Craft Book Month Blog Hop

1. Mosaic Bags, 2. Summer, 3. Bear's Floor Pillow, 4. Patchwork Case for Scribble & Write, 5. Plain & Fancy Mini Quilt, 6. Kid's Travel Bags, 7. Rosette Clutch, 8. Frame Purse, 9. Storytelling Pillow

My name is Heidi, and I'm thrilled to be one of the bloggers participating in the Craft Book Month Blog Hop for Craft Buds. To those of you visiting for the first time, welcome! This is my happy little corner of the blogging world where I get to share my love of sewing and the adventures of raising three little girls in our Southern California home. If you come by here often, you'll see projects like the ones in the mosaic above. Please feel free to drop in any time!

I can't ever remember a time in my life when I wasn't crazy about books. I grew up reading just about anything I could get my hands on: Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Boxcar Kids, historical biographies, the Chronicles of Narnia, everything that Beverly Cleary ever wrote. Honestly, things haven't changed much now that I'm an adult. Almost every room in our house has one or more bookshelves that are packed to brim with books of every genre, and over the past few years I've been adding as many sewing books to those shelves as I can. While there's a boatload of information available online, I just can't get away from the joy of holding a book in my two hands.

The craft book that I chose to feature here is hot off the press: A Month of Sundays by Cheryl Arkison, who also happens to be the coauthor of Sunday Morning Quilts with Amanda Jean Nyberg. This refreshing book takes a unique look at sewing and how it fits into the rest of your life, particularly during everyday moments with family and friends. You'll find lots of great sewing projects in here, but you'll also discover tasty recipes, games to play with your kids, and tips for getting the most out of weekend shopping excursions. Each of the projects in this book also features low volume fabrics -- a very popular choice in the sewing world lately -- and Cheryl gives some wonderful ideas on how to select just the right prints for your chosen pattern.

It was a tough choice, but in the end, I had to sew Cheryl's Crossword quilt. My mother loves to do crossword puzzles, word finds, and other brain teaser activities in her free time, and this quilt couldn't be more perfect for her.

Since I was making a lap size quilt rather than a full size version, I changed the look of my puzzle from the one in the book, but the concept is the same. Instead of going with the grayscale prints in the original design, I decided to use colorful fabrics by Bonnie & Camille for the crossword squares -- choosing prints with both colors included any time two "words" intersected -- and low volume prints for all of the background squares in mostly black, white, and cream.

For the back of the quilt, I pieced together large sections of colorful but simple prints from my stash. The quilt is bound in Blossom Festival from Tsuru by Rashida Coleman-Hale. This navy print puts the perfect frame around the piece, bringing all the colors together beautifully.

I absolutely love the effect of this quilt. It's scrappy and comfortable and full of fun little details -- everything a quilt should be. Since I placed this quilt in my mother's arms, it's hardly left her lap for a moment. And isn't that exactly the future we want for all of our hand sewn gifts?

September is going to be full of crafty goodness at Craft Buds. Take a look at all these amazing bloggers who plan to share their favorite books with you:

Week One
Monday 9/2: Fabric Mutt / LRstitched
Tuesday 9/3: Stitch This! The Martingale Blog / Stitched in Color
Wednesday 9/4: Fabric Seeds / Pile O Fabric
Thursday 9/5: The Feisty Redhead / Rae Gun Ramblings
Friday 9/6: Sew-Fantastic / Clover & Violet
Saturday 9/7: A Prairie Sunrise / Small Town Stitcher
Week Two
Monday 9/9: Hopeful Threads / Go To Sew
Tuesday 9/10: The Sewing Rabbit / Sewing Mama RaeAnna
Wednesday 9/11: Marci Girl Designs / imagine gnats
Thursday 9/12: Sew Sweetness / amylouwhosews
Friday 9/13: Lindsay Sews / 13 Spools
Saturday 9/14: Inspire Me Grey / Angela Yosten
Week Three
Monday 9/16: Sew Very / Craftside
Tuesday 9/17: The Littlest Thistle / CraftFoxes

And if you've finished a project from a craft book in 2013, you'll have a chance to link up your masterpiece too. Check out this post at Craft Buds for all the details, and be sure to visit Lindsey at LRstitched who's also sharing a project today!

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit. Happy sewing!