You're Spending Too Much Money on Rotary Blades! And Other Linky Love

Check out these no-sew, no-stitch-basting hexies from Kelsey! I may now be able to do a hexi quilt!! It's about to close, but QUICK, get in on the New Bloggers Blog Hop - details here! I met soooo many now-friends through this hop. And I will be giving some techie advice on my blog for it :)

We're working on my boys' room and these flags are darling - I'm hoping to translate them to fabric for a cute pennant banner.

I had this whole post worked up to talk about some of my favorite quilting books I've acquired recently - but it was way too long, all to say, "these are awesome and you should totally get them." So here you go (* indicates Amazon Affiliate links, fyi! full disclosure at bottom of site):

- Color Inspirations* is hands-down the best color resource I have found, um, ever. And it comes with a disc! So you can grab the color palette you love and plop it right into your design program. Genius.

- Quilt Artistry* shows the breathtaking and inspiring works of Yoshiko Jinzenji. I'm kicking myself for not taking her class at last QuiltCon! But for those of us who didn't, this book will provide you with some seriously delicious eye candy.

- Minimal Quiltmaking* is another eye-candy book...partly because I'm in love with a lot of the quilts shown, but not the writing section. Gwen Marston shares a lot about her personal story, but that's less interesting to me than a discussion of effective composition. But, eye-candy!!

- 20th Century Pattern Design* - not that I have the time, but I got this book because I was interested in surface pattern/fabric design. Definitely an interesting book if you are into that kind of thing!

There's a call for modern quilt entries here - I really should be doing more of these things. I came from a background (fine arts) where entering juried shows was a big thing you had to do, and I kinda liked that option being non-existent in the modern quilts community. Now I feel unenthused about entering them, but then guilty when I don't. Damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of thing.

Did you know that you (like I was) are probably spending too much on rotary blades? Now, I don't know about other countries, but in the US, I was buying my blades at Jo-Ann Fabrics. $37.99 for 5 Olfa blades, then my 40% off coupon put me down to $22.79. Smart shopping! Coupons!! Yay! Um, NO. First of all, check them out on Amazon for $22.89, free shipping with prime, for TEN blades*. Wow, I've been wasting my money. Also? When your blade gets dull, unscrew the top guard and put a touch of sewing machine oil around the screw. It'll last twice as long. Boom.

Linky LoveAmy Garro