Utility-Style Quilts for Everyday Living Blog Tour Recap Part 2

The Utility-Style Quilts for Everyday Living book blog tour has felt like a big Christmas present and for 16 days I was surprised by a new and beautiful gift! This tour was so special I had to break up the recap into parts. Part 1 was shared last week and today I will finish the review with Part 2.

Monday 12/4 Heidi Staples - Fabric Mutt

Tuesday 12/5 Amy Friend - During Quiet Time

Wednesday 12/6 Maureen Cracknell - Maureen Cracknell Handmade

Thursday 12/7 Amber Johnson - Gigi's Thimble

Friday 12/8 Karen O'Connor - Lady K Quilts Designs

Saturday 12/9 Kori Turner-Goodhart - Olive Grace Studios

Sunday 12/10 Silvia Sutters - A Stranger View

Monday 12/11 Sarah Maxwell - Designs by Sarah J

Tuesday 12/12 Jessica Swift - Jessica Swift

Wednesday 12/13 Lisa Ruble - Love to Color My World

Thursday 12/14 Cindy Wiens - Live a Colorfullife

Friday 12/15 Eleri Kerian - Sew and Tell Project

Saturday 12/16 Anjeanette Klinder - Anjeanette K

Sunday 12/17 Stephanie Kendron - Modern Sewciety

Monday 12/18 Christopher Thompson - The Tattooed Quilter

Tuesday 12/19 Susan Playsted - Hopewood Home

The second half of the Utility-Style Quilts for Everyday Living book blog tour starts off on Tuesday, December 12th with Jessica Swift of Jessica Swift. Jessica is the newest designer for Art Gallery Fabrics and launched her Tallinn fabrics this fall in Houston. She is a beginning quilter and really the ideal type of sewer to tell you about her experience with using my book. I think her project choice to make a pillow from the Pixel quilt was not only a good selection for a beginner to make but also a great way to show off scraps left-over from Jessica's new collection. I love the machine quilting she did on her pillow top as well. See the finished pillow on Jessica's blog.

Wednesday, December 13th my dear friend and former colleague Lisa Ruble of Love to Color My World blogged about her scaled down version of the Midsommar quilt. I love the graphic clean lines of this quilt and especially think Lisa's teal, grey, and pop of coral are stunning. I enjoyed reading Lisa's blog post because she takes us through her process of fabric/color selection for her quilt and how the book pushed her a little out of her comfort zone with mixing the different greys. The result is stunning and the baby that will receive this quilt will have a modern looking quilt that will stand the test of time.

Thursday, December 14th the talented Cindy Wiens of Live a Colorfullife shared her tour make with us. This quilt may seem ordinary but in fact it's a very special quilt. The fabrics Cindy used are her father's repurposed shirts. Cindy chose the Comfort quilt pattern and opted not to include the small triangle corners to the blocks. The utility of this quilt shines through from the "Workday Blues" shirtings and the repurposing of materials into a quilt Cindy can now wrap herself in like a big hug. Read more about this quilt on her blog post and see the clever pillow Cindy made from leftover squares.

Friday, December 15th was the day Eleri Kerian of Sew and Tell Project posted about her stunning Night and Day quilt. Eleri is a garment sewer that is new to quilting. She really just picked patchwork up during the Sewcial Bee Sampler virtual sew along earlier this year. Eleri not only made and finished a quilt for the tour but she made a California King-size quilt! She wowed the socks off all of us and you need to visit her blog to read (and see) more about this magnificent quilt.

Saturday, December 16th Anjeanette Klinder of Anjeanette K dazzled everyone with this baby quilt made with one block of the Sunday Paper quilt. This bold quilt block makes the perfect size for a baby quilt because just one block from my quilt pattern is 36" square! Anjeanette is an extremely talented quilter and her blog is a must for you to visit. Read more about her beautiful little quilt on the tour post.

Sunday, December 17th brought us this breathtaking quilt by Stephanie Kendron of Modern Sewciety. A lucky baby boy is going to receive this Goose Chase quilt and what a stunning quilt of blue, white, and a touch of sunny yellow. Stephanie had fun with the large center half-square triangles and made this a thoroughly modern-utility make. I'm really in love with this quilt! Read more about it's story on Stephanie's blog, enter for a chance to win a copy of my book (ends December 29th), and be sure to catch some podcasts while you're there too!

Pillows and photo by Christopher Thompson

Monday, December 18th was the day that Christopher Thompson of The Tattooed Quilter shared his festive pillows with us. My talented friend, Christopher used the Tracery quilt pattern from my book and extended out the block to make it an 18-inch finished pillow. Christopher is a textile designer for Riley Blake and I love the Riley Blake red, green, and black prints he chose created a graphic-cool holiday look. You have to visit his blog to read more and see all sort of sewing inspiration!

Last but not least is Susan Playsted of Hopewood Home on Tuesday, December 19th, the final day of the tour. Although Susan does not have a blog, she is on Instagram. Susan's post is very significant because she also played a role in how my book looks.

When I was unexpectedly handed back my book to finish with 3 weeks until the printer deadline and I was in a panic to get images of my quilts. I didn't even have the quilts in my possession at that time and was wracking my brain how I could get it all done in time. I've been following Susan's Hopewood Home feed on Instagram for years and adore (more like lust) over her home and images she posts. I had the bright idea to contact Susan, tell her my situation, and ask her to kindly allow me use of her photos as inset images in the book--to which she said "Yes"! Since flying to Australia was out of the question, my thought was to use her images from her beautifully decorated home as fill to further enhance the lifestyle feeling I wanted in my book. I was right, the integration of her comfortable rooms and on-trend decor filled in seamlessly with my photos of the quilts and instructions.

Excerpt from Utility-Style Quilts for Everyday Living book

Here's just one example: I had seen a post of Susan's laundry room on her IG feed and knew I wanted to use it in my book. Originally the window was without a shade and since this book is about fabric I asked if Susan could tack up a temporary "shade" for the photo. We didn't talk about colors or fabric, I left that up to her keen discretion. The result was amazing! This section on Fabric and Quilt Care is spread opposite the last page of the Comfort (baby quilt) project and the colors are superb together.

The quilt Susan made for the blog tour is a marvelous, non-scrappy Roman Stripe quilt. Roman Strip is the free quilt pattern you can download from Landauer that I designed the accompany the book. Everyone of the quilts and projects made for this tour shows how versatile the patterns in my book can be!

Roman Stripe quilt and photo by Sharon Holland

It brings me incredible joy to see all these projects made and inspired by book. I have added a STORE page to this blog and have a limited number of copies of my book left to sell. By purchasing the book directly from me you can also have your copy signed and dedicated, if you desire. Otherwise you can purchase the book on Amazon (affiliate link), from the publisher (Landauer), your local quilt shop, or other book stores-everywhere.

A big thanks goes out to all the talented designers/bloggers that made this tour so incredible. I hope you had as much fun as I did! Wishing all of you the merriest of Christmas' or other seasonal holiday you celebrate--they're all an opportunity to gather family and friends around. May you also have all the best in 2018.