Monthly Archives: April 2013

Flashback Tuesday: Funky Monkey Book Quilt

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We’ve all seen them – quilt panels that are to be made into a soft-for-baby book.  I just never enjoyed making those books – took even more time than a quilt and being the lazy quilter that I am, I prefer quick and easy quilts and quilt designs.

So, what to do when you have one of these book panels?

I can answer that!  Make a quilt out of them!

Here’s one I made a few years back out of a Sock Monkey panel:

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“TT Funky Monkey Book Quilt”

And you don’t even have to reinvent the wheel!  This FREE pattern can be found on my BOMquilts.com website!

Quilt on!


Quilt Pattern Use Permission Rant

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Like all quilt designers and other pattern artists, I have a copyright on the bottom of all of my free quilt patterns, that the quilt the pattern is used for is for personal use only.  I have a hard time believing people cannot read, and I am pretty sure people know the copyright issues because they always rear their ugly head in online and offline quilt groups, on the various social media pages, etc.

My rule has always been that if a group, such as a quilt guild, wants to use one of my patterns for a project – they should ask me for permission.  My response is always that I would prefer each person print out the instructions from my website but if that is not feasible, then the group may copy it for everyone, as long as my copyright and web address are not left out.

I have had a lot of lovely emails from far and wide who want to make one of my patterns for their quilt groups or guilds….and even shops who ask for permission to kit it for a group setting.  Again, I give them the first requirement but I also ask that they take a photo of the group either with one of the blocks from my pattern or a photo of their finished quilts from my pattern – and email that to me so I can use it on my websites.  Of course, ALL of them readily agree and promise to send me photos.

I have had my BOMquilts.com website for about 10 years.  In that amount of time I have NOT.  RECEIVED. A. SINGLE.  PHOTOGRAPH. from anyone who has asked for permission.  NOT.  ONE.

Today, I responded to a comment on this blog about the size of a pattern that was incorrect.  From the comment, I gleamed that the person was part of a group who was making one of my quilts.  Not enough information was given for me to know whether each member of said group was making the quilt or if the group was just making one of my quilts.  In this instance, not a single person in that group emailed me for permission.

Because I enjoy designing patterns and offering them for free, I am at risk of these types of users.  People who promise to send me photos but don’t.  People who use my patterns in group settings without first asking permission.  People who make quilts from my patterns and then sell them.

Bottom line:  People who are dishonest are always going to be wanting something for nothing.  I have to accept that.  I know a lot of folks who share patterns that they purchase, so the usage is just as bad for quilt designers who do not offer free patterns.  And none of us can stop them.

As for my designs on BOMquilts.com and QuiltTherapy.com?  I either have to accept the dishonesty of quilters or stop giving free patterns away and accept the dishonesty of some quilters by charging a fee for my patterns.  And to me, it’s a crying shame that I have to make this decision at all!

Jelly Roll Quilts

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One of the funnest fabrics  that I receive to work with are Jelly Rolls.  These are typically a roll of fabric from a collection by a designer.  Most of the time, they Jelly Roll contains two 2 1/2″ x WOF cuts in the Jelly Roll.  However, there are other Jelly Rolls available.  Moda offers a number of Jelly Rolls that are all white fabric, all wheat-colored fabric as well as red and black Jelly Rolls and then Marble Jelly Rolls.  USUALLY, I use the designer’s Jelly Rolls for quilts and the Moda Jelly Rolls for binding quilt projects.

Jelly Rolls are perfect for my “lazy quilter” status.  🙂

In October, I picked up some beautiful batik Jelly Rolls at Quilt Market:

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Thus far, I have used them mainly to bind quilts – but, I truly want to put a simple quilt together with the remainder of my Jelly Rolls.  I am thinking a quilt like this that I designed a few years ago:

Or perhaps I’ll design something else – fun and funky, to match the batik fabrics in the Jelly Rolls.

What type of fun quilts have YOU made with Jelly Rolls?

BOMquilts.com Block of the Month Quilt #1

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For 2013, I have designed and am making TWO block of the month quilts!  The first one is called “Chocolate Cake and Roses” and is made from the luscious fabrics provided by AbbiMays.com – Double Chocolat.  This quilt made me hungry for DAYS when I was putting it together 🙂 .  I have completed the quilt and it has been quilted, just waiting on the back of the binding to be sewn on.  This quilt was also sponsored by Aurifil thread – no other thread was used in the making of this beautiful quilt!

This is a six-month BOM, with two blocks revealed on (or before) the fifth of each month.  These are the two blocks that were revealed on April 5th:

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“Chocolate Cake and Roses” Block 7

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“Chocolate Cake and Roses” Block 8

This FREE BOM pattern can be found at BOMquilts.com!

Mug Rug Day #5 Finale

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I think I had the most fun on this mug rug than I’ve had on any of the others we’ve put together this week!  Most of that is because I just let myself GO quilt-wild!  🙂

This mug rug is foundation pieced as well as adding a little applique to the project.  I started with a basic drawing on a 8″ x 10″ piece of muslin:

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Next, I chose my fabrics for the design shown above:

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OH, and let me just say – I am the laziest quilter you’ve ever met.  I quilt for the love and passion I have for the art, not for competition, not for perfection, not for anyone but myself.  Hence, when I started sewing the fabric to my foundation, I used the lines as a “soft guide” and not for an exact placement of my fabrics.  The only piece of fabric that was cut and sewn to perfection was the circle – and for this, I used TWO (2) pieces of the yellow (square in the photo above) so the sun ray strips did not show through.

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Then, just follow (or guesstimate) the pattern on your foundation fabric to sew the sun rays onto your foundation.  If you need a tutorial on foundation piecing, feel free to visit this site for more information.  Once the strips are all sewn onto your foundation, place the “sun” circles in place and blanket-stitch them into place.  Then, make your quilt sandwich and quilt your sunny mug rug!

As you can see below, my version is not perfect – but, it’s ME, and to me, that’s what quilting is all about!

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