Back at the Beach with new Quilt books

We arrived back to the Beach yesterday.  It's nice to go on a cruise, but it was nice to get back on land and get back to normal.  Even though there are no bathroom scales here at the beach condo, I'm going to do a serious bit of dieting to take off those newly gained cruise pounds..  I'm glad I have some quilt projects to work on as a distraction.

While I was away, I received 2 books that I ordered along with the extra fabric I needed to continue working on Mitchell's quilt.  Both of these books have been on my list for a while now, and after leafing through them briefly, they were both good purchases.

There are many great scrappy style quilts, but the reason I bought  Country Comforts by Cheryl Wall was this quilt called "Days and Nights of Wine and Roses".  This looks like a pretty easy quilt to make and it really appeals to me.  It's now on my to do list when I get home and back to my stash.

I really enjoy free-motion quilting, so the next book, Judy Woodworth's Freemotion Quilting, really looks inspirational to me and I can't wait to get started.   I brought stash to make place mats, so I won't have to wait until I get home to use some of Judy's suggestions and techniques. These two techniques are the first two that I'll try.  The first is creating a large central feathered motif, then filling in with multiple background motifs. 

The second of Judy's demonstrations that I will try is using background quilting to highlight a non quilted section.  I like this example of using letters.   I'll have to think about a specific word to use on my place mat...  Do you have a suggestion? The place mats for use at our guilds quilt show in late April and the theme is Spring.