The New Phone Books Are Here!

Anyone who remembers the movie The Jerk starring Steve Martin will recognize this line when he worked himself into a frenzy that the new phone books had arrived. Now what, you may well ask, does this have to do with quilting? Well, for several months I've been seeing these great variations on scrappy strip quilts in blogland that use pages from phone books to cut the foundation onto which you sew. And having QUADD (quilter attention deficit disorder) I've been dying to try it out.

Well, the new Yellow Pages arrived a few weeks back and it didn't take long for me to take the old edition and start ripping pages from it. There are several tutorials around but the one that struck my fancy I found on Amanda Jean's Crazy Mom Quilts blog. She's got a great step-by-step description of the process that turned into a spectacular pillow cover, so I won't repeat it, but suffice it to say that using her instructions and a pile of Christmas print strips I was able to turn this:

into this.

Unfinished edges of my triangles are 3" so they will be smaller than that when sewn together. I'm thinking that Christmas pillows might be great idea for next year's Holly Bazaar, but I also think that it would be amazing to have a Christmas quilt done out of hundreds of tiny triangles too (in what lifetime, you ask...). For that I think I'd use a more muted, sophisticated palette of fabrics - these colours are pretty clear/primary - but it does make a girl think...

Speaking of unfinished, I have a little unfinished business from the cookie bakeoff. I forgot to show you the beautiful copper snowflake cookie cutter that Jane brought for me - she is always showing up with great treats - and this yummy looking Mango Ginger Red Pepper Jelly. She knows the way to my heart. I have a few lovely copper snowflake cutters that I have collected over the years but they are larger than this so it will be fun to work this one into the rotation. Thanks again Jane!...M