Material girl

I have always been a material girl. Not in the Madonna sense, more in the cotton sense... I'm convinced that some fabrics actually talk to me: "Buy me!", " Take me home with you!" - so there's no wonder in the fact that my sewing room is bursting with fabric. Some of these sirens give me some real challenges, though - this lovely sunflower one with flowers up to 8 " across, for instance - it really deserves a setting to allow the flowers their place in the sun ;-). Enter a new book:
I have been a frequent visitor at the Material Obsession blog for a while and have admired what the two owners of this enticing Sydney quilt shop and their customers do with fabric. Often quirky, colourful and unexpected combinations of fabric and pattern, but never boring! Imagine my delight when I discovered that they had a new book coming out. I immediately preordered it from AmazonUK, and two days ago it finally arrived (thanks to my local post office where they apparently thought it a good idea to let the parcel rest on their shelves for a couple of weeks before notifying me of its arrival - but that's another story...). I came home late, and just allowed myself a brief glance through the pages before I went to bed. That brief glance was enough to make my head spin though - and I spent the night dreaming about lovely quilts. So much so that I actually had to get up at 5.30 to go get the book and take a proper look before I went to work. And I must say I love it! It all seems so fresh and new that I'm "itchin' to be stitchin' ". A lot of the patterns are trusty old standards, like courthouse steps, and pinapple blocks, but it is the way they have been used - the size of the blocks and the fabrics that have been used together that is so inspiring. The book is full of advise about how to make it work - what to look for in colour and contrast in each pattern. I tell you, I'm ready to toss away all my ongoing projects to start one or two or three of the ones from the book!
This one: "Retro Starburst" is the first one in line - I think this might just be the one for my sunflowers - big squares of sunflower fabric and courthouse step blocks. The advice is to look for fabrics that vary in value, light, dark and everything in between and a variety of colour.
This is my starting point - I will make a few blocks and see if I can make it work, and maybe add some more along the way - some more lights perhaps? I just have to give it a try, and any blocks that don't work in the quilt can easily be made into cushions - they are that big!

Oh, and I must add that I think the books would be great for the novice quilter too - it has a very good, and well illustrated, section about what equipment you need and how to go about all the different steps of creating a quilt.