Recently I found some older books online, at ridiculously cheap prices, so I bought them both. I had a young family when they were new on the shelves, and though I desperately wanted those books, there was no money in the budget to buy them.
Marsha McCloskey has always been a favourite, and so has Judy Martin. Jinny Beyer was the queen of quilting in those days. In some ways patchwork was very limited then, but there were some very talented quilters out there. And they're still around, still making wonderful quilts.
I felt quite nostalgic, looking at the pink and blue quilts, and the old fabric ranges. There was a lot of fussy cutting striped fabric going on at that time, it really adds something to a block design.
This colour scheme really appeals to me, and I love the setting for the sampler blocks. So many ideas!
I'm feeling very inspired by all the ideas in these two books, ready to pull out fabric and start cutting. I have 2, nearly 3 tops finished up to the border stage, and both these books are full of ideas for pieced borders.
I'm going to finish the last 12 Hunter's Star blocks first, and then work on borders for them, and then the borders for the blue squares quilt. Once I've done that I can pack away the blue fabric completely.
The leader-ender blocks are going well, but I've cheated a bit and sewn quite a few of them in between the main projects. I can't help myself it seems. And I've totally given up on the scraps, and now I'm cutting into yardage as well. The scraps are going to be gifted to Mereth, because they really don't bring me any pleasure. And they take up a huge amount of room, so I can't be doing with that anymore.
I haven't made a sampler quilt since who knows when, but I'm tempted to choose a few of these and start cutting. I should stipulate that I can only cut them out of scraps, but I know that idea wouldn't last. I just love cutting into my stash fabric.