Barbara Brackman's Block Base Now Available

I wanted to share with quiltmakers who may not have gotten the word, that Barbara Brackman's Blockbase is once again available.

Even better, right now Electric Quilt is shipping for free.  (Free shipping ends August 20, 2012.) You can order it here: http://www.electricquilt.com/Shop/BlockBase/BlockBase.asp

Here's my original copy of her Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns.

 The pages came punched with three holes but loose.

 The right side page had little handmade drawings of the blocks while the left side listed names and printed sources of the blocks.  (Obviously, some blocks had even more names, but Barbara was documenting only printed sources.)

I'm excited because when it was available in the past, I was not able to place an order.   Over 25 years ago, my Tennessee quilt guild, the Cherokee Blossom Quilt Guild in Cleveland, TN was able to bring her to town.  The information she shared has served me well for over a quarter of a century--and she continues to learn more and to share more.

In the quiltmaking classes I taught for a chain of fabric stores (at a time when there were only a handful of quilt shops in the entire state), class participants learned to draft all categories of blocks in a twelve inch size.  (How often do I make 12 inch blocks now?....Not very often!)..Not that it matters, since the drafting skills they learned can be used to draft any size block.

I love this encyclopedia, but it lacks some of the functionality that eases our lives in the computer age.
Barbara shares some of the advantages of Blockbase in this post on one of her blogs.

Want to know the really cool part?...With all its increased functionality, the computer program sells for about the same price as the encyclopedia did back in the '80s!  In fact, with the offer of free shipping by Electric Quilt, you can purchase it for less than the cost with shipping over 25 years ago!  What a deal!

Happy quiltmaking....


P.S.:  If you came here looking for my tutorial about how to quilt on a treadle, you can find it here. Readers have left some lovely comments; I'm glad to know that even some people without treadles have picked up some helpful information from the tutorial!