I made this small quilt from my Folk Modern collection to send to Quilt Market this weekend. It’s a variation of a quilt from my upcoming book, 1, 2, 3 Quilt. Triangles! In the book I made the quilt with all solids, but this one has a crazy amount of pattern in it. I used five of the six prints from the collection in each of the three colorways (15 fabrics total), plus a chambray linen blend. Shops can order the collection from Seven Islands now or at Quilt Market and I think it will be shipping soon!
A couple of detail shots:
Here’s another sample that I sent to Quilt Market. A simple table runner. I was thinking of writing up a quick tutorial on this block if anyone is interested. Very easy and I think it would make a nice full-sized quilt.
Look! 1, 2, 3 Quilt is available for pre-order! The official release isn’t until September, but you can pre-order now or add it to your wish list. After working on this book for nearly two years, it’s hard to believe that it will actually be printed and done. I was lucky enough to work with the amazing people at Chronicle Books again on this project.
This book, like 1, 2, 3 Sew, has projects organized in groups of three allowing you to build on your skills with each set as you work through the book. In 1, 2, 3 Quilt, the chapters are organized by shapes — squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons, circles, flowers, stars and diamonds. As you create more complex shapes, the projects get a bit more challenging. So you’ll make a reversible checkerboard game mat, then eventually end up making a cathedral windows quilt.
I tried to cover all of the quilting techniques that I could pack into this book including flying geese made three ways, half-square triangles, needle-turn appliqué, freezer paper appliqué, foundation paper-piecing, English paper-piecing, plus much more. You’ll make projects like a Dresden flower quilt, clamshell pillow sham, and hand-pieced hexagon handbag. In this book, each chapter starts with a small project, then ends with a quilt. There are 8 quilts, 16 other patchwork and quilted projects, plus many more techniques that you can use as you continue your quilting journey. For instance, if you enjoy making the appliqué hand towel, you can take that skill and make a full-sized appliqué quilt later. You’ll also learn some basic sewing skills like how to install a zipper, make mitered corners, and create a stuffed animal. If you’re a beginner, the book begins with some simple projects to get you started. I really think there’s something for all skill levels here. I hope to show you more in the coming months.
But today I thought I’d show a bit of behind-the-scenes for the cover. For 1, 2, 3 Sew, I digitized and sewed the cover background design using my embroidery software and my embroidery machine. This time, I stitched the cover title and some other details by hand. In my Instagram photos below, you can see how I traced the title sent over by the book designer, and then stitched it. I then photographed the stitching and sent it to Chronicle, where they added the photos and additional text. I love the warmth and handmade feel it gives the cover and I’m thrilled with the way it came out in the end. On the final cover above, you can see a set of coasters from the circle chapter, a bag from the stars chapter and a quilt from the rectangles chapter.
I’m excited about this book and I hope you’ll love it!
I recently ordered a copy of Sarah Fielke’s new book, Hand Quilted with Love. Wow, I love these quilts. She has some simple quilts for beginners as well as more challenging quilts for experienced quilters. All of the quilts reflect Sarah’s unique color sensibility and of course, they are hand quilted beautifully. If that makes you tired to think about, you can make these patterns and machine quilt them! Here are some of her amazing quilts.
In the introduction, Sarah says:
Try new things, be adventurous, and crack your own quilting code. Don’t be hung up on whether something is right or wrong, or on whether you are a “modern quilter” or a “traditional quilter”, or even an “art quilter”: just be a QUILTER, be creative and love what you do. It’s what I do every day – and I can tell you, I’m a happy girl because of it.
I couldn’t agree more! The internet gives us so much inspiration, but sometimes I think we can get too caught up in what others are doing rather than being true to our own sense of style. All modern quilters borrow from the past to one degree or another and you don’t need to fit someone else’s definition of what a quilter should be.
Sarah has a very helpful free video over on Craftsy where she shows you some of her secrets for hand quilting. She also has a class over there called Big Techniques from Small Scraps, which looks like it is full of useful ideas. And for more inspiration, be sure to take a look at Sarah’s blog, The Last Piece.
The kaleidoscope quilt I’ve been working on for the past several months was finally finished in time for last night’s school auction. Each of the kids at the school (almost 400) dyed a square of fabric, which I cut up to make this quilt, paper-piecing each block. You can read about the dyeing process here. Of course it didn’t sell for as much as I’d hoped at the auction, but I’ve learned not to take that personally. Just wish that all my time could have resulted in more money for the school and I will definitely not break it down to figure out my hourly rate, because that would be too disheartening.
Here are my Instagram photos of the process, which I thought I’d share in case you don’t follow me over there. These days I really enjoy taking photos of the process and I’m trying to take a step back and enjoy the work more, rather than focusing on the end result. You can see that I sewed the blocks together with the paper backing still attached, then wanted to speed up the process of removing them so eventually the quilt top landed in the bathtub. They do make a dissolvable paper for foundation piecing, which I will definitely try next time on a smaller project. My walking foot was skipping stitches (tried everything including tension, replacing needles, cleaning machine, etc.), so I eventually had to get a new walking foot and an adapter so it would fit my older Babylock Ellageo machine.
If you’re interested in making this quilt using the foundation piecing method, I posted the templates that I created here.
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