Get Your Colour Game on with Prismatic!

I’m catching up on new pattern blog posts – so let’s talk about one of our newest patterns – Prismatic!.  Boldly go where no colour has gone before!  – It’s  a terrific pattern for batiks, prints or solids! And good news, it may look complicated, but it’s not.

Prismatic! is a fun, easy to piece quilt.   All the blocks are pieced exactly in the same fashion..the only difference is how the fabrics are combined and in what order they appear in each block.  Luckily, we gave you a handy reference chart in the pattern, and if you follow that and a few additional tips below – you’ll be on your way to creating this gorgeous quilt.  Click here to purchase the pattern in either a paper pattern or PDF download pattern.

This new pattern from Colourwerx was designed by Carl on a whim….he was playing around in EQ7 designing quilt block patterns while watching TV one night and happened to switch the channel over to CBS…the logo appeared….this was the result —- see the similarity? Kinda like a cat’s eye, right….    Sometimes it takes just a little inspiration to light a creative fire; and yes, that old saying that ‘inspiration is everywhere’ is absolutely true.

Since the quilt is entirely pieced (and not foundation or paper pieced as many think), a good 1/4″ seam is imperative,  so you’ll need to whip out that 1/4″ patchwork presser foot for your sewing machine.  Mine is the #97 for my Bernina 750QE – it comes with this handy metal guide that keeps my 1/4″ seams perfect and I love it!

Fabric selection for Prismatic! is super easy too – you just need twelve coordinating fabrics plus three neutrals for the backgrounds.  The pattern includes two sizes: a Large Lap with a 6″ finished block – and measures 72″ x 84″ – which uses just twelve half yards; and a Small Lap Size with a 4″ finished block  – and measures 48″ x 56″ – which uses just twelve fat quarters. Refer to the Material List at your right  for further information on yardage requirements.

So if you’ve been lusting after half yard bundles or fat quarter bundles this may be the perfect pattern!  I selected to use one of our personally curated bundles of gorgeous batik fabrics from Island Batiks.  This is now available for purchase in Fat Quarter or Half Yard bundles in our Colourwerx shop – click here for more information.

It of course follows colour wheel order (….and I always love a good colour wheel order quilt…), but the depth of saturation and gorgeous texture of the Island Batik Basics really call out to me.  This colour palette may also look familiar to you as I chose this exact same bundle to use for the Big Kahuna version of my ModTiki quilt – this pattern is also available on on our Colourwerx website here.  For the background fabrics, I used my favorite Island Batik neutrals in the colors of Smoke (dark gray), Tin (light gray) and White. Once your fabrics are selected, creating a fabric color key is paramount – just snip a 1″ square from each fabric, staple the fabric squares to a piece of paper and label them accordingly.  This key will aid you continually in keeping your fabrics coordinated and in the order needed to make the pattern work.

Cutting your fabrics is also pretty easy too – using the pattern templates provided and following the cutting chart provided in the pattern,  each fabric has exactly the same quantity of shapes cut – it’s just a matter of cutting the correct template shape from each fabric.   Once the fabrics are cut, the most challenging part is to separate and combine the the fabric shapes into the different block combinations, following the color coded block combination chart provided in the pattern.    There are thirty three different block combinations, so getting the right shape in right color in the correct combination is important – check and double check!.

Once my block combos were separated, I placed each of them into ziplock bag and labelled how many blocks I needed to make for that combo –  all I needed to do was select a bag and sew the units together in that bag.    Eazy peazy, right?

Once all thirty three combinations were completed, I laid out the blocks on my design  board and began to sew the blocks together. I then quilted it on my APQS Lucey longarm with an all over pantograph pattern.  Voila!!

This pattern is so versatile and as mentioned above, choosing twelve coordinating fabrics will always create beautiful results…Here are a few other versions of Prismatic!

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Prismatic! is a super fun quilt  – so dive in and step up your colour game!    Thanks for your support and happy holidays!  Until your next colour fix~Linda & Carl

 

 

 

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The ModTiki – and why not?

Does any one recall Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room?  I do!   It was quite simply a most magical experience and is still a Disney classic to this day.    Located in Adventureland, it debuted in 1963, and entertains its guests with a colorful cast of animated talking toucans, birds, tropical flowers, tiki drummers and best of all, talking tiki totem poles – all singing a variety of catchy Polynesian tunes.  It is just fabulous!

So when we moved back to Southern California and decided to finally settle in Palm Springs, little did we know that we were moving into a mecca of what might be termed upscale, but rather touristy Polynesian playlands.   Around every corner in Palm Springs and the surrounding communities, you’ll find tiki themed hotels and cocktail lounges, serving exotic rum-laced cocktails from their own enchanted tiki rooms adorned with of course, Tiki statues.

Within a few months of moving here, I was quickly becoming Tiki obsessed. One morning to Carl’s chagrin, we even ventured out in triple digit temps to take photos of our Cosmos quilt draped over a favorite Tiki.  This guy greets visitors daily at the  entrance to the famed Club Trinidad and Purple Room (where Frank, Dean and Sammy used to hang out in the 60’s).    I just love the way the Tiki and the quilt  become one piece  – elevating both to new level of art.

So it was only a matter of time that I ‘needed’ to design a ModTiki – and hey, why not?  I started sketching this guy out about 12 months ago but didn’t really make him a reality until a few weeks ago when I made the samples and wrote the pattern.

Warning — These ModTikis are fun and can be quite addictive….I had a great time looking through scraps of batiks and fabrics testing out which fabric prints might look great as the tiki body  – like these two made from Island Batiks or the Kaffe Fassett Artisan Collection…

….or this one made with Banyan Batiks, which would reflect more of  traditional hand carved look to the ModTiki…

As always, my preferred method of applique stitching the shapes was on on my trusty Bernina 750QE sewing machine, using Stitch #2 and an open toe applique foot (#20 for Bernina lovers) using Aurifil 50 wt thread in the top and in the bobbin. My preferred zigzag setting is stitch length 0.5 and stitch width 3.0 – for me, this creates a nice tight stitch that resembles a satin stitch without being too tight,  and nicely outlines the shapes without overwhelming them.

What’s terrific too is that the shapes on the ModTiki provide many opportunities where you can “stitch into and out of the points”  – this is a fabulous look and really adds a “high end” look to your applique stitching.

When you approach the point of an applique shape, as you are stitching,  reduce your stitch width so the zigzag stitch becomes smaller and smaller – this is stitching ‘into the point’, if you will  – then after turning the corner, enlarge your stitch width to stitch ‘out of the point’.   It’s a little like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time and takes practice, but once you get the hang of it, it really does create a fabulous touch to your appliqués.

The ModTiki pattern includes both the small wallhanging size – which is fat quarter friendly and measures 11″ x 22 (or 16″x 22″ when adding the optional flower appliqués), but also the Kon Tiki larger size – measuring 44″ x 66″ – 12 half yards is all you need for this bigger version and that includes the background fabric and all the fabrics for the 12 Tikis.

I’m finding that almost any fabric can make a great Tiki!  Solids, batiks, florals, geometrics, you name it!

So are you feeling a little ModTiki?  Then go ahead and give our happy little guy a try!  It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and makes an excellent gift for that guy in your life!  You can purchase the pattern on our website here.

Mahalo and Aloha! Until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl

 

 

 

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Mystic Gold

Fall Quilt Market is quickly approaching and guess what? – we are finally catching up with this blog post about quilts we designed for the Spring Quilt Market in St. Louis!  Oh my – how time does fly!

Fabric designer and artist, Anna Marie Horner, debuted her gorgeous new fabric collection called “Floral Retrospective” at the Spring Quilt Market – which is now out in stores  – and we were fortunate enough to be asked by Free Spirit Fabrics to design a quilt for their booth using her new fabrics.   Introducing Mystic Gold!

When Carl designed this pattern in EQ7 (Electric Quilt 7 software), he wanted to accentuate the rings moving outward from center (as if a pebble had been dropped in a calm pool of water) and give the quilt that almost mystical  “vibrating” or “zingey” look (think of hitting a gong) – hence the pointed tips around each curve.

And what looks to be complicated curved piecing –  really isn’t!  Here’s how we did it:

1.   A simple half squared triangle block is created first;
2. ….then we added the corner triangles;
3. …then we created the petal applique by sewing the lightest weight fusible interfacing right sides together with the fabric petal, slitting the center and turning the unit right side out;
4. …lastly, we fused the petal to the center seam line, topstitched the edges  and voila! – it looks like some serious curved piecing occurred when in fact, it was super easy!

Topstitching was super simple using my #10 Edgestitch Presser Foot (a must for this type of job!) and a matching 40wt Aurifil thread. Perfect every time!  If you’ve ever made an orange peel block, then this is very similar if not the same method indeed!

 

Teresa, from Quilting at my Bliss, did some awesome custom machine quilting.  The free motion feathers across each petal were to die for and her custom quilting in between was equally gorgeous. (click on the pictures to enlarge).

By the way, Teresa has a new book launching in October, called the “Longarm Quilting Workbook”.  It’s filled with great tips on basic skills, techniques and motifs to help get you started  longarm quilting – so if you’ve just purchased a longarm or are considering buying one – this would be a great book to consider adding to your reference library.  And of course, if you’re just looking for some new and fun ideas on how to quilt something – there’s lots and lots and lots of eye candy!  Of course, you can buy directly from Teresa and have her autograph it too!

All in all, this one was super fun quilt to design and create,  and we were so honored that Free Spirit chose this one to hang in their booth at Spring Quilt Market.

If you like this design, it is now available as a free download on the their website – here’s the link!

Until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl

 

 

The “Tattooed” Mini Spikey & ModDog

Early February,  we had the honor of creating a mini version of our “Spikey” quilt for our friends over at Andover Fabrics using Canadian artist and fabric designer, Libs Elliott’s,  newest collection called “Tattooed”.  The quilts commissioned were to be hung in the Andover Booth at the QuiltCon East Convention that took place in Savannah, GA.  We were beyond excited and thrilled to meet the challenge.

“Tattooed” fabric is just starting to hit your local quilt shops, and if you haven’t seen it yet – go check it out….It is a gorgeous collection of richly saturated jewel toned prints and makes the most perfect rainbow quilt or added to your stash is a great basic. You can also check out more of Libs Elliott’s quilts and her designs at her website …..her work is really innovative and fabulous as she uses computer code to create her designs.

Back to the mini “Spikey” – first I needed to arrange the “Tattooed” fabrics in my preferred color order.  Additionally, because we had a size requirement, I needed to reduce the Spikey triangle template to 3″ in length (instead of the original 8″ length).  These were going to be some tiny triangles!  The background and borders were cut from Andover fabrics Chambray collection – this is a beautiful woven fabric that creates texture, depth and movement to the background.  Love it and I absolutely need more now!

I then began the task of sewing triangles together…With our Spikey pattern the key to matching the triangles up is to offset the 2 triangles by just about 1/8″ and sew a perfect (not scant) 1/4″ seam – before I set out to sew any “Spikey” quilt I always have to do several test runs until I get it just right and then I set that pair of triangles off to the side as my reference while sewing all of the others. (Click on the photos to enlarge).

Once done – the mini Spikey was ready for quilting…since I don’t consider myself the most expert machine quilter, I used a monfilament thread and simply quilted a 1/4″ away from all of the spikes and then quilted abritrary lines in and out through the outer borders….Sometimes simple is better….and Voila – done! (You can click on the photos below to enlarge 😉

So off it shipped to be placed in the Andover Fabric quilt gallery.  What a thrill to see our mini Spikey displayed with all of the other gorgeous quilts in the Andover Fabric booth at Quilt Con East….I love the eyeball pillow and the jewel quilt, don’t you? it was thrilling to see it displayed with all of the other gorgeous work.

While making the mini Spikey, we also toyed around with making an additional project from the “Tattooed” fabric  – a mini “ModDog! He, alas, did not make the cut….oh well…

But here are the results!   I first wonky slashed ‘n sewed some “Tattooed” strips together and cut out the dog body.  Then I textured the Chambray background with straight stitching lines using a collection of brightly colored 12 weight Aurifil threads – these are deliciously weighty threads and work perfectly through my Bernina sewing machine using a 90/14 size topstitch needle….no problem!  And I love the way the background looks!  Next, I appliqued around the dog with a 50 weight Aurifil thread, added a piece of gorgeous Renaissance Ribbon for a collar, and even fussy-cut  a “handmade tat”  from Libs’ previous collection “True Love” for his rear end – ha! I think he came out super cute and we’re plotting more of these in the future!

Many thanks to Giusseppe and Daryl at Andover Fabrics for the opportunity and to Libs Elliot for designing such a gorgeous collection.  And if you like our “Spikey quilt or “ModDog” pillow, you can purchase patterns for the larger versions from our Colourwerx website or a PDF download from our Colourwerx Craftsy site.

Until your next colour fix~
Linda & Carl