Mindful Quilting

I first spotted Elli Beaven's Quilting ~ 20 Mindful Makes to Reconnect Head, Heart & Hands while browsing around the thrift sites. While I prefer to buy reading for pleasure books used, I buy sewing and quilting books new to show support for other textile artists. No one ever gets rich writing these, honestly, and I admire the authors for teaching others what they do.

The book is compact and well-written, and the projects are largely small and practical, like this cushion. There are some quilts, one of which I'm seriously tempted to make, but none that I think are too hard for a confident sewist.

The author talks about mindfulness in quilting, and encourages the reader to repurpose fabrics, collect and reuse textile waste, and try their own variations and ideas with the projects, all of which I love. Elli also gives a nice crash course in the basic techniques of quilting (including hand stitching) before getting into the projects.

I'm going to try a few of the smaller projects once my hands are in better shape (and maybe that quilt, too.) I think Elli Beaven is the perfect guide if you want to embrace mindfulness, slow stitch and enjoy more the journey of quilting.

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Love Means This

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Other Stashes

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Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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