The colours of books

Sunday, January 26, 2020

The colours of books

To an avid reader, there is nothing more lovely and colourful that a library full of books.

Colours of books

I'm not a team kind of person, so when Challenge 11.2 of Team Colours came out for the Quilting Project on Sunday, I was stumped. My two favourite things, other than my family, are quilting and reading. These are things that I usually do by myself, but they are my teams - I love being in a library or a book store and talking about books. I feel the same way about quilts - which I share with my team of virtual and real friends. It's a lot like going to a sporting event to cheer for your team, but much quieter. 😍

My Team Colours - books of all colours 😊

I have to admit that I've been looking at making a bookcase quilt for a while. I've made mini book quilts, but never a full library of books - how exciting, and scary to do this in a week! For anyone who is interested, I've included a link to my favourite site in the Related links below.

I started by making a quick sketch of what I might make. I needed to figure out if this thing would be a mini or a medium sized wall quilt. Since I wanted to play with my free motion quilting (FMQ) I opted for medium size.

One of the many bookcases in the house

Then I went around the house taking pictures of the many bookcases that we have. I didn't even bother going into the basement and at the bottom of my closet, where most of the books I own are!
This gave me some ideas for the bookcase itself, the books in it as well as the objects that I could include in the bookcase.

Stitching books together

By Tuesday evening, I was starting to cut and stitch books on shelves.

I kept at it for two evenings and most of Saturday. It was officially finished last night! 😊 Of course, there were pictures to take and a post to write...but I'm almost ready to publish and link up....can you feel the excitement!

So without further ado, here are the finished pictures of My Team Colours Challenge: The colours of a library.

My team colours: The colours of a library

Here are some details.

Plants go so well with books, when there's enough light!

The middle shelf has my favourite bookend.

The real bookend

There's always a travel memento somewhere on a bookshelf!

What I learned

Although it was a large project to make in one week, it was very straight forward with little un-stitching to do!
I was very careful in my measurements for the bookcase, so even that went well. 😊
The best part was, of course, the FMQ. That was a real treat to decide on the thread colours, the designs and then doing it!
I put on the binding with the walking foot again...it's now ingrained in my quilting brain. I love it!
I am really happy with this quilt. My only indecision was to FMQ the wood grain onto the bookshelf. The only reason that I didn't is because this would have to be done all over the bookshelf and I like the way that the bookcase lets the eyes rest. What do you think? I would really value your opinion.

Great News! I won prize #13 for Challenge 11-2. It's a Harper’s Garden Charms by Sherri & Chelsi and the Cupcake Mix Recipe 3 from Moda Fabrics! Thanks Kim and Moda!