It's border time again! Wow, I just finished borders for the Quilty Fun sampler, and here I am working on MORE borders! These are for the "Mixing It Up" quilt that I've been making for the past few weeks.

mixing it up border and japanese magazines 002.JPG

These 5" blocks are called "beater blocks" and will form the second border surrounding the mixers and spatulas. Lori Holt's pattern says that the blocks are designed to look like "a beater twirling into the batter mixing up something yummy." I couldn't agree more. When I was a kid, licking the beaters was my favorite part. I probably liked the beaters even more than the finished cake! Mom always saved a beater for me, and she or my brother got the other one. I need 46 of these blocks... so that's a LOT of half square triangles that need to be sewn!

I spent some time this weekend at the Kinokuniya Japanese bookstore in NYC. I love that store! The street level has English language fiction and art books. The upper level has manga books and a cafe. But my favorite is the lower level, which has tons of Japanese magazines, cards and craft supplies. The level of detail in these magazines is beyond amazing. (Looking for a dozen different magazines on men's workboots? How about ten guides to garnishing your sushi?) This is where I go to find magazines like Cotton Time, Quilts Japan and Patchwork Tsushin.

The quilts shown in these magazines are more classic than what is currently popular in the US (no acid yellow and grey combos here, and most prints are smallish), with an almost obsessive focus on miniaturized blocks - Dresdens, hexagons, log cabins, granny squares and rail fences. There's so much cuteness - I want to make everything on the cover of this copy of Patchwork Tsushin! The store also has a very large section of Japanese books on embroidery, cross stitch and quilting.

I finally bought this Log Cabin book. I had been stalking it for the past few months, so it was just time to buy it! I love that cover quilt as well as many of the unique block settings shown inside. Look at that fun house border! The magazines and books are entirely in Japanese, but they're great for inspiration. Now maybe if I do one house block each month I can be finished in a few years.

I'm linking up today with Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times. Check out what other quilters are working on this week!