Grab yourself a cup of coffee and browse this week’s gorgeous Scrappy Again Quilts. Thanks to everyone that has entered and shared their beautiful creations with all of us. One lucky quilter will win a $30 gift certificate to use at Around the Block Quilter’s Shop.

Special offer from this week’s sponsor: Prices are “Fall”ing at Around the Block Quilters Shop! Everything Fall is on sale 30% off through Sunday October 17th. You can find the wonderful Autumn collections – Awesome, Essence, and Gobble Gobble by designer Sandy Gervais -and Saltbox Harvest and Harvest Bouquet by Deb Strain, as well as Maple Leaf Hill by Maywood Studios. Visit Around the Block Quilter’s Shop today!

Now it’s time for you to vote for your favourite Scrappy Again Quilt!!

• Voting is open Friday – Sunday @ 11:59 p.m.
• One vote per IP address (NOT email address), so have your family and friends cast a ballot for their favourite quilt (from home if you send it to coworkers)
• Winner announced Monday!

How to Vote:

• Review the photos and stories below… there are lots, so you’ll need to scroll down to see them all.
• Underneath the photos, you’ll see the names of all the quilts with a circular button** beside each one. Select the button for the quilt you want to vote for.
• Then scroll down, all the way, until you get to the bottom of the names of quilts. Then press the vote button.

** Note: If you don’t see the circular buttons to vote, but instead see the voting results, that means someone on your IP Address already voted or that the voting period has ended. Shared IP Addresses are very common in home or work networks.

 Loading ...

Next week’s theme is Paper Pieced Quilts. Get your cameras out! Submit your quilt here.

Facebook, email subscribers and RSS readers: You need to visit the Quilting Gallery blog to vote: CLICK HERE

Planning for 2011

There are only 10 weekly contests left for 2010 I hope you’ve enjoyed these contests as much as I have. It has been truly inspirational to see so many fabulous quilts from all around the world. So far, there have been 644 quilts entered and 16,700 votes. Wow!

Now it’s time for me to start planning the themes for 2011 and I’d love to hear your suggestions. Some themes will be repeated, but I’m open to new ideas too. Here’s the list of 2010 themes. Please share your theme ideas as a comment below or send me an email.

Quilter’s Cookbook – Holiday Traditions

I had so much fun organizing the first edition of the Quilter’s Cookbook last year, that now it’s time for the second Quilter’s Cookbook with recipes from quilters around the world. The theme for this edition is Holiday Traditions.

Everyone is welcome to submit a recipe, a photo of their favourite quilt and a story for inclusion in the Cookbook. Click here for all the details!

Please join me in welcoming today’s guest blogger Munaiba Khan.

Perfection. It is the bane of many people’s lives. It prevented me from doing something I loved to do for almost 35 years. How silly is that? One day I had the proverbial “ah ha moment” when I realized there is one thing sadder than not doing something perfectly. That is, not doing it at all, even though you love to do it, just because you can’t do it perfectly.

Once I realized this I started quilting. That was only two years ago. In fact I finished my first hand-pieced and hand-quilted lap quilt in October 2008.

I love to sew by hand. I find it therapeutic, meditative and rewarding. The quilts I make are not perfect but I enjoy making them and other people like them too. I’m not looking for ribbons to validate my quilts. I just want to try to make something I think is beautiful.

One day while blog surfing I came across Rossie’s blog and a link to a talk she gave which I watched. She spoke about the concept of Wabi Sabi and the beauty of the imperfect and I just knew that this was the way for me. I wrote about this in my blog post – A confluence of inspirations – if you’re interested.

Wabi Sabi is a Japanese term for the aesthetic of the “impermanent, imperfect and incomplete”. I used this inspiration to make a quilted meditation mat and meditation stool cover which you can see here:

It’s made from recycled linen, is simple and, I think, elegant and useful and I believe it embodies the Wabi Sabi concept. It certainly isn’t “Perfect”.

I invested in some books on Wabi Sabi and in Diane Durston’s – Wabi Sabi – The art of everyday life. I found the quote you can see below which I think just about sums it up.

People throw away what they could have by insisting on perfection, which they cannot have, and looking for it where they will never find it. – Edith Schaeffer

So forget the “p” word. If you love something do it anyway. And you know what? The more you do it the better you will get and you can’t ask for more than that.

Happy quilting.
Munaiba Khan

Want to be a guest blogger? (scroll to the bottom). I’m now booking November’s guests.

Congratulations to the two winners of Vanessa’s E-Patterns from last week’s guest blogger post. It was so much fun to read the stories of your first quilts. Such wonderful memories.

The winners are …

#42 Cecilia Young says:

My first quilt was a quilt I made for my first grandchild 2 years ago. I made it completely by hand and it turned out great. I used the original Winnie the Pooh fabric and designed it myself. It took me about 3 months to make. I have since learned how to machine quilt, but I still enjoy hand quilting. Thanks for the giveaway.

#29 Danette Gabaldon says:

My first quilt was made for my niece, about 8 years ago using vintage fabric from my mother and grandmothers fabric, which I found looking through an old shed! What a find! So now my niece has a little bit of family on the wall cause my sister was not gonna let her drag it around the house!! It was just a basic quilt, using 8 inch blocks, which made it easy to sew!! I did have a few OOps, which were with the trim, but it all worked out ok and my sister loves it!!

Another Give-Away

There are just a couple of days left to enter the Fall into Fall Quilters Blog Give-Away. I’m giving away a fat quarter bundle of hand-dyed fabrics and a copy of the latest issue of The Quilt Life magazine with Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson. Click here to enter the give-away.