This book landed on my desk recently. It caught my attention right away as it is written by Cheryl Arkison of Calgary, Canada who we have met ….a few years back at Quilt Canada 2014 at Brock University in St Catherine’s, Ontario. She was one of the teachers that year at Quilt Canada and Janome sewing machines were the sponsored machines in her (and other) classrooms so Linda & I popped in & out of her classes throughout the week. I also have her Craftsy class on sewing inset and applique circles.
This is not Cheryl’s first book. She is also the author of 2 other books: “Sunday Morning Quilts” and “A month of Sundays”. Perhaps you have read or own these books? You can find out more about Cheryl on her website.
The back cover of the book
In this latest publication: “You Inspire me to Quilt”, Cheryl has collated a lovely selection of “Projects from Top Modern designers inspired by everyday life.”
The whole book is not only beautifully photographed so is great eye candy for the quilter, but it focusses on Modern quilting projects and detailed and clear instructions with diagrams are given for each featured quilt artist and project. They are all great but I’d like to mention a few in particular:
Cynthia Frenette (who resides in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver, BC) is one of our Janome Artisans. She has been working with us for a while with artwork an quilt designs as well as guest blogging on janomelife. You might remember her winning quilt some time back in a celebratory Janome Quilt Contest – see this blog post She is our Janome artisan behind a brand new line of Janome machines soon to be seen at a dealer near you…….be sure to visit your local Janome Canada dealer to find out why we are so excited!
Cynthia’s featured quilt in Cheryl’s “You Inspire me to Quilt” book is “Bacon makes everything better” …..literally inspired by a frying pan of sizzling, wavy bacon…..it sure does not get much more everyday than that! The quilt project is called “Funky Bacon” and funky it is including the “bacon” fabric she designed especially for it (and which is available on spoonflower.com). Totally know what will be going through my head the next time I fry up a pan of bacon for my little girls who ask for it every time they visit Nanna.
We don’t want to break copyright by scanning pages from Cheryl’s book to share with you but here is a hint…..look at the wavy strip right next to YOU on the front cover of the book (pic above)…..that is part of Cynthia’s Funky Bacon quilt!
Andrea Harris of Calgary has a lovely Canadian Hockey Quilt with a big red maple leaf…….just perfect for 2017 in Canada…..see below and visit her website for more about Andrea.
Blair Stocker’s project is entitled Ski Parka Quilt and utilizes cut up panels from parka’s – this Seattle based designer offers a really neat way to recycle/upcycle parka’s & ski jackets…..I had not seen this done before so it caught my eye for sure.
You probably now want to see more and buy the book? Was published by C&T Publishing in 2015 and seems to be freely available at quilt stores as well as online.
Just feel I must add something in here: Did you know that 2017 marks Canada’s 150th year since Confederation? Next year is a BIG DEAL for Canadians. I noticed Cheryl has a great Quilt pattern available for purchase on Craftsy – the quilt on the above pic……maybe you might like to celebrate with a quilt along these lines?
Janome Life 