat Quarter Winners book and the ruler both provide great directions for using the Fit to be Geese rulers. The book also provides an alternate way to make flying geese, one that does not require you to buy the Fit to be Geese rulers, which is nice, but really, once you see how easy it is to make the geese, you'll want the ruler.

So the rulers come in two sizes, regular and mini.

If you have both rulers

you can make geese ranging in size from 3/4" X 1 1/2" to 3" X 6".

For this tutorial I'm going to make the 1 1/2 " X 3" geese.

The ruler provides the fabric requirements for each unit and yields 4 geese.

I needed one 4 1/2 " square and four 2 3/4" squares of fabric.

Cut the large square diagonally twice and the small square diagonally once.

These are the pieces you need to make one unit.

Line up the background or sky unit along the left side and bottom of the geese unit, right sides together, and sew. The side of the sky unit is supposed to hang over the top like that.

Press open, towards the background unit.

Then add the right background triangle.

And press open towards the right background triangle. If it looks a little wonky, don't worry, that's what the ruler is for.

Trim the top of the unit with the ruler placed just like this, where the rooftop fits right into that seam.

The top's done, straight and neat.

Then rotate the ruler 180 degrees and trim up the bottom.

Then rotate and align the ruler again to trim each side, using the appropriate red lines on the ruler,

like this.

One wonky unit, four quick trims, and you get this,

a perfect 1 1/2" X 3" single unit.

This method suits me because you start with a piece that's a smidge big and trim it up, I like to do that whenever possible with any block that I make.

That's all there is to it, easy peasy.

These rulers are available at a quilt shop near you or from Monique's online Bundles and Bolts store.

I hope this tutorial was somewhat helpful to you, and if it was not helpful, I hope it was at least entertaining!!

A big thanks to my helpers, The Cutesters.

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Inspiration Block . . .

So here's my Crazy Eights inspiration block. One block of the 84 I need to finish my project from Monique Dillard's new book, Fat Quarter Winners.

I'll have more to say about my Crazy Eights block tomorrow, a few more blocks to show you, PLUS a tutorial on Monique's Fit to be Geese ruler!

Isn't it a little sad and strange, it's Tuesday but no Eventide update post. Maybe popping over to the Open Gate Quilts blog will cheer us up, it's Monique's book tour day!

Thanks for stopping by....

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Book Tour . . . .

Welcome to Week One, Day Three, Thelma Day One, of the Fat Quarter Winners Book Tour!

Or as I like to call it, my turn!

Fat Quarter Winners is the first book written by Monique Dillard. You are probably familiar with Monique through her Open Gate patterns or Fit to be Geese rulers. The book is published by C&T Publishing and is currently available for purchase through several online book stores, online quilt stores, or maybe even a quilt shop near you. The book is also available through Monique's Open Gate Quilts website.

Since I don't get in a quilt shop very often, I keep a list of books I see folks blog about online, and then when I finally do get to a quilt shop or book store, I look them over. I won't buy a book for one pattern, I have to like at least TWO projects in the book and am really happy when 3 projects appeal to me. But that being said, I do prefer books over individual patterns. There are usually more illustrations in quilt books than individual patterns, there are usually more colorful pictures, and I just love the introductions, those first few pages at the beginning of quilt books that you may skip. It's in those first few pages that you get a real feel for the author and I usually pick up a few new tips. At a minimum, those introductions reinforce that what I am doing, I'm doing correctly.

So imagine my excitement to get the opportunity to actually look at a book before it hit the shelves. This book has eleven different patterns and I like them all. The other features of this book that appeal to me are the alternate quilt sizes for each project, you know how I like to make my projects any size but the pattern designer's size. No math required, Monique provides several alternatives to meet your size need. I also like how the patterns in this book can be made with any style of fabric, you like Civil War reproduction fabric, that works, you like Kaffe Fassett, that works, into batiks, perfect choice, looking to use up some of your stash, this book has you covered. I would say this book gets the "C n D" stamp of approval.

The first thing Lisa, Nicole and I needed to do when we got our books was to decide which pattern we wanted to make for our book tour. We each made a list of our top 3 favorites then shared our lists, we all chose the same pattern for our number one choice, Pinochle! Well that wouldn't make for an interesting blog tour. I'm not making Pinochle for the book tour, but believe me, I will be making Pinochle! (interestingly, while we all picked the same number one choice, all of our number two and number three choices were different!!)

My second choice was Crazy Eight.

I liked how the center block spilled out into border, I liked how depending on your focus, this project has different looks, sometimes it looks like it is two large alternating blocks, sometimes the blue blocks look like they form a circle around the background four patch, sometimes it's the diagonal line of blue blocks that catch my eye. It also didn't hurt that there was a little red in the pattern!

So once I chose my pattern, I then needed to decide on my fabric. I've never made a red and black quilt and I thought that combination may work really well for Crazy Eights.

I started with this bundle of Sophia fabric by Wyndham that I bought for no purpose other than to set out in my sewing room, well no more, I pulled out the fat quarters that were predominately red or predominately black.

To those I added any black or red fabric in my stash that caught my eye. I just stacked them on this shelf until I had what I thought was a good assortment.

The quilt size I'm making is 60" x 72" and calls for 10 black, 10 red, and 10 light fat quarters, how easy is that! So easy that I figured I would go with 20 different reds and 20 different blacks, you know me, I've said it before, "more is more". I also decided to go with one background fabric instead of several, just to give my project less background noise.

Each block is made up of red and black sets. So I needed to match my black and red fabric into sets.

Here they are.

Even though the book calls for fat quarters, this particular pattern doesn't use a strip of fabric wider than 2 inches so you could also use jelly roll strips, or any other strips you may have.

So that's where I am, I've got my fabric selected, my strips cut, now I just need to make a few of these blocks.....

84 to be exact!

I used this basket when I was making my twelve thousand hst units for Belle Meade, I never did get this basket full,

maybe 84 Crazy Eight blocks will fill it up! Come back next Wednesday for an update!

So here's this week's Fat Quarter Winners Book Tour Schedule:

Monday - Nicole - Sister's Choice, Nicole is making Rummy

Tuesday - Monique - Open Gate Blog, Monique is making Spades

Wednesday - Me and Crazy Eight

Thursday - Lisa - Stashmaster, Lisa is making Pinochle!! Yes, Lisa won out and is making our number one favorite pattern, I bet you can't wait to see it, I know I can't!!

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Back Home . . . .

Lifetime Quilt # 60 is home from the quilter!

Welcome Home A Mazing Abundance! My quilter thought a simple all over design with plenty of curves is what this quilt with all its straight lines needed, I have to agree.

The fabric I used was Simple Abundance by Bonnie and Camille for Moda and my favorite fabric from that whole line is on the back.

Perfect timing, I was ready for a change in my bedroom.

The pattern for this quilt is Ashcombe by Carrie Nelson for Miss Rosie's Quilt Company.

It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the background fabric is a green on cream print that is perfect for this time of year, when things are starting just to turn green around my yard.

This quilt is still such a surprise for me, I just love it, unexpectedly so, and I can't even tell you why!! There's just something about that fabric married with that pattern, sometimes it's just as simple as that.

All I need now is a big square pillow made from the scraps that I saved from this project right in the middle of those two red shams! Maybe I'll get to that next week, stay tuned for an update!

Tomorrow's Tuesday, Eventide Tuesday, and not just any Eventide Tuesday, it's the big reveal, all the finished Eventides will be parading across my blog, don't miss it!

If you're a Eventide Sew Along finisher, make sure you send me a picture or link to your blog of your finished quilt if you've not already done so, THANKS!

Julie I'm Keeping Busy in WA won this Schnibbles Bag O'Goodies from last week's Eventide post. Congratulations Julie, and thanks for following the Eventide Sew Along!

I've been asked to do a book tour for Monique Dillard's new book Fat Quarter Winners. I was happy to agree to do the book tour for several reasons; first because I met Monique last fall and found her to be a delightful person and talented quilter, also, it's Monique first book and I am just so proud and happy for her that I want to shout it from the rooftops, but only a few squirrels and deer would hear me, so I figured my blog would be a more constructive way to get the word out, and and finally, I love the book, it's fresh and fun.

So here's how it's going work, me and a few other bloggers have selected a pattern from the book and plan to dedicate one day each week the month of April blogging about our quilt. We also plan to blog about Monique's book, throw in a tutorial, add a giveaway, Bob's Your Uncle and we have a book tour. Mondays are Nicole's at Sister Choice days to blog. So pop on over to Nicole's blog and read her first official post for the Fat Quarter Winners Book Tour!

See ya right back here tomorrow for the Parade, the forecast is for a perfect day!

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