500 Quilt Blocks

If you haven't got your hands on a copy of this little book yet, you really should, or at the least pop it on your Christmas list.  I've now had time to have a good look through mine and get making already.

The copy I have is the sweet UK paperback edition from Amazon.

Now I have to admit, I have many, many sewing and quilting books and patterns, and I rarely read the general How to blurb any more, so I have not read right through that part of the book, but that is not a bad thing.  I wanted to get straight to the pretties!

Where I think this book really excels is that there aren't great wordy, repetitive explanations for each step of each block, just cutting instructions and a tip or two if it is not obvious.  I love that.

If you aren't at the stage where you can look at a block and de-construct it in your head, then fear not, abbreviations and full instructions are there in the blurb so you will never be lost on how to, but once you are confident, you do not have to pick through pages and pages for the bits you need.

As you would expect from Kerry and Lynne, all the fabrics used to illustrate the blocks and projects are gorgeous, and they show the block variations off beautifully.  I so want to make all the projects, and for an instant fix, I opted for the cute pincushion...

I pulled solids to match an AMH scrap I had, and used Sketch in Mist and another scrap of Black yarn-dyed linen for this little cutie.

See that Koala chappie, a recent pressie from Salley down under.  He does a great job, and remedies my only niggle, which is not unique to this book, there's no little ribbon book-mark thingy.  I hate creasing my book spines, so something to mark the page between cutting stages is a must for me; if you have a spare marsupial or substitute at the ready, there'll be no stopping you.

So that's my tuppence worth, but honestly, I think you should just buy a copy, or better still, get someone-else to buy you a copy, and find out for yourself.  I know that this is going to be a valuable point of reference and inspiration to me for, like, forever!

Now I need to get back to some bigger projects, these mini-diversions are all well and good, but I am hoping for a big old quilty finish some time soon; there's just the small matter of piecing backing, basting, quilting and binding to sort, so maybe not that soon, but for tonight, my stuffing arrived; all 3 kilos of it!

xxx