Introducing Diamond in the Rough and some exciting news!

I am happy to say that I am currently tracking my first shipment of books from AQS and I can hardly contain my excitement! Secondary Designs with Judi Madsen is my second book and will be arriving in my hands on Monday December 19th. This book has been 3 years in the making and is sure to be a winner, I think - at least for me - I love the projects and I hope you will too. It was 3 years ago that my first book, Quilting Wide Open Spaces made its debut, so to have 2 books under my belt is an amazing feeling. I don't know if you realize how much work goes into writing a complex technical book like Secondary Designs, but I hope you enjoy making the projects as much as I did - just be grateful you didn't have to write it. Haha!

So, this next book project I am introducing to you today is called Diamond in the Rough. This quilt top was the first finished project for the book and is also the project that was submitted to AQS as an example of my Secondary Designs book concept. Let's just say this quilt sealed the deal. I wanted to have a simple quilt design that allowed me to really show off the secondary quilting. I think I was able to achieve that with this quilt. It is fabulous and like always, the pictures don't "do it justice," but hopefully you get the idea from the pictures I am sharing with you today.

This quilt was quilted with Kimono Silk thread by Superior Threads and I used 2 layers of Hobbs Cotton/Wool batting - which really adds to the texture dimension of the quilt.

What I love about the quilt is the different fills used throughout the quilt.

The ruler work - it was so much fun. I love the look of the straight lines going into points and creating such an amazing secondary design throughout the top.

The center motif is an amazing design, and I had so much fun working within the space I had. This design was a result of that space.

There are a lot of designs in the background, but they all work together.

Here are some close ups of the stitching using Kimono Silk 100 wt thread. I think it made sense to use this thread for this particular quilt top, especially with the scribble fill because there is not a lot of thread build up in the dense areas.

Isn't this texture amazing?

I love looking beyond piecing and really enjoy coming up with these designs in the background.

The back -- Ahhhmazing! This quilt, from start to finish, tension - everything - ended up almost perfect. You will read about my not so perfect quilt in the book, I really hope you love learning more about this quilt and have even more fun making it! Piecing and quilting instructions are included in the book.