Quilt Book Challenge

Take a quick look on your shelf where you keep your quilting books and guess how many you have.  I would say I have about 50.  Not a lot compared to some, and quite a few compared to others.  But, take a closer look and from those quilt books you just HAD to have when you saw them in the quilt shop, or online, how many quilts have you actually made using those patterns?

I tend to make the same quilts over and over again.  While this isn't such a terrible crime, I decided it was time to challenge myself to branch out and actually use the quilt books I purchased.  I'm always so tempted to buy the next quilt magazine, when I'm not actually making any of the quilts in them.  Two years ago, I bought a HUGE stack of magazines from the local quilt show.  I would go through each bundle and pick out the magazines with quilts I liked.  And that was it.  The magazines went back into a bag and are now stored under my bed.

So, I picked out a quilt book that I've been staring at each time I quilt.  It is on the top of the stack of quilt books on my shelf and I bought it for the title, plus the quilts inside are cute and quick to make (or so the book claims).  I sat down the other night and made a post it note for each quilt.  There are 10 different ones in this book, and I listed how many fabrics were needed and how big to cut the strips.

Now to take things one step further and actually start cutting and sewing.  I'm going to put the book on my cutting table and challenge myself to make a different quilt every week.  In 2 1/2 months, I will have made each quilt in the book (there are 10 patterns) and then will move on to the next quilt book.  Hopefully I can keep this up as I work through my stacks of quilt books and actually use them to learn new skills and make new quilts.

Will you join me in this challenge?  Even if it isn't to make every quilt you have a pattern for (sometimes I do buy a book for just that one quilt pattern) I hope you will take a second look at all of the ideas and inspiration found in the pages of the books you own.