We’re kicking off 2010 with a  new column, Addicted to Scraps, by one of my favorite scrap quilters, Bonnie Hunter. Bonnie sent me a funny screen capture recently after her son posted about his “famous” quilting mom on Facebook:

Have you seen French General’s fabric line Rouenneries for Moda? It got a lot of buzz at Spring Market ‘09 and now it’s showing up in quilts and stores. Carolyn Beam, QM’s Creative Editor, designed a fantastic pair of quilts with a twin size and bonus doll quilt. (QM Kits of Duette will be available in early December.)

Our 11th pattern designed with Project Linus in mind will be flying high in this issue with Kite ‘n Kaboodle, designed by me with fabric from P&B Textiles.

Leave a comment and tell me what quiltmaking skill you’re looking forward to improving in 2010 by 3 pm MST on Tuesday and I’ll give away this color option + binding fabric from Courtyard made from Maywood Studio fabric in Quiltmaker’s Favorites, Spring ‘09 issue.

And the winner is #24, Sarah Vee! Congratulations!

So the giveaway is over, but we’re finding these answers fascinating as we plan content for 2010. I’d love to see more answers–who knows you may influence what goes into Quiltmaker next year!

1. Share the projects you make using a block from 100 Blocks at www.flickr.com/groups/100blocks2009/
2. Share your Christmas Lights Mystery quilts (or tops) at www.flickr.com/groups/christmaslightsmysteryquilt/ (Christmas Lights is a 3-part mystery series from Bonnie Hunter in Quiltmaker’s July/August ‘09, September/October ‘09 and November/December ‘09 issues.)

I don’t know what yet, but I’ll give a prize to someone (randomly selected) who posts a Christmas Lights photo by 2 pm MST on  Friday, November 13 (it could be your lucky Friday the 13th)! I’ll do flickr prizes for 100 blocks when more people have had a chance to get the magazine.

Claudianne is the winner of 100 Blocks and some scrumptious batiks from Hoffman for posting her Christmas Lights Mystery quilt in our flickr group. Congratulations!

(Updated to answer Bingo Bonnie–post tops or quilts in the Christmas Lights Mystery flickr group–if  you’ve got your blocks sewn together, you’re much further along than me!)

The problem was that I couldn’t remember what they were for. A mystery quilt seemed to ring a bell, so after poking around the web, I decided maybe they’d been intended for a Bonnie Hunter mystery, probably the first one, called Orange Crush. I’m not sure why I would have completed Step 2, when it seems I didn’t complete any of the other steps. I guess that’s part of the mystery.

So I looked through Bonnie’s steps and decided on a color scheme of sorts and started sewing. I made these:

And I made these:

I wanted to incorporate these yummy poison greens:

The blocks started coming together. There are two sets of blocks. One set looks like this on point:

Up to now, I’ve been happy. I love the way the indigo blues play with the poison greens, and I love the accent of bubblegum pink.

The other set of blocks looks like this on point:

I don’t like these quite as much, but I have high hopes for putting them all together. Except that when I put them together, I didn’t like the effect at all!

So what would happen if I set the blue/green blocks straight?

Or what would happen if I set the yellow blocks straight?

At this point I’m letting it all percolate. I’m not sure they’re exciting enough when separated, but I don’t like them all together either. So in a fit of creative rebellion, I put them all aside and made these funky doodads.

They’re cut freehand and they’re weird but I think they have potential. Or maybe they’ll become part of a guild program called “Miserable Failures.” I’ll keep you posted on both fronts. If you have suggestions for any of these projects, I’d love to hear them.

So the five winners of Scraps & Shirttails are:

92: Ginny Worden

136: Heather

176: Maureen S

119: Robyn

72: Marian Sayers

Congratulations! You should have an email from me asking for your mailing address.

Don’t forget our Bonnie Hunter Special on sale now. You get 4 issues that feature Bonnie’s articles and patterns, including July/August ‘09 to start the Mystery series all for $10.99.

New: Are you making Christmas Lights? Copy the button below to add to your website or blog and link back to quiltmaker.com!

Let me tell you a little bit about Bonnie. She’s a prolific quilter, a lot of fun and she makes great scrap quilts. She has a workable system for using her scraps (Scrap User’s System in Jan/Feb ‘09) and for making one quilt while she’s working on another (Leaders and Enders in Jan/Feb ‘08). If you ever have the chance to hear Bonnie speak, go! When I heard her speak, I sat there thinking “I can do this–I should do this–It’d be so simple to set up a system like hers.” She’s inspiring.

I’m so glad that we’ve been able to introduce Bonnie to QM readers and, in our July/Aug ‘09 issue we’re starting a mystery quilt designed exclusively for us. It’s called Christmas Lights and part 1 is now available in the magazine.

Special Offer: If you’ve missed any of the previous Quiltmaker issues that feature Bonnie’s articles and patterns, we’ve got a Bonnie Hunter Special on sale now. You get 4 issues that feature Bonnie’s articles and patterns, including July/August ‘09 to start the Mystery series all for $10.99.

Book Review + Giveaway: Bonnie is also the author of a book called Scraps & Shirttails: Reuse, Re-Purpose, Recycle! The Art of Quilting Green, published by Kansas City Star Books. This book is filled with Bonnie’s ideas to recycle everything from stash fabric to thrift store finds. Bonnie will help you tame your scraps and turn them into quilts, and the book has 12 fun patterns as well. Leave a comment mentioning your favorite quilt-related blog  by 12 noon Mountain time on Friday, June 19 and I’ll select 5 different people to win a copy of Bonnie’s book!

I can’t stop making these lovely little blocks I call Windmills.

I started piecing them as “leaders and enders.” I first heard about leaders and enders through Bonnie Hunter at quiltville.com—it’s done while you’re chain piecing, but instead of feeding a useless scrap through the machine, you feed real patches through as “leaders” and “enders” to your chain. It’s like piecing for free, and eventually you end up with enough blocks to make something wonderful.

(Here the block is laying on a piece of pale green fabric.)

This is a super simple little block with small-ish patches. The patches are all cut 1.5″ by 2.5″. For one block, you need four patches from one fabric and four from another fabric, preferably with some contrast.

The only trouble was that I got so excited about these, I couldn’t keep myself from just making a whole bunch of them. They were like M&Ms. I could not stop! Then I started playing with them in different layouts. More trouble: possibilities galore.

To make a long story short, my pile of blocks has grown dramatically.

So far I’ve pulled out some green and blue blocks and made this baby quilt:

I quilted it with a new-to-me technique called “Just Leaf It” from Kim Stotsenberg. Kim has written a book by the same title, which I highly recommend.

You can read more about Kim’s technique in the Nov/Dec ‘08 issue of Quiltmaker.

The back of the baby quilt with "Just Leaf It" quilting

This technique was amazingly easy and so very forgiving. I will definitely be using Just Leaf It on many more quilts.

Here are blocks I made last night, up on my design wall:

It’s saying “baby girl quilt” to me. I can hardly wait to get back at it.