Banned Books Week Challenge

Finally, the official blog post about the Banned Books Week Challenge! If you've been listening to my most recent podcast episodes, you'll already know all about this. Yay you! If you've been listening to CraftyGardenMom podcast or following Tanesha's blog, you'll also already know all about this. Yay you!

If you've not done either this is hitting you out of the blue. But you're a quick study--you'll be up to speed in no time. Yay you! 

Announcing...

The 2013 Banned Books Week Challenge

(and giveaway!) 

Once again, Tanesha and I are co-hosting a Banned Books Week mini quilt challenge. Our form of non-violent protest, I guess, of the idea that anyone would want to ban books. Just so not our style.

Banned Books Week is September 22-28, 2013. You may find information on the issue of censorship, lists of what books have been banned or challenged, and other resources on www.bannedbooksweek.org or the American Library Association website at www.ala.org. You can find lists of Banned or Challenged Classics here, and the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009 here, and the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books 1990-1999 here. (Those dates, by the way, are when those books were banned/challenged, not when they were published.)

You are challenged to create a small wall quilt that somehow represents a book from the banned/challenged book list that you have read and particularly loved, found meaningful, or otherwise want to celebrate. How you choose to represent the book is up to you—it could be a scene from the book, words from the book, or just represents the book in some way.

            Please be aware that book cover images and illustrations in books are copyrighted art. You would need permission from the publisher/artist to depict those images exactly. You may, of course, use them as inspiration for your own artwork!

The pert-details:

2012 BBW "Alice's Spider," by me. Based on Go Ask Alice. 

• Create a mini-quilt based on a book on a banned/challenged book list that you read and enjoyed. Really, the quilt can be any size, but "mini" keeps it manageable. You can do a mug rug if you want! No specific sizes required.
• Use any type of quilt techniques you enjoy, any type of surface embellishment you choose--whatever flips your switch! 
• Post pictures of your completed quilt(s) in the Flickr group for this challenge. We're using the same Flickr group as last year, so please clearly label your post with "2013" in the title so we know what the new ones are!
• Include your artist's statement in the description of your photo in the Flickr group. (Or, should you be a blogger, just include a link to your blog post about the quilt in the description. ) The artist's statement should include the title and author of the book, why you chose that book, and anything else you want us to know about your mini-quilt.

During Banned Books Week, Tanesha and I will be blogging/podcasting about the entries and there will be...yes!...prizes!  

Here's another idea: I'm also co-facilitating this same challenge in my quilt guild, with fellow guild member Kate who is a librarian in our local public library. We've arranged for the library to display during Banned Books Week quilts from our guild members who participate.  Woo! That meant having a few more guidelines about sizes and deadlines and such, but I'm very excited about it. I'll post pics of the display when it's up and ready. Why don't you ask your local library if you can display your finished project there?

Whatever you do, Tanesha and I are looking forward to seeing it!  

For inspiration, here are the pictures from last year.

Labor Day Sew-In (Let the Sewing Begin!) #LDSI

It's finally here! Yes, the weekend you've all been waiting for...

The Labor Day Sew-In!

There's actually a couple of opportunities to get together and have a great time while getting stuff done.. 

Be sure to check out Lazy Daisy Quilts and Daisy's #LDSI giveaway. (She's always a source of fun!) 

And I've been hearing rumors of others--if I get word of a new one, I'll update this blog post with a link. 

Meanwhile, here's mine. 

Now that I'm creating all this wonderful hand-dyed fabric, I need to make space on my shelves. So I'm giving away some of my wonderful, beautiful commercial fabric to someone who may actually be able to put it to good use!

LDSI Giveaway

Four yards.

Count 'em. Four yards. 

One yard each of gorgeous, coordinated 100% quilter's cotton fabrics. 

The three purples are from the Florentine line of P&B Textiles. One is a border print.

The yellow fabric is one I had in my stash that coordinates beautifully although not from the same line (it's labeled "Chanteclair" on the selvedge with no further information.)  I inherited all of these from my mother's stash. They've survived several stash purges of mine but given I still have yet to use them, I decided to let them fly/be free and hopefully show up (in a picture!) soon in someone else's completed project.

(Fair warning: I believe I washed all of these after inheriting them. I live in a smoke-free environment but do have two dogs.) 

To enter in this drawing, please use the Rafflecopter widget embedded below and leave a comment there letting everyone know what quilty project you're currently working on--whether you're able to participate in #LDSI or not.

Make sure your email address is visible to me! I need to have an email address to contact the winner. In the past, I've had to skip a potential winner because they hadn't left an email address for me to be in touch! Double-check your settings to make sure your email address appears in your profile, or just leave it in the comment itself.

(Another fair warning: This is the first time I'm using Rafflecopter because I know some people have difficulty on occasion leaving comments on my blog, so I'm trying this way instead. I'll be watching it carefully through the weekend. If it doesn't seem to work well, I'll go back to the old-school "leave a comment on the blog" thing.)

This giveaway will end at midnight (Eastern time) on Monday, September 2, 2013.

I'll announce the winner on Tuesday. Remember to make sure I can see your email address! And check your email on Tuesday!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

SPOILER ALERT: Kimberly Einmo Mystery Quilt

If you're doing the Kimberly Einmo Mystery Quilt "Chain of Stars" in Craftsy and do not want to see what the end result is, close this blog post now! Quick! Now! Stop reading!​ Step away from the blog post, ma'am, there's nothing to see here.

​* * * * *

Okay, for everyone else, here we go. ​

​I enjoyed doing this--so much so I did it twice at the same time. She offers instructions for four sizes so I chose the wallhanging size, noting that it's actually a decent size for lap quilts.

Here's the version I did all in batiks. I had most of this in my stash but did add two fabrics to give more contrast.

My daughter has claimed that one for her own. Since she's "fun-sized," (as she describes her diminutive height), this one works well for her to use as a lap quilt.​ The backing and binding are a dark purple batik I had in my stash.

​For the second one, I decided to go a completely different direction and use black, white, and red. I had most of it in my stash, but bought a couple of fabrics to round it out a little bit. This one seemed to be floating off into the distance with all the white around the outside of the design, so I added borders to ground it. (The backing is the red/white/black print from the front, and I used the same as binding).

My nephew claimed this one while it was still on my design wall. I texted him this afternoon to let him know it was ready for him to pick it up. His response was, "Omg!!!!! Yay!!!!" Nice to have such an enthusiastic recipient for my quilts.​

​I had them both quilted by the longarmer at Mt. Pleasant Quilting Company. I asked for pantographs with threads that would blend, but left it up to the quilter's choice from there.

Here's a close-up of the quilting on the batik quilt:​

 And a close-up of the quilting on the red, white, and black quilt. It's hard to see in this picture but the thread is variegated black-to-gray.

Doofus (Sam) is up at the cottage with my daughter for most of the summer, playing in the lake and generally getting messy and having a great ol' Golden time. Princess Doggie (Spencer) stayed home with us because she, well, let's just say she doesn't like change very much.

In any case, to stay with my Dogs and Quilts theme, here's Princess Doggie doing her best to make me happy, which is her general modus operandi.

(She's not smiling so much as pleading with me to please love her please please please love her love her please....)​

("I submit! I submit! Please love me...please please please love me love me love me...")​

By the way, depending on when you read this, you still have a couple of days left to enter my Kimberly Einmo Craftsy Class Giveaway on my previous podcast episode! You could win this Chain of Stars class, or her other Magical Jelly Rolls class, for free! Enter using the link on the podcast show notes here.​

Kimberly Einmo, the Craftsy Giveaway, and a little progress

I just posted my interview with Kimberly Einmo (episode 124). Woo! I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet and talk with Kimberly--very fun. I just wanted to make sure I posted on my blog as well so all-y'all who subscribe to the blog but may not subscribe to the podcast would know that Craftsy is sponsoring a giveaway on the episode--the winner will get a free Kimberly Einmo Craftsy class of their choice!

Check out the podcast!

Meanwhile, I got the center done of the Disappearing 9-Patch I'm making as a donation quilt. It's wheelchair size (or will be, once I slap some borders on this puppy), and I chose masculine colors for this one. Do you know how hard it is to find charm packs that aren't girly? Fortunately I had enough scraps to beef up the two charm packs I was able to lay my hands on. ​(Terrible, awful picture--that's what I get for doing it at 10:30 at night on my cell phone. Stinky lighting. I'll do better on the next progress shot.)

And I made more progress tonight on my House on a Hill Project for Laura Wasilowsky's class on Craftsy, "Hand-stitched Collage Quilts." ​The grass is done. Woot for grass.

See those two wonderful variegated threads? The pink in the flower (not the French knots) and the green in the grass? Those are both Laura's hand-dyed perle cottons, available through www.artfabrik.com. Tasty.​

I promise, better pictures next time. Pinky swear.​

My third podcastaversary giveaway begins!

Be sure to check out episode 121 In Which I Turn Three, and leave your comments on the show notes to that episode in order to be entered for a fantastic giveaway courtesy Aurifil Threads! Thanks so much to Aurifil for sponsoring my third podcastaversary giveaway. Having these threads to giveaway is like having a basket of candy on my cutting table--so yummy to look at and oh so tempting!

Please don't leave your comments here to enter the giveaway--I won't be able to track them. Make sure you leave your comments on the show notes to episode 121 by April 30th to be entered! Thanks--and thanks for listening for the last three years (or however long you've listened....)!