Celebrate the Outdoors with a Patchwork Picnic Quilt

Aren't these just the cutest pieced block? And such an adorable quilt! Can you resist a Patchwork Picnic? Gracey Larson has created wonderful pictorial blocks for people--like me--who prefer traditional piecing to paper piecing.

I am in love with the lightning bug in a mason jar--and the ladybug--and the cattails--and the coneflower--and the dragonfly--and the watering can--O.K., I admit to loving this whole quilt!

If you don't want to make the whole quilt, at the very least you will want to make these bird blocks, seen in the table runner project below. I want to make a whole flock!

Or these fall-themed acorn hot pads. They could be whipped up in a day! Then use the flowers block to make a spring set!

Gracey offers seven different projects using these blocks. Including this zippered tablet holder.

 Or these useful pocketed and zippered holders.

I can't have too many tote bags. I use them for shopping, carting my quilt projects, and taking my book to book club.

The blocks are not hard to make, all squares and rectangles and geometric shapes sewn with straight and diagonal seams, using stitch-and-flip for angles. The instructions are detailed with loads of illustrations.

I can see a selection of blocks used to make a baby quilt. Or a garden quilt. Or a nature quilt.

Patchwork Picnic is such a fun, upbeat quilt!

I was given access to a free ebook by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Patchwork Picnic: Simple-to-Piece Blocks That Celebrate the Outdoors
Gracey Larson
That Patchwork Place
ISBN: 9781683560104, 1683560108
Paperback $25.99 USD, £24.99 GBP

One Bundle of Fun: Quilt Patterns from Precuts

Sue Pfau's new book One Bundle of Fun: Turn Any Bundle, Roll, or Pack into a Great Quilt offers 12 pieced patterns using Layer Cakes, Jelly Rolls, and Fat Quarters.

These quilts convinced me: precuts have the benefit of being color and theme coordinated, and they save time since some of the cutting is already done.

Precut fabrics sold by fabric companies include:

• Layer Cakes, 10" squares
• Jelly Rolls, 2 1/2" x 42" stripes
• Fat Quarters, 18" x 21" quarters of a yard
• Charm Squares, 5" squares 

Each precut collection includes all the color ways and designs from a fabric collection.

Precuts should not be washed before using but they should be measured as they may not be true; for instance a 10" square precut pack may actually measure 10 1/8".

Pfau used MODA fabrics in her sample quilts but you do not have to buy precuts for the projects--you can use your own fabrics using Pfau's advice for selection.

Electrified designed and made by Sue Pfau

The patterns are diverse in design and in difficulty. A full color photo of the quilt, materials list, cutting instructions, assembly instructions with steps and illustrations, and finishing are included. Small versions in different color ways offer alternates.  Instructions for enlarging the patterns adapt them for bed size quilts.

Magnetized designed and made by Sue Pfau

I loved these dynamic and colorful quilts.

Bejeweled Nine Patch designed and made by Sue Pfau

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

One Bundle of Fun
Sue Pfau
Martingale
$18.99 soft cover
Publication Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 9781604687521

The Fiona Quilt Block by Carolyn Perry Goins

Quilters have a saying, "The one who dies with the most fabric wins." Quilters also make the same New Years resolution every January 1: "I will use up my fabric stash." (Only because we need to justify buying MORE fabric over the coming year!"

Carolyn Perry Goins knew that quilters needed patterns to showed off the amazing fabrics they have collected but was simple and quick to make. A pattern that could look funky or sophisticated, modern or traditional. So she invented a new quilt block! Used with various settings, sashings, value contrast, and thoughtful layout, this block will suit everyone's style. And she offers the block in 4", 6' 8", 10" and 12" !

Goins book The Fiona Quilt Block  offers fourteen projects, each with a full color photo of the block and the completed quilt, fabric needs, and illustrated step-by-step instructions. A photo gallery of quilts using the block and resources are included.

I really liked the project Woven Rust! It inspired me to use pink, white and black fabrics I bought two summers ago.

Woven Rust from The Fiona Quilt Block

I made 6" blocks all had the same fabric in the center, but laying my quilt out I decided to make more blocks with different fabrics in the center.

Fiona blocks with same middle fabric

I don't do a lot of piecing. And I rarely make scrappy quilts. But I was having so much fun and liked what was happening that I made even more blocks for a lap quilt.

I finished the top with a solid pink border and a pieced border using all the fabrics in the quilt. The only consideration I made in laying the quilt out was to alternate horizontal and vertical blocks.

My husband liked how the same fabrics sometimes border each other in what he called a 'crazy quilt' style.

The blocks were super easy to make. I shared the book and my quilt with my weekly quilt group and it generated a lot of interest.

Visit the Schiffer Publications website to see inside the book:
http://www.schifferbooks.com/the-fiona-quilt-block-14-projects-from-sassy-to-classy-5884.html

I received a free book from Schiffer Publications in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Fiona Quilt Block: 14 Projects from Sassy to Classy
by Carolyn Perry Goins
Schiffer Publications
$19.99 soft cover
ISBN: 978-0-7643-4981-2

Carolyn Perry Goins has been quilting since the 1970s. Her company CPG Designs produces beginners quilt patterns and she has been featured in Quiltmaker's magazine series "100 Bocks by Today's Top Designers."