Scrap-Appliqué Playground Book-A-Round Tour and Giveaway

Hi everyone:

Welcome to stop #2 on the Book-A-Round tour for Kay Mackenzie's new book, Scrap-Appliqué Playground.To see a complete list of participating bloggers, be sure to visit Kay's website. As each of us are focussing on a different aspect of the book, you'll want to visit each stop. 

I'm so excited to have an opportunity to review this latest book from Kay, her third one with Martingale. It's full of great ideas for using up your scraps and the projects are easy enough for a beginner to complete successfully. You'll be pleased to know that Martingale is generously providing a copy of Kay's new book as a giveaway. I'll tell you more about the giveaway a little later in this post.

If you're visiting my blog for the first time, let me introduce myself. I'm Kim Jamieson-Hirst, the principal designer and social director of Chatterbox Quilts in Calgary, AB, Canada. You may wonder about the choice of my company's name: well, I'm from Chatham, ON and love to chat, so Chatterbox Quilts it was! 

I've been quilting for about 10 years now and have been designing patterns for the past three and a half years. While I appreciate all quilt patterns (you only have to look at my quilting library to know this!), I tend to gravitate - and design - appliqué projects. I was delighted to discover Kay's appliqué patterns several years ago and appreciated her practical and easy to understand instructions - and I still do. Kay's newest book, Scrap-Appliqué Playground, provides more fun appliqué ideas, as well as helps you use up those scrap fabrics that I know you all have in your stash. 

In this book Kay shows you several techniques to use up those small fabric scraps that you've been collecting in the hopes that they can be used in a project some day. Well, now is that day! Kay explains her 3 Scrap-Appliqué methods: shrinking strips, building bits and bobs and crazy patch, which she then uses in the 8 projects included in the book. I decided to try her crazy patch method and create a version of Kay's Crazy Hearts wall hanging. Here's how the process went:

I'm really pleased at how the project turned out and had fun putting all my scraps together to create new fabric to use for my appliqués. Now I just need to add some hanging tabs and quilt it and I'll have a lovely new wall hanging.

I know that you'd like to have your own copy of Scrap-Appliqué Playground, and you'll have a chance to win one, courtesy of Martingale. Here's how you can enter to win your own copy. It's easy! Just leave a comment below with your email address before June 9 at 7:00 p.m. MST letting me know how you organize your fabric scraps. I will be announcing the winner's name in a future blog post. Sorry, but this giveaway is open to Canadian and U.S. addresses only. 

Don't forget to check back with Kay at All About Appliqué so you can visit the next stop on the blog tour.

Oh, and if you don't win a copy of Scrap-Appliqué Playground, you can always find it at your local quilt shop or on-line at Amazon. Of course Martingale also sells it on their website (you also receive a FREE ebook when you purchase the "paper" book) and you can purchase an autographed copy from Kay herself. 

Best of luck in the giveaway and thanks to Kay and Martingale for providing a copy of Scrap-Appliqué Playground to be won by one of my readers.

Upcoming Book-A-Round Tour

Hi everyone:


I'm getting really excited about an upcoming event which will start on Thursday. Yes, in just a few days I will be one of the bloggers participating in the Book-A-Round Tour for Kay Mackenzie's latest book, Scrap-Appliqué Playground.

I was fortunate enough to receive an early copy of Kay's book (thanks, Kay!) and have been having a great time going through all the projects and working on a special one for my blogpost. I'm really pleased by how it's been going and can't wait to share my project with you. 

Look what I got in the mail!

The Book-A-Round tour starts on June 7 and I will be stop number 2 - and the first one in Canada - on the tour. You can see all of the scheduled stops on Kay's website.


Make sure to mark your calendars so you won't miss out on any of the stops. There will be book giveaways at each stop, so you'll have several opportunities to win a FREE copy of Scrap-Appliqué Playground, courtesy of Kay and the publisher of the book, Martingale.


Now back to finishing up my project for the tour. 

Fabric Stash Overload

Hi everyone:

As you know, I was at the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts last week-end. What you may not know is that I bought a few things. Okay, if you know me, you would be surprised if I only bought a FEW things. Like most quilters, I love sales and find it impossible difficult to pass up a good deal (must be my Scottish ancestry). 

Wool, buttons and fabric, oh my!

While I enjoy looking at all the quilts, and I do look at all of them, I really love visiting the vendors' mall. I enjoy checking out the latest items and chatting with the vendors (is it a good thing that they all know me by name?), but I really think it is the high I get when I score a good deal that makes my day. And I had a good day last Saturday!

Just a bit more fabric

I could try to justify my purchases by saying that I'll use the fabric in future pattern samples or that they coordinate with what is in my stash, but is it so wrong to buy things just because I like them? I'll admit that I have fabric that has been in my stash for many several years and it still hasn't morphed into an actual quilt, but you know what? I still enjoy taking it out, seeing how it plays with other fabrics and imagining what it might someday become. I figure I get as much enjoyment out of playing with my fabric as I do from creating a quilt. Although it is a bit difficult to wrap individual fat quarters around yourself to keep warm!

Too much?

I'll admit that I went may've overdone it last week-end, but I won't be buying any more fabric for awhile. At least until the upcoming quilt show in Red Deer next week-end :)