Welcome quilters to Day One of Kay Mackenzie’s blog tour for her newest book, Inspired by Tradition:  50 Applique Blocks in 5 Sizes.  If you’re new here, allow me to introduce myself.  I’m Maria Peagler, author of the Benjamin Franklin award-winning book Color Mastery:  10 Principles for Creating Stunning Quilts.  I’m a workshop instructor and I’m thrilled to have a book like Inspired by Tradition for my students.

Watch my video review of Kay’s newest title, then read on for how you can win you very own copy.

Want to learn more?  Check out all 50 blocks at Inspired by Tradition’s Amazon page.  Check back daily at Kay’s page from March 23 – March 31 to see who will be hosting Kay on their blog.

Want to win your own copy?  Just spread the word about Kay’s new book, by sharing this page with your friends, sharing on Facebook, Twitter, or sending an email to your guild’s Program Chairperson or Newsletter Editor.  I make it really easy:  simply click on any of the icons at the top or bottom of this post to share on your favorite social network or via email.  Then tell me here in the comments how you shared, and you’ll be entered to win.  Check back tomorrow when I’ll announce the lucky winner.

So here’s something for quilters on both sides of the orange fence:  if you have a passion for orange, you’re really going to enjoy this month’s show, which features stunning and innovative uses of it in quilt projects both large and small.  If orange is not your favorite and you tend to stay away from it, you’ll be surprised by what you see:  one of the quilters in the show felt the same way and unexpectedly found herself relying on it for her designs.

Get advice from the pros and see their quilt designs and fabrics using orange.  This month I host Edyta Sitar, Betty Alofs, Pat Sloan, Sarah Whitney, Geri Richardson, Faith Wellman, and Laura Berringer of Marcus Fabrics.  To view the show in Full Screen mode or to embed this slideshow in your blog, just click the Menu link.  Remember to support these wonderfully creative designers by asking for their patterns and fabrics in your local quilt shops!

September’s featured color is orange, a perennial challenge for most quilters.  Orange, more than any other color, pops up as quilters’ least favorite color in my workshops.  Well, no more.  I show you, in Autumn Antlers, how to work with orange and make it one of your favorite colors in your quilt’s color palette.

Orange is one of the brightest colors in the quilt shop, and many only think of it for halloween, pumpkins, and garish college football team colors.  That’s about to change, because I give you artist’s tips on how to work with a challenging color and make it your own.  Eric Carle, author and illustrator of gorgeous children’s books, did this with colors he didn’t like, and they became his favorites.  Orange can become one of yours too.  Trust me.

Autumn Antlers design is fun, funky, and sophisticated, and evokes fall without limiting its place on your table to only the fall months.  This runner would be welcome in any season, any month, in any home.  Timeless design, innovative color, all in one stunning runner.

Autumn Antlers Pattern Update:  $5.95 (delivered early and automatically to pattern series subscribers – keep reading!)  Add to Cart

If you can’t get to the quilt shop to select your own fabrics, no worries.  I’m offering an Autumn Antlers kit as well.  It’s best to choose your own fabrics for your color palettes, but we all have those times when life gets too busy and we just can’t get to it.  I’d rather you be able to do the lesson with a kit than not at all.

Autumn Antlers Kit: $21.95 Add to Cart

Learn by Doing

In addition to learning how to coordinate a fresh autumn color palette, you’ll also discover how to:

• cut and place applique motifs
• learn the best stitches to use for machine applique, including optimal stitch length and width
• improve your machine applique skills by watching two step-by-step videos (COM Subscribers only)
• quilt a freemotion flame design to harmonize with the antler design

So not only do you get a sophisticated and new original design, you update your skills as well.

Last Opportunity to Subscribe and Buy Patterns

September is the last month you can buy a Color-of-the-Month subscription or individual patterns.  Why?  Because these beauties will be offered in a book, along with a bed quilt using the monthly blocks, that will be available in 2011.  I’ll still be sharing the monthly table runner projects for the rest of the year, but they won’t be available for purchase:  you’ll have to wait for the book!

To order the Color Mastery Table Runners enhanced e-pattern. click here: I Want to Master Color

My buddy and applique guru Kay Mackenzie (Easy Appliqué Blocks)  has a brand new book out called Dolls & Dress to Appliqué and it’s just perfect for the mom, grandmom, or woman wanting to play with fabric paper dolls!  Here’s my exclusive interview with Kay about her newest offering:

Q: What was your inspiration for Dolls & Dresses to Applique?

A: The original idea was ‘Paper Dolls to Appliqué.’ But when I drew them with their hands and feet out into the seam allowances so that they would connect up when the blocks were sewn together, I was not a fan of the look, so it became just Dolls. Then, I had so much fun thinking about the fabrics for the dresses, it evolved into Dolls & Dresses to Appliqué.

Q: What fabrics do you recommend for the doll faces?  For their dresses?  What should we look for?

A: I ordered the Complexion Medley from Keepsake Quilting, but I think it’s discontinued now. You can use any solid or near-solid that looks like skin-tone to you. Or hey, maybe you can find freckle fabric! For the dresses, whatever looks good to you and represents the flavor you’re going for! One thing to think about is scale.

Q: What advice do you have for quilters who are still a bit intimidated by appliqué?

A: I would say, find your method. There are a gazillion ways to appliqué and they’re all good. Some prefer to work by hand, others like machine sewing. Some want a prepared edge, others have no issue with turning the edge as they go. Some are glue or starch gals, some like freezer paper templates, I could go on and on. Just find the method that works for you and gives you satisfaction in your results. Don’t think you have to do it a certain way. There’s lots of information about appliqué, all kinds, on my blog All About Appliqué. There are photo tutorials and links to other sites that have tutorials too. Just investigate the Categories and enjoy!

Q: What was the most fun part of developing this project?

A: Choosing the dress fabrics and the embellishments. I used the embellishments with restraint but I have a tub full of ribbons and beads and buttons and flowers and lace and rosettes and bows… it was so much fun rummaging through that stash to fund just the right touch! Including a little dog that is a 3-dimensional scrapbooking sticker.

Q: Did you ever do paper dolls as a young girl?

A: That’s funny. Not so much! I ran around the neighborhood in dungarees, went fishing, and rode the horse for miles through the countryside. I did a blog post about the dichotomy of the tub o’ doodads and my tomboy childhood.  Now I love floral fabrics and the shabby chic look.

Q: I just created some paper dolls with the kids in the Sunday School class I teach.  One little girl wanted to do paper dogs, and asked me to draw them:  that was a challenge!

A: Now that’s a cool little girl. I’m a total dog person.

Q: Have you thought of combining your teapots (in Kay’s books Teapots to Appliqué and Teapots 2 to Appliqué) and your dolls for the ultimate little girl tea party quilt?

A:  What a great idea! Synergy! A friend of mine, Kim Jamieson-Hirst, already combined one of the dolls with a dog design from my book Easy Appliqué Blocks into a Wizard of Oz project. I love it!

Thanks Kay for stopping by and chatting about such a fun appliqué book that’s bursting with possibilities!  You can win your own copy of Dolls & Dresses to Applique!  Just leave a comment here and I’ll choose the winner on Friday.  Good luck!

I’m thrilled to announce I’m offering kits to go along with each monthly table runner in the Color of the Month series.  The Winter Bird and Love Apple kits are available in the online store, and they contain the same fabrics I used in my own quilt, with a few substitutions.  No worries, though, as you’ll love the other fabrics as much or even more than the ones I used.  I had so much fun putting together these fabrics and kits.

What I love about these kits is they allow you to play with color and value and still achieve great results in your project – just without the cutting.  In a perfect world, we would all choose our own fabrics, cut them, and piece our own table runner.  Then life happens.  Work gets crazy.  The kids get sick.  Church commitments call.  Before you know it, the month is gone and you’ve haven’t been able to get to any piecing or quilting.  Think of these as a back-up plan or a sweet treat for yourself.