1. The first obvious reason is the name!! Fat Quarterly is such a perfect crafty magazine name that somebody had to do it. And it can be shortened to FQ which sounds so upbeat and snazzy.

2. It's fresh, fun, and fabulous with it's simple layout and crisp white background that displays the colours of the photos so well. The graphics for the patterns are so clear and easy to understand.

3. I like that it's international affair with contributers drawing on their experiences in the UK, Australia, Germany and The States.

4. There's a Flickr group so we can upload our own photos of FQ inspired projects whereas with a paper magazine you send it away and may or may not get published. Leaving and receiving comments for each others photos is a really nice part of the Flickr experience.

5. The FQ blog is updated regularly with all sorts of interesting snippets ranging from super giveaways, book reviews, projects to interviews with crafters and designers. The posts are like little top up articles to keep us going till the next issue.

6. It's interactive- Readers are invited to say what they want the content to be. There's an Agony Aunt column where you can share a crafty dilemma or help someone else solve theirs. And the aforementioned Flickr Group.

7. Being an Ezine it's eco friendly to trees and it doesn't clutter up my shelves so I have more room for fabric.

8. I like knowing that I've been there from the first issue. I know they've only just released issue 2 but imagine being able to say in ten years that I was there at the beginning.

9. There's lots of projects aimed at all levels, something for everyone, using modern fabrics.

10. Last but not least I think Fat Quarterly is wonderful bacause they invited me to participate in their design challenge!

Yes that's right!!! I'm in this issue of Fat Quarterly!!!! Wahoooo!!!! Can you believe it!?!?

For those of you who don't know The Design Challenge is where a panel of quilters are given simple block and are then challenged to come up with their version of the block. This issue's challenge was The Pinwheel. This is what I came up with...

It looks like an normal, run of the mill pinwheel block...


Until you flap it's wings and it changes. Peek a boo!

I couldn't resist doing some wonky pinwheels too.

You'll have to wait till the next exciting post to see what I made with these blocks...

In the meantime you can get a copy of Fat Quarterly here.

Cheerio