Quilting Magazines

Saturday afternoon, while waiting for our dog Reggie to be washed and clipped at the dog grooming "salon," I ran into Barnes & Noble to peruse the magazine section.  There was a bonanza of riches waiting for me in the crafts section and I came home with three new magazines for bedtime reading.

100 Blocks is the third in an annual series from Quiltmaker magazine.  I have the prior editions, which are nice references for a quilter's library.  The editorial team has cleverly persuaded 100 quilters (some famous, some not - at least to me) to contribute an original block design to the publication.  It does not include any specific projects made from the blocks, though it does cover some layout ideas for sampler quilts or even quilts made by repeating an individual block.  The only catch is that all of the blocks are 12" square.  I'd like them to try a different size (10" or 9") in a future issue.

I rather like this block called Commencement, designed by Jennifer Chiaverini, the author of the Elm Creek novels.

Quilts and More is a Better Homes and Gardens publication, a sister publication to American Patchwork & Quilting.  My eye was caught by the cover quilt design, a neat way to use a lot of small scraps.  I like the straight line quilting on the cover quilt, which is something I can do on my own sewing machine.  This issue holds several cute small projects, including the ice cream cone pincushion pictured in the lower right hand corner of the cover.

Quilt Sampler is a semi-annual publication, covering ten quilt shops across the US (and sometimes Canada).  While each profiled shop provides a quilt project for the magazine, I buy it more for the eye-candy qualities of the shop photos and descriptions than for the featured projects.  But in this issue, two of the projects grabbed my attention. 

Pave the Way is an easy-to-make quilt using rectangles, with no seams to match.  It looks perfect for some of the larger, colorful prints out now.

Cross and Crown really caught my eye.  It finishes at 47" square (but could be make larger with additional blocks) and looks like a good use for my extensive stash of neutrals and scraps from a few other projects.  It is going on my to-do list.