Thanks for the great comments so far on my giveaway post! So fun to read them and hear about all the love for log cabin quilting. Yay! Please keep the entries coming! To answer one quick question – yes, I do have a flickr pool for book projects and photos and would LOVE it if you added any projects you make there. That would be awesome!

I have seen one finished project so far (to be unveiled in a post next week) and it was so exciting. Thank you to everyone who’s said they want to make something! So far the ones people have mentioned most are the Modern Crosses Quilt, Everything In One Place Zip Bag, Polka-Dot Pincushion and Red Cross Bag. I can’t tell you how much I would love to see your MLCQ projects!! This lovely Mitered Crosses Blanket that Kay Gardiner designed, inspired by my Modern Crosses Quilt, made my year (especially since all pattern proceeds go straight to Mercy Corps!).

I’m so happy that today my friend + book contributor Daniela wrote a really special review post: a behind-the-scenes look at what went into this book! She described how we met (through our daughters actually!) while I was working on Modern Log Cabin Quilting, and how she graciously jumped in to help me cut, piece, and stitch some of the projects – though she is an exquisite seamstress, she had never quilted before, and wanted to try it out. We teamed up to each piece a side of the Market Tote one afternoon, one of my favorite projects in the book (it’s a sturdy shopping bag made from two pairs of old jeans):

What you didn’t see in that lovely photo on the page was the coffee-fueled dining-room-table afternoon quilting bee that brought it to life!

I love how you can spot my tiny sketchbook with the tiny market tote drawing I was working off of in the eye of the craft hurricane, surrounded by colored pencils, zippers for the zip bag, bobbin winder, thread, random shopping bag of scraps, coffees, Pfaffs, and Amy‘s book I was lending to her in the mix (oh, by the way Daniela also designs and prints her own fabric, among many other remarkable talents).

Daniela is a total rock star and made the book so much more fun – as well as contributing two absolutely lovely projects, her Favorite Fabrics Handbag and this stunning Northwest Modern Quilt.

Lots more on her design + process for that one – her first quilt ever if you can believe that – and a giveaway of a signed book (just add photos of strips of fabric to donate to Quilts for Quake Survivors to our flickr pool to enter!) over at her post. Thank you Daniela!!

One last thing: we’re so thrilled at the response to our Quilts for Quake Survivors project. Thanks everyone! Daniela hosted the first QfQ quilting bee at Modern Domestic last night, which was a lot of fun…

And I’ve just updated the events list on the QfQ website with five new quilting bees over the next few weeks, all at Cool Cottons, to add to the great Sew Basic classes and bees at Modern Domestic. Would love to see you at one of them coming up!

And a last note – we’ve just updated all the QfQ visuals to this new design style and would greatly appreciate your using this one instead of the former version, if you post about it or use it to spread the word about QfQ anywhere. As Dani explains: “We’ve had a change of graphic due to some great feedback we received that the previous design was based on the wartime flag, and obviously not appropriate to use for our effort. Thanks for your understanding!”