book + a quilt giveaway

Soon after Stephanie's book arrived in the mail, I couldn't resist trying my first project with Corduroy fabric. It was hard to decide between Little sprout and California poppies, so I combined both quilts into one small quilt.

This is the moment when our heads are seriously bent over seed catalogs and exciting plans for spring garden are brewing with a hum.. Knowing your mood, I plotted this seed packet quilt for my sweet blogging friends. There are violets and roses and tulips, please take your pick (be assured that they only yield 100% super quality flowers like the poppy displayed in the shop window).
And pretty garden gloves and matching boots come with the package :)

Would you mind if this honey bee tagged along too? She is in a fix on how to fill her mini pouch with never before seen button sized pollen! Maybe you could help her with a clever trick hiding in your pocket?

More flowers on the back to keep our bee hopping all spring long! Backing fabric is cotton by Denyse Schmidt, and all the fabrics on the front are Japanese linen prints except for the green Red riding hood which is a Corduroy that I got from SuperBuzzy. The focus fabric with garden theme was a random fatquarter find on Etsy, it doesn't have details of the maker on selvage.

Before this book came into my sewing room, I never thought about sewing with Corduroy, always assumed that it is a heavy weight fabric meant for home decor or pants. But seeing Stephanie's examples changed my perception of this velvety fabric. I got a sample of Red riding hood fabric and very pleased with the soft rich texture it adds to the quilt. I was surprised that the fabric itself was more or less quilting weight, not dense like I thought.

I have sewn with Stephanie's patterns before and always been impressed with her efforts to simplify the directions into small doable steps even for a beginner quilter. This book is divided into two sections, one for bags & scarf and the other for quilts with color coded diagrams to follow. 

Forgot to mention, this poppy flower actually has pieced leaves in the original pattern, I left them out to make space to try a new quilting design. I found this leaf border stencil in Jo-Ann's, marked the design on quilt with clover pencil, then I simply followed the lines during quilting using regular walking foot. It is not perfect but gives me hope to practice new things with quilting.
Quilt size is 27" x 33".

Now comes the exciting part, to celebrate Stephanie's first book and also to welcome Spring, I would love to share 'Uncommonly corduroy' book and this 'Seed packet' quilt with two friends. I will take a separate draw for each of them. Please leave a comment between now and April 10, telling me if you prefer book or the quilt. I am happy to mail them anywhere, just make sure I have a way to contact you ( ^ u ^ )

Happy Spring... ♫♫♫