Let’s Talk Moody….

This week, we are so proud and excited to announce that one of our quilt designs and the pattern, “Moody” is featured in the new issue of July/August Modern Patchwork magazine. It’s always a thrill to see yourself and a quilt you’ve designed in print!  This issue is just hitting newsstands and is available for purchase here.

I also think it’s always interesting to hear about a ‘pattern’s history” – some patterns work right away and some like this one need to wait for the right fabrics to come along to make it “sing” (our term for when the design and fabrics work splendidly together – when they do, the quilt begins to “sing”…..tra-la-la-la)

This particular pattern was designed several months ago by Carl using the quilt software EQ7 (or Electric Quilt version 7).  It’s original design was in a hot, modern palette and all the blocks were intended to be appliqued over the super large 4-patch background. It’s also been a test quilt to audition other fabrics with large scale florals, etc… but the colors or combinations never quite “sang”.

At least not until Tula came along….

Last year, Tula Pink released her version of modern solids to coordinate perfectly with her other Tula Pink fabric collections, available from Free Spirit Fabrics.   I love the range and depth of her solids collection…it’s certainly not a traditional color wheel rainbow of solids, but imho, there’s just something a little more sophisticated, classy  and different with these colors….And of course, different means it’s a challenge and I like that!   These solids are now a stable at Free Spirit Fabrics and readily available at your local quilt shops and online.

So when we eyed  Tula’s solid collection, we immediately thought that our “Moody” quilt that had been waiting in the wings, had finally found a partner – yup -you guessed it – they made beautiful music and the quilt sang!


We submitted the design to Modern Patchwork magazine and they accepted it!  However, before we submitted it,  we made one major change to the construction – it’s all pieced.  We thought the pieced construction would 1) definitely be more challenging for the sewist and 2) evoked more of a modern feel to the overall quilt….

Figuring, checking and double checking the pieced dimensions and arithmetic was a bit of challenge, but after a few test blocks all was great! The quilt construction really goes together quite quickly!

Once the quilt top was complete using Aurifil 5o weight thread (of course) – our good buddy, Teresa at Quilting is my Bliss did an amazing job machine quilting with the grecian keys design.  All in all, I think the quilt came out gorgeous and definitely evokes an air of sophistication and of course ‘moodiness’ as the colored blocks seems to change  personality when they cross the dark and light backgrounds.

The pattern is indeed available in the current issue of Modern Patchwork now on sale.  And kudos to the editors as well – if you like the Tula Pink solids I used and want to duplicate it exactly color for color,  you’ll find the exact fabrics called out by color name on the materials list in the magazine – a nice added touch by the editors – :-  Thank you Modern Patchwork….

Until your next colour fix~  Linda & Carl