Book Giveaway: Day Number Seven

The seventh day of the eight days of book giveaways brings Mariners Compass Stars by Carol Doak.  From the back cover:  Sensational Starbursts from America's Favorite Paper Piecer!

This is a book that I knew at the time I really shouldn't buy.  You see, I absolutely love the look of paper-piecing, but the little bit of paper-piecing I've done, I really didn't enjoy.  However, those attempts were years ago, so when eying this book, I rationalized that maybe it wasn't as bad as I remembered; that maybe these stars were pretty enough to be worth the effort.  Hmmmphhh!  So here I am with a book in which I really enjoy the pictures, but when I go to read the directions about how they are made, all the memories about why I didn't enjoy paper-piecing return.  I really admire those who enjoy this process and turn out such beautiful blocks, but it's time to quit pretending that I'm ever going to do this.  

All you have to do to enter the drawing is to comment.  It's okay to comment even if you don't want to enter, but be sure to make it clear you're not interested.

And if you're just now coming to the eight days of book giveaways, it's not too late to check out the books from previous days.  The giveaways will close at noon (Pacific Standard Time) on September 7th and winners will be announced September 8th.

The Accidental Quilt

My mom and I are making a quilt that we'd never planned, wished for, or much less imagined--but we're happy about it. How did this happen? It was due to a fabric mix-up. I'd ordered the fabric pictured on the left, but received the fabric pictured on the right. Oops!
A quick call to the online fabric shop, Fabric.com, immediately corrected the situation. They not only sent the correct fabric out to me ASAP, they also told me to keep the fabric they'd sent by mistake. It was 2 1/2 yards worth. Wow! Okay, time to make another quilt.

The fabric is part of Kaufman's Intergalactic line. Given the astronomical theme of the fabric, we decided to make a star sampler. Every block in the quilt will be a different star block, with the themed fabric serving as the background. We also decided to do something a little novel (at least for us) and use only the colors that are present in the Intergalactic fabric. This does limit us to a narrow range on colors and tones, but that's part of the fun. The blocks will be sashed, (we're thinking with some shade of teal), and the quilt will be tailored, like the quilt shown here.

Here is the block I made this week:This particular block pattern came from The Quilter's Cache.

Eventually, we'll need 47 blocks to complete the king-size quilt. However, at the moment, it is a low priority project. We make a block when we need a diversion from our primary project(s)--which are going along nicely and hopefully will soon be the subject of another Sew & Tell Friday. In the meantime, I'll be linking up this post over at Amylouwho's tomorrow.

New York Beauty update. Here are this week's blocks, which brings my total up to 56. Just 140 more to go.