Nancy Purvis ( owen’s olivia ) is a quilt designer and maker I have been following for awhile. Her designs speak to me. They are clean, modern, bold and interesting. The minute I knew she had a book being released I preordered and when it arrived an interesting thing happened, I felt compelled to make not just one item using her beautiful designs but TWO. In reality it was hard for me to pick from the gorgeous patterns featured and I am sure there will be more to come.
Quilting from Every Angle: 16 Geometric Designs
By Nancy Purvis
Interweave/F+W;
http://bit.ly/1jw4098
Nancy was kind enough to include me with some amazing other makers in her blog tour. Make sure to check the rest out for what are guaranteed to be inspiring creations and more opportunities for book giveaways.
BLOG TOUR
11/10- Michelle Wilkie of Factotum of Arts
11/11- Hillary Goodwin (ME!!)
11/12- Karen Lewis of Karen Lewis Textiles
11/13- Anna Graham of Noodlehead
11/16- Rachel McCormack of wooden spoon quilts
11/17- Tara Larson of RAD & HAPPY
11/18- Jennifer Mathis of Ellison Lane
11/19- Holly Hughes of Holly Gets Quilty –
11/20- Nicole Daksiewicz of Modern Handcraft
11/23- Pat Bravo of Pat Bravo Fabric Design and Jesse Maloney of Art School Dropout
11/24- Astrid Slagle of Red Red Completely Red
11/25- Holly DeGroot of Bijou Lovely
11/26- Christopher Thompson of the tattooed quilter
11/27- Spoonflower of Spoonflower Blog
Those who know me understand that I have a special passion for bag making. I decided that my first make would be a bag using Nancy’s Stones Quilt pattern. I sized the pattern down to three quarters size, used 9 “stones” instead of 15 and utilized a bag design of my own. I also used Pellon Flex Foam Stabilzer for the first time-a wonderful discovery. It gives my bag some nice heft and shows off the quilting beautifully. I will be using this more in my makes. In any case, I grabbed some bright Kona solids and used a Carolyn Friedlander print as background with new black leather for the base and handle. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out and think it shows how different this pattern can go with varied color themes and fabrics.
A fun discovery that may be obvious for many experienced makers but was a lightbulb moment for me as I was making this bag was how to make the fabric pattern around the “stones” orient in the same direction as the overall background fabric. I chose a PATTERNED background and SOLID “stones” in contrast to the opposite shown in the book which made the fabric orientation an issue. I really wanted the background fabric to all be oriented in the same direction so as to make the piecing less obvious (these kind of details are ridiculously fun fodder for me). To solve this dilemma while cutting the “stones” for the pattern, I lined up the background fabric scraps behind the solid “stone” fabric IN THE SAME ORIENTATION as the overall background at each corner then cut on the line simultaneously across both “stone” and background and pieced. I think and hope this makes the quilted bag front look cohesive and it is definitely a technique I will keep in mind for future makes.
As I said, surprisingly I couldn’t stop at one design from Nancy’s book. We have just completed a huge remodel including finishing a closed deck and setting up a hammock underneath it. It is a perfect place to lay down and take naps but was in dire need of a winter pillow to snuggle up with. Using elements from the book’s Mesa Quilt and fun hand dyed printed fabric from Kelsey Boes (Lovely and Enough) and yarn dyed fabric from Jennifer Sampou (Jennifer Sampou ), I made a yummy pillow. I flipped the light and dark fabrics on the left side and right side to give the pillow symmetry making it a little different then the Mesa Quilt but unmistakably Nancy. The pillow has recieved my husband’s approvel, and he is a tough sell, so I know it is a good one.
This pillow is pretty fun with points up and down.
I heartily recommend this book and am excited to share a copy with one special blog reader. (hard copy for those in the US or digital copy for those outside the states). To enter, please tell me about the first craft/quilting book(s) you remember sewing from and how your style is now compared to then. (For the record, I started with Kaffe Fassett’s Quilting books, still have every copy and continue to find inspiration from all of them). I will pick a winner randomly by 5 PM Monday, November 16th. If you are a no-reply blogger please make sure to include your email address so I may contact you.
For the Record: I was given a free copy of this book to help me make projects but before I even received it or asked to participate in the blog hop, I had already purchased the book and started to make. My opinions are and will always be my own.
Hillary
Addendum: THE WINNER BY RANDOM DRAW IS BUNTYW. I WILL EMAIL TO SEE IF YOU WANT A HARD COPY IN THE STATES VS A DIGITAL COPY IF OVERSEAS. IF NO ANSWER BY NEXT MONDAY, I WILL PICK A NEW WINNER.
